Bad Humor Truck: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:sweet-tooth-concept-art.jpg|link=Twisted Metal|
▲[[File:sweet-tooth-concept-art.jpg|link=Twisted Metal|right|This truck serves 41 flavors of ''TERROR AND CHAOS!'']]
{{quote|''"SUCK'' ''my'' ''POPSICLE!"''
|Decal on Skids's/Mudflap's ice-cream truck mode in ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'' }}
Ah, the ice cream truck. An all-American staple of childhood. But what's this? The truck's driver is a [[Child
For some reason, ice cream truck drivers in fiction are hardly ever as wholesome as one might expect. The trope is named after the Good Humor ice cream company. May overlap with [[Monster Clown]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', the "Funny Bear" ice cream truck shows up in Central to hand out ammunition, mortars, and other materials. The enemy forces radio each other to watch out for the ice cream truck, so Mustang's team repaints it as the "Funny Bear" hot dog truck.
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== [[Film]] ==
* The ''[[
* ''[
** And there's also ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0323307/ Mr. Ice Cream Man]''.
* The original version of ''[[Assault
* ''[[Max
* The [[Stephen King]]-directed ''[[
* In ''Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams'', they have an ice cream truck named "Happy Herb's Nice Dreams". Take the words, "Ice Creams" and add a "N" in front and make "Creams" into "Dreams". Naturally, they sell marijuana from the truck, along with ice cream. How "wholesome" this is depends on your views.
* The heroes of ''[[
* In Bill Forsyth's ''[[Comfort And Joy]]'', a radio personality is shaken from his post-breakup funk when he gets in the middle of a mob-grade territory war between rival ice-cream vendors.
* ''[[
* A Mister Whippy van also appears in ''[[
* Skids and Mudflap of ''[[Transformers
* There's one in ''[[Legion]]''. {{spoiler|The truck's completely normal. The driver however...}}
* Dr. Claw's henchmen Brick and McKible drive an ice-cream delivery truck in ''[[Inspector Gadget]] 2.'' Oddly enough, its trunk is large enough to accommodate Claw's escape jet.
* In ''[[Friday (
* In ''[[Borat]]'', Borat and Azamat acquire an ice cream truck for transportation, and after some thought they also acquire an animal to guard the truck. So naturally there is a scene where a bunch of kids run up expecting ice cream, and instead find a ''[[Everything's Worse
* An ice cream truck is home to an illegal gun dealer in ''[[Southland Tales]]''. [[
* Psychotic clown Javier in ''[[The Last Circus]]'' drives one.
* The detective's informant in ''[[Hellraiser Inferno]]'' is a sleazy ex-con ice cream man who has covered the inside of his truck with pornographic images.
* In ''Killjoy'' the titular [[Monster Clown]] uses an ice cream truck that acts as a gateway to an [[Abandoned Warehouse]].
* The third ''[[
* The beginning of [[Act of Valor]] has the Chechen terrorist Abu Shabal driving what looks like an ice cream truck in the Phillipines to a school. Said Ice Cream Truck turns out to be a suicide car bomb, which kills the US Ambassador, his son, and several Phillipino schoolchildren.
== [[Literature]] ==
* There's a Wallace Stevens poem called ''The Emperor of Ice Cream'' that's sort of hard to interpret, but the first stanza is definitely talking about an ice cream man, and the second is definitely talking about a dead body. Whether the first is the cause of the second can't be determined, but it's all rather creepy. [http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides4/emperor.html Critics] seem to favor the theory that it's about the wake of the old lady who's lying dead in the second stanza. In that case, the partying in the first stanza might be seen as life-affirming or callous.
** The poem is quoted by a character in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[
*** Also quoted in ''[[Kingdom Hospital]]''. Apparently King really likes this poem.
* In the novel ''The Clairvoyant Countess'' by [[Dorothy Gilman]] there is a significant ice cream truck company run by a very scary bad guy.
* [[Gahan Wilson]] wrote a short story called "Mr. Ice Cold". The ice cream truck and its driver look innocent enough at first. But then, a boy notices that there's one door on the truck that is never opened. One day he decides to take a quick peek inside the door and gets a nasty shock. Let's just say that Mr. Ice Cold prefers a different kind of treat besides ice cream.
