Ice Cream trucks

[Owain Taggart]

All through my childhood, I had heard about ice cream trucks, but never seen one, aside from ones parked at special events. They sort of became a myth and legend, to the point that I thought they only existed in movies and games like the GTA series.. I had only ever seen the pedal-wagons until a few years ago when I stopped seeing them at all. This year though, there's been an ice-cream truck roaming the neighbourhood, its tunes piercing the air in such a way that they can be heard from anywhere. A new sound of summer, around these parts.

Today, it had stopped on our street and bought myself some soft-serve. I couldn't resist on a nice day such as this.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

An ice cream truck came to my job and the company was buying people ice cream but I just didn't go for it. Wasn't feeling like ice cream today. Now I kind of wish I'd gotten some!

 

[RoJoHen]

I can't remember a summer where there wasn't an ice cream truck. I hear it multiple times a day in my neighborhood. He started driving around in April!

 

[Trekker4747]

Ahh, ice cream trucks. Where else can you buy a freezer-burnt bomb pop for $5?

 

[Kestra]

There's one that drives around here playing the most obnoxious sounding cartoon type noises. It's enough to put me off ice cream entirely.

 

[SmoothieX]

^Would you like some candy, little girl?

MUHAHAHAHA!

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Which song(s) was the ice cream truck playing (audio clips in each link)?

Turkey in the Straw

Red Wing

The Entertainer (later re-popularized as the theme to The Sting)

Mister Softee Jingle (based on The Whistler and his Dog)

Little Brown Jug

Sailing, Sailing

Camptown Races

Brahms' Lullaby

La Cucaracha

 

[thestrangequark]

When I was a kid in Seattle the ice cream trucks looked like this:

...and were prolific in the summer. They usually played "Turkey in the Straw" or "Home on the Range," and they were always orange and white like the one in the picture. However, we had one ice cream truck that, though it was the same vehicle model, differed from the others in a few terrifying ways. Firstly, instead of the cheery orange creamsicle paint job this truck was entirely black, and not just any black but a flat primer black. It was dinted and dinged, and the recording of "Home on the Range" that blared from it's speaker was warped. It was like an ice cream truck on a bad acid trip! I never bought ice cream from that truck.

 

[RoJoHen]

Which song(s) was the ice cream truck playing (audio clips in each link)?

Turkey in the Straw

Red Wing

The Entertainer (later re-popularized as the theme to The Sting)

Mister Softee Jingle (based on The Whistler and his Dog)

Little Brown Jug

Sailing, Sailing

Camptown Races

Brahms' Lullaby

La Cucaracha

I don't think mine plays any of those.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Can't remember any tune in particular, but the truck was huge and much bigger than the one in the picture. It had soft-served ice cream cones and sundaes. The Sundae I bought had nearly melted by the time I got home, but the serving was generous and I found there was a good value out of it. It's like having Dairy Queen come to you!

Happiness is an ice-cream truck on a hot summer day.

 

[thestrangequark]

^Well, that's just what the ice cream trucks in Seattle looked like. In NYC they're much bigger, and no one I know from anywhere else has seen ice cream trucks like the one in the picture. I was just using it to illustrate the story.

 

[JiNX-01]

All through my childhood, I had heard about ice cream trucks, but never seen one, aside from ones parked at special events. They sort of became a myth and legend, to the point that I thought they only existed in movies and games like the GTA series.. I had only ever seen the pedal-wagons until a few years ago when I stopped seeing them at all. This year though, there's been an ice-cream truck roaming the neighbourhood, its tunes piercing the air in such a way that they can be heard from anywhere. A new sound of summer, around these parts.

Today, it had stopped on our street and bought myself some soft-serve. I couldn't resist on a nice day such as this.

Ice cream trucks were part of our childhood. Then we moved out to the country (where they don't go). Then I moved to a town where they had them again. Every summer for 16 years the music brought me back to kid-hood.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, seems like it's a highly regional thing. I never saw them at all until this year and I find it's nice to see then.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I was never allowed to go to the ice cream van guy who visited our street in the summer when I was a lad. They came round each summer evening at 7.30pm. My parents wouldn't allow me to see them - instead they'd ask me to get back to practising for my music lessons the following morning. I had always been a bit suspicious of ice cream men somehow, maybe as a result of that experience - I preferred my ice cream scooped out of a tub, or as a wrapped-up lolly or cone, from our freezer, rather than dripping from the end of some old geezer's nozzle in a van chock full of kiddie treats.

Funnily enough, we still had an ice cream van visiting the street when I was in England recently, complete with tinkly music echoing around our neighbourhood at 8.30pm at night, surrounded by the local kids visiting it. I dunno. Maybe I've mellowed a bit with time - I love the sound of ice cream vans in the area...

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0GHN9MKDrE[/yt]

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Here's a song I never heard on any of the ice cream trucks that came around my neighborhood...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-UELHPBGOs

I don't think I ever bought anything from an ice cream truck though.

 

[thestrangequark]

...dripping from the end of some old geezer's nozzle...

Oh lord.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Here's a song I never heard on any of the ice cream trucks that came around my neighborhood...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-UELHPBGOs

"Korobeiniki!"

Do they also play "Polyushko Pole"?

...dripping from the end of some old geezer's nozzle...

Oh lord.

It was a man who had a chilled metal nozzle out from which poured ice-cream onto a cone, occasionally with a 99 flake.

I was more a fan of the scoopable ice-cream.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I only remember the ice cream truck coming through our neighborhood once. I don't think I bought anything from it.

 

[thestrangequark]

...dripping from the end of some old geezer's nozzle...

Oh lord.

It was a man who had a chilled metal nozzle out from which poured ice-cream onto a cone, occasionally with a 99 flake.

I was more a fan of the scoopable ice-cream.

But...but...the gnarly innuendo is so much more fun!

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Oh lord.

It was a man who had a chilled metal nozzle out from which poured ice-cream onto a cone, occasionally with a 99 flake.

I was more a fan of the scoopable ice-cream.

But...but...the gnarly innuendo is so much more fun!

That was my excuse too, but my parents still wouldn't let me go to the ice cream van...