“Visualize Whirled Peas” (“Visualize Word Peace” pun)

“Visualize World Peace” was a popular bumper sticker saying, prompting the pun “Visualize Whirled Peas” bumper sticker (often with “Stop the Violins” printed above or below, or on the reverse side of a T-shirt). “Visualize World Peace” bumper stickers have been cited in print since at least August 16, 1987, at the same time as the Harmonic Convergence (called the world’s first globally synchronized meditation).
 
“Visualize Whirled Peas” bumper stickers were said to be “locally famous” by a Santa Fe (NM) newspaper on July 26, 1992. The Austin (TX) surf music band called “Whirled Peas” formed in the summer of 1992 and printed “Visualize Whirled Peas” bumper stickers, but it’s probable that the New Mexico stickers were first.
 
 
Wikipedia: Whirled Peas
Whirled Peas is a surf music band formed in 1992, in Austin, Texas. They took their name from a bumper sticker reading “Visualize World Peace”, which they twisted into “Visualize Whirled Peas”. This led to bumper stickers with this phrase on it instead. The band released two albums in the mid 1990s, and played the Austin, TX music scene before breaking up in 1996.
 
16 August 1987, Lexington (KY) Herald Leader, “Divergent beliefs converge for peace,” pg. B1:
There were Harmonic Convergence T-shirts for sale for $10 and “Visualize World Peace” bumper stickers for $1.
 
28 December 1987, The New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM), pg. A9, cols. 4-5:
The worldwide event is coordinated at noon Greenwich Mean Time when millions of people from 125 countries will pray for, meditate on and visualize world peace.
(The second annual World Day of Healing—ed.)
 
27 November 1988, Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI), “Move over Aquarius, a New Age is dawning” by Kris Kodrich,
Downstairs, vendors sell crystal balls, powdered signs, “Visualize World Peace” bumper stickers, karma cards, Egyptian headdresses, hand-painted shirts and books titled “Exploring Atlantis” and “Medicine Wheel.”
   
26 July 1992, The New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM), pg. E2, col. 2:   
Snappy slogans abound, from the locally famous “Visualize whirled peas” to ...
 
18 May 1993, The New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM), Letters, pg. A5, col. 4:
The slogan “visualize whirled peas” is much more realistic than “visualize world peace”—which will never exist.
U.S. James
Santa Fe
 
14 September 1993, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, AZ):
We laugh a little too hard at the “Visualize Whirled Peas” bumper stickers and dismiss the “Visualize World Peace” folks as mildly eccentric.
 
23 November 1994, Mountain Democrat (Placerville, CA), Mike Drummond weekly column, pg. A6, col. 2:
My current favorite is a take-off on a popular Green bumper sticker: “Visualize Whirled Peas.”
 
Google Books
The Literacy Dictionary:
The vocabulary of reading and writing
By Theodore Lester Harris and Richard E. Hodges
Newark, DE: International Reading Association
1995
Pg. 197:
pun n. 1. the deliberate and humorous use of a word or phrase to suggest a difference in meaning or use, as the substitution of the slogan visualize whirled peas for visualize world peace.
   
OCLC WorldCat record
Visualize Whirled Peas
Author: R Schafer
Edition/Format:  Article : English
Publication: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation, v12 n3 (200706): A8