* Not exactly ice cream truck, but a couple of [[Stephen King|Stephen King's]] short stories deal with a psychopathic milkman who plants poisonous spiders in his milk box, hands out all-purpose cream laced with highly corrosive acid and cartons of poisoned drinks, and was implied to have planted a bomb in one of his packages, which went off some time prior to the events of the story. All the stuff he needs is in his milk truck.
* Subverted in an ''[[
== [[Live
* The ''[[
* A ''[[Tales
* One episode of ''[[Malcolm in
* Subverted in ''[[
* ''[[Shameless]]'': the Maguires use an ice cream van as a front for dealing drugs and give Frank a job on it. ("If someone asks for a smartie...give them a pill. If someone asks for a polo...give them a pill.") Backfires somewhat when Frank takes some himself and ends up giving pills to an old woman who wanted some actual smarties.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' - Ice-cream truck driver is just one of a series of loser jobs for Xander.
* ''[[Law
** In the original show, the pedophile celebrity in "Smoke" has an assistant drive an ice cream truck to playgrounds; he hides inside to scout out potential "playmates".
** In an episode of ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]'' the victim of the week is living in an ice cream truck, and using it as a base to sell bootleg DVDs.
* The short-lived '80s sitcom ''Jennifer Slept Here'' starred Ann Jillian as the title character, an old movie actress who had been run over by an ice cream truck and haunts her former home as a ghost.
* In ''[[
* One of the specials for ''[[The Adventures of Pete and Pete]]'' revolved around Mr. Tastee, an otherwise-amiable ice-cream man who always wore a mask in the shape of a grinning soft-serve cone and was hinted to have a shady past. In fact, the episode implies that ''the entire ice cream man profession'', with its wandering routes and bright, happy masks, is actually an informal brotherhood for those seeking to escape and/or forget.
* The Showtime series ''[[Masters of Horror]]'' has an episode titled "We All Scream for Ice Cream". It's about a [[Monster Clown|demonic, undead clown]] who works in an ice cream truck. His method is to sell ice cream to children, who then {{spoiler|cause their parents to melt into a colored mess not unlike that of melted ice cream}} as soon as they bite into it.
* An episode of ''[[The King of Queens]]'' has Doug buy an ice cream truck only to be stalked by another truck driven by [[Duel|an unseen driver with snakeskin boots who tries to kill him at every opportunity]]. {{spoiler|Eventually Doug sells the truck back to the original owner at a loss. We then see the owner talking to another prospective buyer while the camera zooms in on his boots...}}
* ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'' has an old ice-cream truck being used to distribute Buzz Beer. Disappointing when kids find out they don't have any ice cream, and rude when they keep getting asked, but not actively evil.
* In the second episode of the original ''[[Life On Mars]],'' Sam Tyler drives a witness incognito in an ice cream truck, hoping to spot a suspect. Unfortunately for the kids, Gene Hunt tags along too.
* Freddy Krueger in ''[[
* In an episode of ''[[Happy Days]]'', Fonzie quits his vehicle-repair job and must find a new way to make a living. He tries driving an ice cream truck, but he hates it because "Whenever I got it up to speed, some kid started chasin' after me wavin' a dime!"
* A ''[[
* The Hub series ''[[The Haunting Hour the Series]]'' has a story called "Catching Cold," about a fat boy who pursues an ice cream truck and how the ice cream truck seems to favor him. {{spoiler|Turns out the ice cream truck is haunted and traps those who are so obsessed with ice cream that they are willing to actively chase down the truck. It was also behind the disappearance of a boy in the late 1970s/early 1980s who did the same thing as the fat boy now and is now a fat, insane man who is more than willing to let the boy of 2011 trade places with him so the ice cream truck can feed off his soul}}.
== [[Music]] ==
* [[The Rutles]]' song "Doubleback Alley" has a line about ''the funny man in the ice cream van who [[Have a Gay Old Time|talked so queer]]...''
