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Ice Cream Trucks


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This may be a midwestern (Minneapolis) thing, but every afternoon and every evening, an ice cream truck, complete with music, meanders up our street.

One of the two in my neighborhood seems to arrive every afternoon about 3:00 pm. About three times a week, when we are in town, Peter, Heidi and I decide it's time for a treat!

Heidi and I favor dreamsicles. Peter is a fudgsicle guy (anything to dirty a shirt). $.50 a pop. We eschew the Disney-character-shaped pops. Although one of those cone things with the sugar cone and the spiral chocolate and nuts sometimes hits the spot. Peter thinks a popsicle is a waste of his money.

On a really hot afternoon, we run around in the sprinkler to get the sticky goo off that has dripped onto our shoes, legs, shirts, hair, ears, etc. after we've devoured our treats. We have a can in the front yard for the sticks.

Your favorites? Do these ice cream trucks only exist here?

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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I am living a block off of a major street (Northern Cal.) and the local Ice Cream man always goes tearing past my house with the music going as he heads down the street towards where he thinks his clients are. Now that I am in my 30's I have decided it is un-becoming to chase him down the street so I just sit in and sulk!

If I were to ever catch him there would be only one choice- The Super Bomb Pop- THey sell a smaller version in the grocery stores called firecracker pops but the excitment seems to shrink with the product.

Nathan

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The ice cream man is alive and well and trolling the streets of Toronto. But it does help to be under the age of 10 to appreciate his wares--principally soft ice cream with lots of choices of sprinkles and dips.

Arthur Johnson, aka "fresco"
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Their annoying music and lousy icecream is alive and well in the UK.

Cadbury's "99" flake it is...

I was once told that Walls got into the icecream business to use up the surplus pork fat from their sausage making business, or maybe it was the other way around...

Edited by jackal10 (log)
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Out in western Massachusetts there do not seem to be any ice cream trucks :sad:. In central and eastern Mass, however, ice cream trucks are alive and well. When we are at bayside beaches at Cape Cod, the ice cream man comes to the entrance of the beach and rings a hand bell.

I actually grew up in an ice cream truck family. My brother bought my cousin's ancient Chevy ice cream truck and made a nice bit of money to put himself through college. It was the kind where you had to get out and walk around to open up the ice chest in back. We kept a large freezer chest in the garage filled with "stock". Oh, and he wore one of those coin holder belts to collect money and make change. My favorite treat was called either Buried Treasure or Circus Surprise-- it was orange or raspberry sherbet on a plastic holder that had an animal shape on it. Strawberry Shortcake was high on my list also.

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We have ice cream trucks in Manhattan. I think they sell pops and bars, but I never really look; I go straight for the soft-serve cone everytime. The Mr. Softee trucks are best, I think. generic look-a-like trucks never taste as good. of course, the trucks don't drive around ringing bells, or playing music like they did when i was a kid in NJ. They park on a corner for the day.

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We have a couple of trucks that come by once in awhile, one even plays a techno version of Turkey in The Straw :wacko: .

Most of the ice cream is sold by Paleteros (Popsicle Men) with carts. Some of carts are attached to a bicycle. The sell a variety of Mexican popscicles; including lime, tamarind, jalapeno, guava, papaya, and other fruits. They also have milk based popcicles; rice pudding, coconut, chocolate, and other flavors. Each neighborhood in Chicago has it's own Paleta company, by my house it is either Monarca (Monarch butterfly) or Arco Iris (Rainbow). In the last couple years the paleteros have started selling the same crappy ice cream treats as the trucks do.

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Portland OR still has quite a few. I live right off a bar-heavy street and will hear them at 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Probably do some great business then. They run at more conventional times too.

Movies with noteworthy ice cream truck moments - Trees Lounge and Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai. Apparently there's a c-grade Clint Howard thing out there too but I haven't seen it.

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Their annoying music and lousy icecream is alive and well in the UK.

Cadbury's "99" flake it is...

I was no stranger to a "99" when I lived in Ireland, mainly because there wasn't much choice. I was never able to find out why they called it "99". Do you know, jackal10?

Movies with noteworthy ice cream truck moments - Trees Lounge

Good one :smile:

Was it Eddie Murphy who did that classic bit about the ice cream man?

Sometimes When You Are Right, You Can Still Be Wrong. ~De La Vega

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Movies with noteworthy ice cream truck moments - Trees Lounge and Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai.  Apparently there's a c-grade Clint Howard thing out there too but I haven't seen it.

Griffin Dunne being chased down the late-night streets of Manhattan by Teri Garr in a Mr. Softie truck in the 1985 movie "After Hours."

=Mark

Give a man a fish, he eats for a Day.

Teach a man to fish, he eats for Life.

Teach a man to sell fish, he eats Steak

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You know how some people are afraid of clowns? I have the same reaction to ice cream truck music.

The ones that circulate in our neighborhood play annoying calliope music, intermittently interrupted by the tape of a woman's voice, saying "Hel-LO?" in a creepy, sarcastic voice.

