The Onion has a funny take on a certain celebrity food, although I’d hardly consider Stephen “B-List”.
Nectar of the demigods: B-list-celebrity-endorsed foodstuffs
By Genevieve Koski, Josh Modell, Nathan Rabin, Kyle Ryan
February 7th, 2008…
Ben & Jerry’s celebrity flavors
It isn’t like consumers really need an excuse to gorge themselves on rich, goody-laden ice cream, but really, who hasn’t wondered what Willie Nelson tastes like? (For the record, it’s not bong water and beef jerky, but rather peach ice cream studded with cinnamon-sugar crumbles. Weird.) A handful of entertainers have earned the right to be immortalized in dairy form by Vermont ice-creamery Ben & Jerry’s, with predictably delicious results.
Level of celebrity: Varies, but usually somewhere in the realm of cult favorite: Stephen Colbert (Americone Dream), Willie Nelson (Country Peach Cobbler), Wavy Gravy, and Monty Python (Vermonty Python) have all merited flavors. A high ratio of jam-band tributes—Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, and Dave Matthews’ Band’s Magic Brownies—speaks to B&J’s hippie-centric origins and philosophy.
Appropriateness of product to celebrity: Americone Dream, Vermonty Python, Wavy Gravy, and Cherry Garcia depend more on name recognition and puns than a strong conceptual connection to their respective celebrities, but Phish Food (which contains fudge fish), Country Peach Cobbler, and Magic Brownies have subtle tie-ins to their namesakes. (Also, Cherry Garcia, the company’s longest-running celebrity flavor, swapped in black cherries instead of its usual Bing cherries for a month following Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995. Aww.)
Likelihood of consumption by non-fans: Pretty damn likely. Cherry Garcia and Phish Food rank among B&J’s top-selling flavors, and all but Wavy Gravy are still in production.Marketing hyperbole: None necessary. Interest in the company’s products is high enough that new celebrity-endorsed flavors tend to create their own hype: The debuts of Colbert and Nelson’s flavors sparked a faux-feud (egged on by Colbert, of course) between the two entertainers.
Buy it at: Everywhere.Full text of article (you should go over there to see what has Steven Segal’s pic on it)
What kind of ice cream was he eating last nite? Didn’t look like Americone Dream & he didn’t say anything about it… Maybe he didn’t want to detract from “Black Chinese American New Year Month.”
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@Tina – it was plain old B&J Vanilla (not even organic). I guess he thought Americone Dream and Peanut butter might be too much… or maybe he’s given up Americone Dream for Lent?
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he did give up ice cream/sweets for lent last time. but i dont think he is doing it again, unless he gave up something else…
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He’s giving up all the calcium in his bones for this Lent. I don’t think he can afford to give up ice cream too.
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@EDl & C – I wasn’t thinking he gave up ice cream – if so, he wouldn’t have tasted the vanilla ice cream. I was saying a possible reason for selecting vanilla over Americone Dream would be that he gave up Am. Dr. for Lent.
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@ Jennie–Point taken.
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Um, really?
Buy it at: Everywhere.
Uh, not so much. Trust me, I check in every convenience store, grocery store, and pretty much any store with freezers and ice cream for sale, and Americone Dream is hardly “everywhere”, at least in my neck of the woods, anyway.
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