Cookie Puss is the life of every pawty!

[mmcirvin]

Marc Fisher heralds the expansion of the Carvel ice-cream franchise in DC, several people clarify that it was in the area all along, and a commenter identifying himself only as "Tom Carvel" mentions that the ads featuring the real Tom Carvel's ravaged voice used to run all the time on WDCA-20 in between the Jhoon Rhee martial arts ads, as partiallyclips and others can undoubtedly confirm.

The nature of Carvel's ads tended to make people think they were a purely local phenomenon. I can crack Sam up by launching into a sixteen-pack-a-day spiel about Fudgie the Whale, and she was initially surprised that he wasn't just a New England institution.

Comments

call the cops!

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

back in the 1980s, there was the misconception that the boston-area print franchise copy cop was national due to their effective ad campaign.

[(Anonymous)]

Get Patton Oswalt's CD, he's got a Tom Carvel bit that inspired me to look online... and yes, you can find those ads online.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought it was a New York thing; the only time I saw the commercials (and don't forget about... Hug-Me the bear!) was when I was dragged down to Staten Island to visit my grandparents, long ago.

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Confirmed. I used to watch them all the time between cartoons on the Channel 20 Club Show with TV's Captain 20 (whom I've hung out with a few times this past year).

Even though it was cake and ice cream, I never remember drooling over it. It was just sort of these odd, glossy forms they showed us over and over. I'd sooner drool over a Sit n Spin.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember finding Cookie Puss kind of disturbing. Especially when Cookie Puss spoke, in a weird electronically distorted voice if I recall correctly.

[manfire.livejournal.com]

The cookie gravel in Carvel ice-cream "cakes" is like pure ecstasy in chocolate-flavored form

[bottlroktt.livejournal.com]

you need to do a limewire search for comedian Patton Oswalt's half-hour HBO special in the late 90s--that's the first time i ever heard someone making fun of carvel.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

You know, I went to the same college as Patton Oswalt at the same time, and if only I had ever actually met him, I could claim he stole all his jokes from me and somebody might believe me.

As it was, we did end up getting humor pieces printed in the same campus magazine, on which I also worked as a proofreader. At the time, neither of us was actually that good; he was probably slightly funnier. But I can say that I protected Patton Oswalt's early material from misplaced commas.

[bottlroktt.livejournal.com]

god speed, you christian soldier!

They were local

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

--just local to several distinct locales. I didn't realize DC was one of them. They were also in parts of South Florida, and in Houston but not elsewhere in Texas that I know.

Kind of like Schlotzsky's, which was local to Carnegie Hall for a few years but then closed within months of my finally reaching it!

A weird thing with Carvel is that all the stores here in the mid-Hudson Valley spun off into a separate chain, Carnival (unrelated to the Long Island ice cream truck company), after Tom's death. A few Carvel stores have opened and closed here over the years since then, but without the old familiar locations they just didn't have the draw anymore. I see on the webbage there's one in Hopewell now and one "coming soon" in Red Oaks--where, last I knew, there was still a Carnival across the road!

I didn't know they had merged with Cinnabon and Seattle's Best recently. As all these stupid fast-food conglomerates grow, every one of them seems to be trying its hardest to ditch the local flavor and reinvent each of its brands as a longtime nationwide brand. Now even Nathan's want you to believe they've been the whole country's favorite ever since FDR served them to royalty.

[jwgh]

Not really related, but here is a little photoessay about the last Howard Johnson's in Connecticut.

[manfire.livejournal.com]

Carvel is nice enough to include some old commercials on their Web site too.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Which reveal that memory and parody have exaggerated the gravelly nature of his voice, as often happens with distinctive voices.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Hmm, his voice is more intensely nodular in some of the clips than in others. Probably it increased over time; certainly the ones I remember are from the very end of his life.

throat cancer IIRC

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

I don't think he was even in the commercials in his last five years.

[aderack.livejournal.com]

I just turned this up, after doing a Google search for "Hug Me the Bear". Thought you'd like to know!

Can't find the commercial with the song on Youtube.