Inside the CM Vault: Team Banzai Lapel Pin

Back in the summer of 1984, when I was living in San Diego, I went to my first Comic-Con there, at the old convention center downtown. Of the movie memorabilia I picked up that day, one was this promotional item for a film I’d never heard of until that moment: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I can’t remember if someone handed this item to me, or it was just sitting at a vendor’s booth, available free to anyone who cared to take one, but there was a poster for the movie nearby, and I knew right then and there it was something I wanted to see.

I picked up two that day – which makes me think they were free to grab at a booth – and the first of the two I attached to the dashboard of my Toyota pickup, where it was proudly displayed for years, eventually becoming faded and ruined by sunlight. The second, as you can see below, was never used or worn – the ‘clasp’ is still flat and unbent – but was instead tucked away in a box for safe keeping, where it’s remained to this day.

I’ve never known what to call this 1½-inch piece of Buckaroo Banzai history…a pin? A badge? A button? One of the bonus features on the original DVD release calls it a ‘lapel pin’, so I guess we’ll go with that. The DVD also states that it was given away to Buckaroo Banzai club members, which I never was, but perhaps that occurred after the release of the film; for us lucky convention-goers, it was an early-bird giveaway, and a cool one at that.

Now, it’s a sought-after collectible, though its monetary value is not known (by me, anyway); I couldn’t find it for sale anywhere online, so I don’t know whether I’m holding onto a gold mine, or just a thin piece of painted tin. However, you can find variations of it at reasonable prices, in pinback form, at several sites online, including Amazon and eBay. I bought three, and trust me, the level of prestige achieved by wearing one cannot be measured.