Ice Cream In Entertainment
For as long as ice cream has been popular, it has been referred to in all
forms of entertainment - comedy, television, poker, music and literature to name a few.
Comedy
Eddie Murphy developed a famous sketch in his live stage performance
about his childhood memories of ice cream – in particular when the ice
cream truck would come around and how excited he would get, then give chase and
finally get his ice cream, only to drop it whilst gloriously showing off to other
kids that he had ice cream and they didn’t! Even then his love of ice cream
was so strong that he’d pick it up off the ground and still eat it!
It's not just modern day comedians that have used ice cream to create great
comic performances ... back in the 1930s the great Laurel and Hardy used
ice cream in more than one of their famous comedy short films.
The one entitled “Come Clean” is
perhaps one of the most memorable and we’ve devoted a whole separate
page to this for the benefit of our readers: Laurel & Hardy’s
Ice Cream Scene.
Children’s TV
There’s a famous Sesame Street sketch about the 'Ice Cream Cone Man’.
Ernie wants a particular ice cream cone – a very particular one! It’s ….
chocolate, strawberry, peach, vanilla, banana, pistachio, peppermint, lemon,
orange and butterscotch ice cream cone! What does he get? A butterscotch,
orange, lemon, peppermint, pistachio, banana, vanilla, peach, strawberry
ice cream cone. So frustrating!!
TV Comedy
One of the best tv comedy shows to ever feature an ice cream related sketch
is 'The Two Ronnies' (BBC Television) which can often be seen as BBC re-run these days. The sketch
in question was called "The Ice Cream Parlor Sketch"
Poker Tournaments
Did you know about the dirty ice cream club? Well it's actually a poker tournament called just that. The tournament is named after a famous poker player called Mr. Neil Arce aka. “Dirty Ice Cream”. Wonder why he's dirty? Maybe it's how he plays the game.
Rock & Pop Music
One of the most famous songs with an ice cream connection is by Van Halen,
entitled simply 'Ice
Cream Man'.
Literature
Amongst the many references to ice cream that appear in books, one that sticks
in my mind is from ' Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' by Roald Dahl.
At the beginning of the story, Grandpa Joe tells his grandson, little Charlie
Bucket, about Mr Willy Wonka and some of his magical chocolate-making inventions.
Amongst them is the chocolate ice
cream that never melts, even under a hot
sun - one of Mr Wonka's most special recipes. Imagine being able to create
an ice cream that never melts!
The Knickerbocker Glory is featured in the first of the Harry Potter books "Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone" by JK Rowling. Harry's spoiled cousin Dudley throws a tantrum when he complains his Knickerbocker Glory isn't big enough. Anyone interested in the Harry Potter movies might like to see the lawn at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland where Harry's first broomstick flight was filmed.
For more reading on ice cream in entertainment, I have more pages:
In The Movies ~ Movie Stars ~
Scooby-Doo