Those of us lucky enough to have grown up on the Eastern seaboard of the Yew Ess Aay in the 60's will remember ice cream pitchman Tom Carvel. Tom was a loveable old codger who hawked ice cream cakes his own TV commercials. He was one of the first to franchise his business and became quite wealthy. Today there are Carvel stores up and down the coast.
Carvel is famous for it's whimsical ice cream cakes that are either really cute or really scary, depending on your perspective. Cookie Puss is probably the most famous. CP's face consists of cupcake eyes, frosting mouth, and a scoop of ice cream, complete with cone, for a nose. In March, he was Cookie O'Puss. Other beloved characters are Fudgy the Whale and Hug-Me the Bear.
There was always something a little low budget about the Carvel operation; the home-made commercials for one. It really hit me one late night in December when I noticed something a little, shall we say, fishy with the Santa cake. If you look closely (well, it's actually pretty obvious), the Santa cake uses the same mold as the Fudgy cake. Where Santa's jolly cap would normally have a fuzzy ball, there's a fish tail.
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Just imagine some corporate bean counter saying "We don't need another cake mold for the damn Santa cake! Just use the fucking whale! Nobody'll notice."
Carvel website. Make sure to check out the "Cake Carousel."
1982 Cookie Puss commercial
