Controversy over ice cream flavor; one million moms protest
November 22, 2011
Those who love Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and those who love Saturday Night Live will find that they now have something in common. If you tuned in late on Saturday Night Live on September 24th, you may have caught an announcement made by Alec Baldwin during the show’s season premier. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream has now added Baldwin’s classic skit, “Schweddy Balls,” into its eclectic assortment of flavors based on pop culture, for a limited time only.
The flavor of the ice cream, as well as the name, brings back a favorite pastime of SNL. The skit includes Alec Baldwin as Pete Schweddy, a man who is constantly featured on a radio talk show with adoring hosts who are in love with all of his new, ball-shaped creations and courteously naming them Schweddy balls. The obvious features of both the SNL skit and the ice cream are that you get to say “Schweddy Balls” (as if that hasn’t been mentioned enough already) and also eat “Shweddy Balls.” The flavor is based on woppers with some 21-and-older ingredients.
Due to the ice cream name, controversy has erupted and a group called “One Million Moms” is protesting. Like myself you must be thinking – at least I hope – why a million moms would need to protest against an ice cream flavor? Well, since no good deed goes unpunished, an affiliate of the American Family Association officially called One Million Moms threatened to boycott Ben & Jerry’s due to the apparent obscenity of the name of their new ice cream flavor. They also made a point on their website that Ben & Jerry’s has been in the business of offending customers since its last apparently controversial adaptation of flavor “Chubby Hubby,” to “Hubby Hubby,” to celebrate gay marriage legalization in certain states. And I use the word ‘apparently,’ with as much pride as I am objectively allowed.
No matter that one million moms (perhaps more) would rather protest against an ice cream flavor than worry about something more important is appalling. Even with the controversy, and maybe even welcomed by the company, it looks as if “Schweddy Balls” ice cream is here to stay.