* [[Strapping Young Lad]]'s secret song from their album ''Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing'', "Satan's Ice Cream Truck" about [[Exactly What It Says
** The song was actualized into a real demonic ice cream truck by a fan of the band from Minnesota. The truck is referred to as Hell General. General because it is made from an AM General postal truck and Hell because of where it supposedly comes from.
* Steve Taylor's "I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good" is about an ice cream truck driver who bombs an abortion clinic.
* In the 1940's, the Kay Kaiser Orchestra recorded a song called "The Bad Humor Man".
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* ''[[The Far Side]]'' plays with this several times.
** ''I cuss, you cuss, we all cuss for asparagus!''
** There's another strip with the [[Exactly What It Says
** There's also the Vaccination Truck.
* A ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' comic has Pig getting hit by an ice cream truck.
* ''[[Gahan Wilson]]'' has an ice cream man opening the compartment to reveal a truckful of frozen child corpses. "Wrong door!"
== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
* [[Tim Minchin]] did a routine on the jingles of ice cream vans, referring to them as "[[Black Comedy|the mating call of the kiddy fiddler]]".
{{quote|
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Needles Kane from the ''[[Twisted Metal]]'' series drives Sweet Tooth, perhaps the most famous video game example of this...except his truck serves up [[Vehicular Combat|missiles and other assorted armaments]]. He still hands out tasty kid's treats from it, just be prepared for the explosives and napalm is packs in the cones and ice cream sandwiches.
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City]]'' has a campaign where it turns out the ice cream factory is owned by a nasty old woman who hates children, who only uses ice cream as a front for her cocaine trafficking operations, and the ice cream trucks sell drugs instead. When you actually get the factory and ice cream truck, both of them are horribly glitched and unusable (saving at the factory corrupts your save file), so really it's the factory and truck that are at fault. Taking one of the ice cream trucks to another business you own, a car dealership/chop shop, helps complete the main storyline. "We need you to steal...um....take...we need an ice cream truck, okay?" It's also impossible to sell ice cream to kids, even if you wanted to, considering [[Hide Your Children|there are no kids in the game]].
** It's entirely possible to run people over with the truck...but that's possible with all vehicles.
** Bonus: A secondary mission ends with the player murdering about a dozen mysterious people on the rooftop of the ice cream business based on an intercepted call.
* In the flash game ''[http://games.adultswim.com/cream-wolf-twitchy-online-game.html Cream Wolf]'', the Ice Cream Truck driver is actually a Werewolf who's fattening kids up so that he can bait them back to his place when full moon arrives and proceed to "Make new flavors" out of them. It's even complete with a creepy jingle during midnight.
* One of the enemies in ''[[Toejam and Earl]]'' is a phantom ice cream truck that randomly appears and disappears and tries to run down our alien heroes.
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the Refreshment Vendors in The MOTHERLODE! dungeon instance, their ice cream chests come with [[Freeze Ray]]s. Silly as this sounds, they may be the most dangerous mobs before the first Boss of the instance.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* From the webcomic ''[[A Softer World]]'' "[http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=223 Scoot Scoot Scoot]"..▼
== [[Web Original]] ==
* [http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/06/12/funny-pictures-and-you-will-like-it/ This page] at ''[[LOLcats|I Can Has Cheeseburger]]''.
* The plot of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8srEvrF90-s Who's Hungry?] starts with one.
* The ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' has dealt with ''two'' SCPs like this:
** [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-490 SCP-490], the Man-Eating Ice Cream Truck. A living vehicle with no driver (trying to drive it is clearly not safe) its cheery melody is actually [[Magic Music|hypnotic, and used to lure victims.]] It is indeed stocked with ice cream, but some of it is made of human flesh (and ''labeled'' as such!) obviously made from the remains of its victims.
