Fudgie
Every year for my birthday and for Father’s Day, I ask for one thing: an ice cream cake. Partly because I like it, partly because it’s ridiculous, and partly, I think, because of Tom Carvel.
Growing up on the East Coast in the 70s, you couldn’t get through an episode of “Three’s Company” or “Buck Rogers” without multiple doses of Carvel’s gravelly, phlegmy enthusiasm.
Of the commercials themselves, Fudgie the Whale and Cookie Puss I remember, and their degenerate cousins Cookie O’Puss and Tom the Turkey. But watching these commercials again, I’m more interested in the industrial language and imagery. “Carvel dealer”? “Patented Carvel no-air pump ice cream machine”? “NET WT. 54 OZ.”? A mustached man in a hair net squirting soft serve into a plastic tray?
Now it’s time
It’s Father’s Day
Instead of shirts and ties,
Daddy I’m givin’ you
this Carvel cake
‘cause you’re my favorite guy
UPDATE: I just got a big “Happy Birthday” FROM FUDGIE HIMSELF!!!
