Licensed Australian Ice Creams Update

These two are at the later end of my collecting calendar, both emerging well into the 80's, but still old enough to be cool additions to the pantheon of Aussie Ice Cream greatness.

ALF (Alien Life Form) was one of those ubiquitous 80's TV shows that you simply could not avoid if you owned a box at the time. A laconic, wise-cracking puppet whose primary endearing feature was that he apparently liked to eat cats. He stuck around long enough and had a strong enough impact on Aussie kids for Pauls to immortalise him in ice-cream, toffee and vanilla!

Speaking of wise-cracking muppets, Australia's own Cartoon Connection host Agro was similarly honoured by Pauls with the so 80's "Mega Munch" compete with bubble-gum nose, ala Bubble O' Bill. Agro was damn funny when let loose, but some of his best work never quite made it to air judging by this out-take reel!

An eclectic mix of updates coming, stay tuned!

Will

"I found my thrills..."

When Happy Days burst on to Australian TV screens in 1975 nobody could resist the lovable geekiness of Richie, the wisecracking mouth of Ralph or pure dumb nerdiness of Potsie. Everything 50's was cool again; the cars, the clothes and of course the tunes.

Standing above all though was one Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, AKA The Fonz, AKA Fonzie. This James Dean / Marlon Brando 'Rebel above the Garage' superstar of the show could clear a stall with a look, start a tune with a fist, and defeat aliens with a single thumb and an "Aaaayyyyyyy".

Fonzie rode a motorbike and had a way with the ladies, a jacket that meant business and hair that had its own management. Little Aussie kids couldn't get enough of the show and the Fonz in particular, so of course he was afforded the greatest honour this country could bestow upon foreigners in the 70's, an eponymous snack food. As if that wasn't enough, the show itself was canonised antipodean style with it's own ice cream.

I remember Fonzies as a cheesy snack similar to Cheetos, complete with all that great yellow snack-dust that clings to jumpers, fingers and mum's back seat. The Streets Happy Days Ice Cream I can't specifically recall, so one of you guys will have to help me out with memories of that. The sticker above was a Milk Bar premium, I'm not sure if Happy Days were ever sold in multi-packs. The Fonzies stickers were most likely given away the same way, there are a number of others out there, I'll add a third example soon.

Henry Winkler (who played the Fonz) continues to appear in film and television to this day, while Ron Howard (Richie Cunningham) never really kicked on as far as I know...

Cheers!

Will

Licensed Australian Ice-Creams

Smack bang in the middle of the golden age of Aussie Ice Creams came the double barreled inventively titled Smurfee, courtesy of Peters / Pauls. This is the store display / advertising card from the 18c treat from 1979.  

I've heard that there are no naturally occurring blue foods, and that blue is colour most likely to nauseate, but I've got to tell you that I can remember the taste of these things like it was yesterday, and that taste was good.  

I'll resist from all the standard Smurf jokes regarding Smurfette's position as the only lass in the village, but when you look at the Smurf on the right and read the speech bubbles you just know something unnatural was going on in that forest...

Will

Licensed Australian Ice-Creams



It all seemed so natural. You went to see the latest summer blockbuster. You became obsessed overnight. You had to buy the toys, the posters and the swap-cards. You cut out articles about the movie from magazines and newspapers and kept them in a folder. You bought the cereal and tried to collect all the little bits and pieces you could find. But something was missing.

It's a long hot summer and you need to keep cool. You walk past your local milk-bar, they have a colourful sign in the window - "Return of the Jedi - 30c"! The sneaky marketeers have married you needs and desires, you can now eat your favourite movie, you are sold, sold, sold!

One advantage of being the driest vegetated continent on the planet is that you often have an excuse to eat ice cream. Or icy poles, ice blocks or any other type of child's ice treat. When I was a kid we had an embarrasment of riches on the ice cream front, for whatever movie, TV show or other fad came along there was a licensed ice cream.

The golden age of ice cream was 1975-85. I remember ice creams promoting Kiss, Star Trek, Star Wars, Spiderman, Masters of the Universe and a dozen others. Often the ice creams featured competitions and premiums, like the Star Trek stickers, or Toltoys action figures. Anyway I'm sure you've all stopped reading by now and have skipped down to the pics, so I'll finish up.


(Above) Rear of the Jedi Jelly box showing the Toltoys competition prizes (Amazingly the actual speeder-bike mock-up shown in the photographs was recently found here in Melbourne, that's a story in itself believe me!)Empire Strikes Back wrapper front (Above), and rear (Below)

A Jedi-Jelly wrapper (Above) , and Star Wars wrapper (Below). These two are the corresponding wrappers for the boxes shown above.


The Toltoys competition details on the rear of the Star Wars wrapper (below).



Finally the best stuff (in my opinion anyway!) the store displays! All are around 40cm x 25cm and made of cardboard. First of all the Jedi Jelly display (below)



(Below) Star Trek and Spiderman displays, both from 1979.

Finally as the golden era came to an end, a Masters of the Universe display from 1985. (Below)

I'm on the trail of more ice-cream items, so stay tuned for future updates!

Will