** [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1386 SCP-1386] isn’t quite as dangerous, as the being inside the truck (only its arm - which is long, spindly, with three long fingers - has been seen) does what an ice cream man is supposed to do (as in, sell ice cream). However, it doesn’t like people who aren’t happy, growling or blaring the truck's bullhorns like a siren if such people come near. It also seems to like playing jokes on humans by fulfilling their requests in odd ways, like giving them salad-flavored ice cream, a hoagie made of ice cream (to a customer who asks for an "ice cream sandwich"), or even using some sort of hose to drench a customer with ice cream! It has, however, been known to kill one or two deadbeats who refused to pay it, and the prices can vary wildly, from incredibly cheap to outrageously expensive, in one case charging $16.27 for a single Push-Pop.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In an episode of ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[
* ''[[Hey Arnold
* ''[[Codename
** Ice cream men are often used as Mooks for various villains.
* There's one in the first episode of ''[[My Life
* The ''[[
* In an episode of ''[[The Mighty B!]]'', there's one of these: the driver gets pissed off at Bessie because she reports him to his manager {{spoiler|(just because he accidentally ran ''ONE'' stop sign in ten years of driving the truck)}}.
** In Bessie's defense, she thought she was calling the actual driver; she didn't know it was the phone number of his manager's office.
* An episode of ''[[Justice League]]'' features a man in an ice cream truck prominently, and he does have a dark secret, although this example is more like the ''Charmed'' subversion listed above. By the end, we learn he's been driving that truck for {{spoiler|40 years, give or take a few days}} and is glad to finally escape!
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "Bart of Darkness" opens with Springfield suffering a blistering heat wave. An ice-cream truck comes down the street with the driver shouting, "''Ice cream! Ice cream!''" ...but, when the children run up to it, they hear his entire sentence: "I'm all outta ''ice cream!''" And then, right after that comes another, similar truck:
{{quote|
* An early episode of ''[[Invader Zim]]'' featured an ice cream truck that blared ominous-sounding propaganda from its speakers.
{{quote|
* ''[[The Fairly
* In the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' episode "Yankee Doodle Bugs", an ice cream truck shows up during the [[The American Revolution|Continental Army's]] winter encampment at Valley Forge, it's loudspeaker merrily playing "Yankee Doodle Dandy". [[Rule of Funny|The irked soldiers promptly shoot it full of holes]].
* ''[[Cars]]'': The first opponent Tormentor (Mater's monster truck wrestler alter ego) had to face in ''[[Pixar Shorts|Monster Truck Mater]]'' is a modified ice cream monster truck named Ice Screamer.
* When [[The Bully|Boog]] is behind the wheel of the Frosty Bus, there's no chance for [[Fanboy and Chum Chum]] to get their Frosty Freezy Freeze.
* A common gag in most of the [[Tex Avery]] cartoons would show the bad guy apparently holding up an armored car/stagecoach (or whatever was period-appropriate) only for the camera to pull back and show he's actually robbing an ice cream truck.
* One episode of ''[[Kim Possible]]'' set in Florida had Drakken staking out in an ice-cream truck with the intent of tapping into the [[
* Hinted at on ''[[Family Guy]]''; local pedophile Herbert wanted an ice cream truck.
* In one episode of ''[[Generator Rex]]'', the villain Gatlocke has a fleet of vehicles, including an ice cream truck that's been given the Mad Max treatment.
* In ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'', evil ice cream men are [[Mooks]] that work for both [[Big Bad Duumvirate|Father and Mr. Boss.]]
== [[Other Media]] ==▼
* The Topps trading card series ''Weird Wheels'' had a card titled [https://web.archive.org/web/20120206052228/http://www.bubblegum-cards.com/Weird-Wheels/imagepages/image52.html Bad Humor Truck].▼
== [[Real Life]] ==
* The [[Violent Glaswegian|Glasgow]] [
{{quote|
* Mafia hitman Robert Pronge drove a Mister Softee truck to appear inconspicuous.
* Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski froze his victims' bodies in an ice cream truck to skew the estimated time of their death.
* Kenneth Bianchi, one of the Hillside Stranglers, worked as an ice cream man. A suspected victim of his disappeared when she went out one day to buy a cone.
* Fred West, another serial killer, also worked as an ice cream man. While one, he accidentally ran over a kid.
▲== Other ==
▲* The Topps trading card series ''Weird Wheels'' had a card titled [http://www.bubblegum-cards.com/Weird-Wheels/imagepages/image52.html Bad Humor Truck].
▲* From the webcomic ''[[A Softer World]]'' "[http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=223 Scoot Scoot Scoot]"..
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:Food Tropes]]
[[Category:Subverted Innocence Tropes]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:
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