*shudder*

Marsha Lynch aka "zilla369"

Has anyone ever actually seen a bandit making out?

Uh-huh: just as I thought. Stereotyping.

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"you cant have none! you can't afford it!  Cuz you on the welllllfare!"

-Eddie Murphy

"Wanna lick? Psyche."

There are two types of Mr Softee trucks, those that sit in one place all day, and the other drives around the neighborhood. We have a Mr. Softee truck that drives by every night at about 7:00 pm playing his music. For me, one of the first signs of spring is hearing that tinny melody.

My weakness is for the King Cone sold out of the Good Humor carts. You can find these carts in front of the museums and in the parks. Although the quality of the ice cream is pretty lousy, I get such pleasure eating them. It may be the chocolate lined cone that I find so appealing, but I'm not sure.

"Some people see a sheet of seaweed and want to be wrapped in it. I want to see it around a piece of fish."-- William Grimes

"People are bastard-coated bastards, with bastard filling." - Dr. Cox on Scrubs

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And here all this time I thought ice cream trucks were a New York City phenomenon. Oh how provincial we Noo Yawkahs are!

I remember Good Humor trucks, they didn't have music like Mister Softee, they had bells that the Good Humor Man would jingle as he rode into the neighborhood. When I had my own place for the first time I remember the sound of those bells carried all the way up to my sixth floor apartment, and I would grab money and race downstairs. Sometimes I'd make it on time, sometimes not. I used to love the chocolate eclair ice cream bars. :rolleyes:

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Mmmmm.. Ice Cream ..

We have company here called Bozo's Ice Cream Treats ..

My favorite treat there is teh Mickey Mouse Lemon Cherry Pop with the Gumball nose .. heh

But I would have to say that Jolly Trolley is better than an Ice Cream Truck .. I like snow cones.. ;)

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The depot for all the metro area NYC Good Humor trucks was in Queens Village off of Springfield Blvd.

They would supply the truck, gas, white pants, and sell you the frozen goods. New "employees" would come to work with a white shirt and a soon to be dashed hope of making a living.

Your first unpaid day on the job was going out with a "lifer" whose route was the Prospect Park area of Brooklyn to learn the ropes. The "lifer" sat in the driver's seat of the upscale step-van complete with service windows and watched you like a hawk to make sure you weren't skimming while you busted your butt selling. After an exhausting day of selling tons of ice cream in Brooklyn they'd let you loose on your own route in Elmont. I think I did it for a week before forgetting to show-up.

The coin-changer thing on the belt was way-cool though. The 45mph govenor on the truck's motor wasn't.

PJ

Edited by pjs (log)

"Epater les bourgeois."

--Lester Bangs via Bruce Sterling

(Dori Bangs)

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I know we have the palateros in Los Angeles now but I haven't seen or heard ice cream trucks since I was a kid. Do we still have them here?

Do any of you other Angelenos remember the Helms Bakery Truck from our childhood? One used to sit just up the street from my elementary school one or two afternoons a week. I would get those candy dots on paper and other sweet junk.

So long and thanks for all the fish.
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I know we have the palateros in Los Angeles now but I haven't seen or heard ice cream trucks since I was a kid.  Do we still have them here?

Little Johnny hears the music of the ice cream truck and like Pavlov's dog runs to the music not looking for traffic. Wham. Little Johnny gets creamed. Mama comes out and sees little Johnny bleeding to death. Voila! Big lawsuit against ice cream company. Without the music, the little Johnnys don't come to the trucks. Additionally, some communities passed ordinances against the trucks. End of ice cream trucks.

I'm hollywood and I approve this message.

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Do any of you other Angelenos remember the Helms Bakery Truck from our childhood?

We had them in San Diego. The driver's name was Ralph and he would always park just down the street when our elementary school got out. We always got the sweet things, too...Waxed lips, penny Bazooka bubble gum, Abba Zabbas, Now & Laters, Mary Janes, Pixie Stix and on & on.

You knew you had bought too much when Ralph gave you a small paper bag for your goodies. Oink! :biggrin:

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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I love visiting my parents in Massachusetts in the summer, where the ice cream trucks still roll along, bells ringing and all (or sometimes music playing). My favorite is the one that's like a chocolate eclair, only there's a dark chocolate candy bar in the middle. :rolleyes: Candy Bar Crunch? Is that what it's called? Well, I think there are at least two names for it, depending on what company made it.

There aren't any ice cream men here in Arkansas, but at least the Schwan's man will come to deliver gallons of ice cream every two weeks. :raz:

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:sad:

wls_080803_icecreamtruck_st.jpg

CHICAGO --  Police are investigating an ice-cream truck fire that burned the 33-year-old vendor Thursday on the South Side.

"It [the fire] was intentionally set, and while the truck was on fire, the driver sustained burns," police spokeswoman Alice Casanova said. "There was probably an argument."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...1,2924862.story

Edited by guajolote (log)
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