Ben & Jerry's seems to be the flavour of the month on this blog. They are the lot who are churning our a limited edition Schweddy Balls ice cream, which they claim has risen to the top of the charts - presumably charts exist for ice cream flavours too. Apparently it is "fudge covered rum balls" , whatever that means. Schweddy Balls is a take on a Saturday Night Live skit (a television show in the US). An innuendo laced old skit aired on that programme has the "memorable" tag line - no one can resist my Schweddy Balls.
On Million Moms is some obscure conservative organisation based in Mississippi of all places. They are up in arms. They say the language is unsuitable for children. They have forced some supermarket chains not to carry Schweddy Balls and are petitioning the company to stop the production. Little wonder Ben & Jerry's is revelling in the publicity and refusing to do anything of the sort. I thought motherhood was a pretty taxing full time job - are One Million Moms having enough idle time to be protesting about some trivial stuff ?
B&J of course has a long history of quirky names. The initial lot were simply just that; quirky - Chunky Monkey, Cherry Garcia and the like. They seem to happily coexist with the more prosaic Banana Split and Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Presumably uncolourful lot like me would prefer Chocolate, but a breezy sulo would want Bonnaroo Buzz ! But then they graduated to Karamel Sutra, which was apparently lapped up by the kilo litre. They had a Chubby Hubby flavour, which was fair enough considering that most hubbies in real life are fairly chubby, if not downright tubby. But when same sex marriages were sort of in the news, out came Hubby Hubby.
Perhaps Hopfrog or J or Deepa, who have access to the miracles of modern day indulgences can pronounce on the relative merits of Schweddy Balls vs Karamel Sutra vs Hubby Hubby !
Ah ; what a storm in an ice cream cup.
Posts
16 comments:
Again the same request, a peek to your reading list! How do you come across such news :)
@zeno - Easy zeno. The Internet :)
If I follow your suggestion and take up reviewing all the new B&J flavors, I run the risk of inspiring another new flavor on the lines of Chubby Hubby. But the fudge covered rum balls do sound interesting regardless of the name!
dabilll repeeet zeno query....unga reading list chaancela... :)
have you tried dublin mudslide ?? :-) the flavours you mentioned karamel sutra\schweddy balls...I dint see them in singapore....would like to try...:-)
Phew! You write faster than I can read. Has been a hectic travel week and I see that I have to catch up on so many posts.
Anyways, balls to the One million mom group! If their kids can play with em all the while, why not eat them? A limited edition at that :)
This may give some ideas to name the next version of the Android platform too....after icecream sandwich!
@J - :) An ice cream won't do that, will it :)
@gils - random reading on the internet. For, you see, variety is the spice of life :)
@kotla - Long time since I had B&J. You live in a totalitarian state my friend - no chance of chubby hubby or karamel sutra . Grandpa Lee would be most offended. You have to go to the land of the free for such indulgences :)
@hema - Ha Ha. Your cheeky comments are superb.
ya two back to back treats. Can we call these flavours the money honey and witty nutty.
gils and deepa are the more creative category. They could brand it better though.
but this a typical debate that ever aggressive advertisement goes through. axe for ex always lives this controversy every day. But speaking as a mom it is better to acknowledge that it is an exposed environment and you cannot ring fence your child, all you can do is try and imbibe tiger
Your values and let his or her life evolve. They will learn it some day.
@Sandhya - You obviously don't belong to One Million Moms :)
Indeed advertising will always go as extreme as possible. Maybe even more.
I try to avoid the obvious ploys of marketers in their attempts to lure one in with new products. As I am sure you are well familiar with Ramesh, one of the tenets of selling products is to constantly be offering something "new" and it is why you see companies like taco bell constantly bombarding you with chalupas and gorditas and a whole slew of items that Mexicans have never heard of.
There is one company that ropes me in every time with this tactic though and it is B&J's. I have tried probably 99% of their flavors (all time fave is a limited edition run called Holy Canoli that is now in their flavor graveyard). Chubby Hubby and Karmel Sutra, I would rank both of those near the bottom. But even a Ben and Jerry flavor near the bottom, is still pretty darn good.
I have been on the hunt for Schweddy Balls (oh, the dangers of discussing this flavor), and after not seeing it in my store for weeks I went online and discovered that my grocer (parent company Kroger) will not carry it because of the name. I even went to several other outlets and have been unable to find it anywhere, so if it is their bestseller that is shocking to me as it is so hard to find. I will continue to try and get my hands on it/them(??) as I hear it/they are rather tasty.
Actually, with all due respect to the ice connoisseurs, I don't even care about the name of a flavor, (honestly not even the brand). It could be B&J to vadilal, all that needs to be in there is chocolate for me. So all you mommies out there, your kids may be more occupied with the contents of the tub rather than what's on it. All they care is its brown in color. :)
A little note on the rum balls. I haven't had the B&J ones, but absolutely recommend the ones from Marzorin in Pune. Don't worry about the rum. It doesn't start playing with your head, unless you had straight 5-6 in a go (which is likely, given the irresistability).
Sorry about getting tipsy over the rum balls, food is a touchy subject for me! :)
@Hopfrog - Your wonderful sense of humour, coupled with that keen insight has absolutely lit up this space. I am still chuckling about the "it/them" as also about the "chalupas" :) Alas your neighbourhood seems to have been nobbled by the One Million Moms.
@deepa - I know you are a kid, but your comment re chocolate and mommies is absolute proof of that indisputable fact :):) Allright Marzorin, here we come.
it will take me some years to realize what is unsuitable for children. but indeed sounds crazy that by protesting against such taglines, one can control the growth of kids. As for me even if I was a kid, names won't matter and as of now, nothing should matter :P (definitely not hubby hubby)
PS - Klondike sandwich ice cream is my all time favourite :)
@Vishal - Yes - you have some years to go !!!!! You were a Green Bay and not a Burlington man. Makes all the difference !
The names sound offensive but I doubt if kids would pick up on that...anyways I love B&J but they don't have to try so hard to be on the news...
@Rads - Everybody loves B&J, don't they ??
Post a Comment