I think the best use of an ice cream truck in a movie was in After Hours.
Did you know that most of the ice cream sold in ice cream trucks in the US is produced in Arizona?
What??? You’ve never heard of The Good YUMA Man?
:: rimshot ::
MWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!
Very droll.
Before i worked out what it meant, i thought you were implying that your local ice cream truck played Carmina Burana.
Yep, droll is what I was shooting for.
BTW…“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” is the translation. And Carmina Burana Lyrics are found here:
My impression is that on the best days, they take themselves off to park up at the local attraction / beauty spot to grab the captive audience there.
Yes, we have them in the UK … and most seem to play Greensleeves.
A friend once told me that his parents (who left a lot to be desired in many ways) told him that when the icecream van starts playing its tune, it means it’s run out of icecream. He believed it for a long time. Mean or what? 
Here in Colombia they have little ice cream carts that someone pushes around through the streets. I see many of these throughout the city. They play boring music too.
I should have added that I have always enjoyed my visits to Scotland - even my first one, which was in the middle of winter! As Billy Connolly says, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.
Really?! Well there’s some more of my ignorance successfully fought.
Once again, really?! An interesting snippet of information, and yet more of my ignorance is fought.
(I really should resist the urge to comment that the convicted ice-cream vendors spent years in the cooler, but clearly I won’t.)
When I was a kid, the ice cream man (what we called ice cream trucks) played “It’s a Small World” or “Turkey in the Straw”; I’ve heard “The Entertainer”, but now they’re playing some tune that, I was informed today, was popular in the year my mother was born ('48).
True story - one summer quite a few years ago, a house in our subdivison burned down. (No one was seriously injured.) Everyone in the neighborhood was standing around gawking, including my sister and me; just as our parents were dragging us back home (we had to go run errands, or something dull like that), the ice cream man showed up. Well, I guess it wouldn’t’ve been right to be watching a show like that without snacks!
Germany has ice cream trucks. They also have bakery trucks.
The ones around here don’t play music, though. They just use a nasty sounding buzzer/bell thingy that makes me want to smack somebody. You can hear it from a long ways off, but if it were to go off while I was standing by the truck you’d see a headline like this in the news paper:
“Ice cream truck driver hospitalized, local man in jail for ass-ault with an anally uncomfortable object.”
And this would mean what exactly? Or are you just trying to slag off the natives?
Is it the law that ice cream van music must be out of tune?
The local van here plays ‘O so lo mio’. Or at least the first bar and a half, it never gets further into the tune than that. And it sort of drifts out of tune as it stops. I’ve heard the Third Man theme around here too (also out of tune).
Does anyone know what technology is used to play the music? I’m betting it isn’t a tape because that would wear out. The grating tinny quality is caused by the nasty horn speakers they use, but what lo-fi thigy actually plays the tune?
Interestingly, it seems that within the U.S. ice cream is more popular in the north than in the south.
From here: http://www.sendicecream.com/contriv.html :
“The Northern Central states have the highest per capita consumption of ice cream at 41.7 quarts. The top three cities in America that purchase the most ice cream on a per capita basis are: Portland, Oregon; St. Louis, Missouri; and Seattle, Washington.”
Several sites also list the claim that Boston has the highest per capital ice cream consumption.
Highest per capita, too. :smack:
I’ve worked in retail here and in the States, and it is painfully obvious that New Zealand does not have the standards of oral hygiene that the States do. My father-in-law was a dentist in both countries and said the same.
I hope you don’t take too much offence - I meant it as a light-hearted jab. I love New Zealand and its people.
I do miss squirrels though.
capn
Well I agree with you about the squirrels. Cute lil buggers they are.
As to the other thing…Damn you for being so reasonable, I was all ready to be deeply offended (oh look, shiney teeth). Just to make me feel a teensy bit better is it ok if I say that Americans have better teeth but bigger bottoms?
In NYC they no longer play music, it is kind of strange.
Oh, they are called Mr. Softee…(no comment).
Although the regulations are not in force yet, I have noticied that the Ice Cream Trucks in Manhattan are not playing the music, maybe seeking to keep Bloomberg from passing the law.
The ice cream truck that comes around my block used to play “Greensleeves,” but this seems to have been replaced by “Home on the Range.” It being a predominantly Mexican neighborhood, there are also ice cream vendors with push carts, who don’t play a song, but produce a constant, high-pitched tinkling. (Of bells, that is.) I’ve also heard ice cream trucks playing “Sailing, Sailing, Over the Bounding Main,” “Turkey in the Straw,” “The Entertainer,” and others, but the ditty that they all played when I was a kid in San Diego was something I’ve only ever known as “The Ice Cream Truck Song.”
There are ice cream trucks in Belgium now, I can safely say. One in our neighborhood keeps playing Mister Sandman and it’s about driving me insane.
Hehe - I’m in 100% agreement there. Kiwis defintely seem more fit than Yanks, though I’m afraid the proliferation of (American) fast food may change that. Most blokes will show evidence of having consumed their share of pints, but overall seem much more toned. And they like to wear shorts year-round to prove it, even on the jobsite.
Back on topic, while the Mr. Whippy man plays “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, the milkie (milkman) plays “Greensleeves”. Are there many places left in the States that have milkmen?
And we have yet to find a definitive answer on the method that ice cream trucks produce their sound. Obviously, a PA system, but what is the sound source? Tape loop? Digital sample? Any doper ice cream guys?
capn