Reader Andrew snagged this phone camera video on September 29th of an ice cream truck enticing children with tinny renditions of Christmas carols. Ok, here’s one industry where it’s almost ok that they’ve been infected by the Christmas Creep. Ice cream trucks don’t really get a lot of business in the winter so if they want to play along, they have to start early.
See something strange in your neighborhood? Send it to tips@consumerist.com.
Christmas Creep-y Ice Cream Truck [Politics & P2P]
More From Consumerist
-
Evil Ice Cream Truck Stalks Competition, Offers Customers Free Treats, Gets Arrested
-
Ice Cream Company Knows What You’re Here For: You Want Nutrition? Eat Carrots
-
East Coast Suffers Horrific Ice Cream Bar Shortage
-
Delicious Ice Cream Gollum Creature Eats Itself, Creeps Us Out
-
New Breyers Recipes: When Ice Cream Is 'Frozen Dairy Dessert'
“See something strange in your neighborhood? Send it to tips@consumerist.com.”
Consumerist is now partnered with Ghostbusters?
+1 Internet
We’re ready to believe you.
♥♥♥♥♥
Who you gonna call when the Ghostbusters have switched to email?
There is an even creepier ice cream ‘truck” in my nieghborhood…it’s the tiniest vehicle I’ve ever seen, it’s gotta be from Europe or something because I’ve never seen anything like it – and it also plays Christmas Carol. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer seems to be a favorite.
It’s a crap video, but I didn’t have my video camera with me, only my 2yo cellphone.
I did get a better recording yesterday, but i’ve not got it off my camera yet.
I’d be hard pressed to call this Christmas creep – most of the trucks I’ve seen play Jingle Bells year-round (well, summer-round). A simple peppy tune that attracts attention is all you need.
It’s not really creep if you aren’t trying to sell Christmas.
I HATE ice-cream trucks. The times I’ve fantasized about sniping the f-ing speaker on the truck are countless. I think there ought to be a law prohibiting them from playing the jingle while stationary.
At least where I live this could count as disturbance of the peace. Now if a cop is actually gonna get there before the ice cream man drives off is another question.
This was hovering around that trailer park for at least 30 mins afterward. It was alternating between Christmas carols and ‘regular’ tunes.
And here I thought the old middle eastern dude that drove around in my neighborhood was the only one playing Jingle Bells.
No Ice Cream for you!
We get ice cream trucks running through our industrial park nearly all year round, but then again that’s Florida, it’s 80+ outside today in October.
I heard the ice-cream truck yesterday, October 3rd… in Wisconsin. The low yesterday was 38, high in the 50′s.
96 today in phoenix, was 104 on friday. ice cream for everybody!
93 in Tucson; it’s never a bad time for the ice cream truck. I wish one came to my office!
As long as I don’t have to listen to “Turkey in the Straw” over and over… the change would be welcome (for a few days).
Yeah, the one in my neighborhood plays Turkey in the Straw. I’m always struck by what a strange choice that is, but compared to Jingle Bells in the summer I guess it’s alright.
The trucks in my area alternate between “Turkey in the Straw” and “The Entertainer”. Ugh!
The ice cream truck that has been going through our complex this summer has had “Jingle Bells” int he rotation every time I heard/saw it, took me a minute to place it when I first heard it due to the fact that it was May. It actually kind of works for ice cream truck music.
I wonder if OP lives in my neighborhood… there’s a couple of ice cream trucks that come by, but I’m always “out of cash” when that one comes by, much to my kids’ everlasting disappointment.
It’s Shady Dale, Georgia. A town so small, I’m even the most notable person according to Wikipedia. Yeah, says it all really.
About 12 years ago there was a court case in Asbury Park, New Jersey where a number of people in a neighborhood actually sued an ice cream truck operator because he played the same damn jingle continually every evening for two hours on one street. When they sued him, he dug his heels in and absolutely refused to change the tune under any circumstances – no compromise. The court made short work of it and said he had the absolute right to play that tune. I remember after the decision came down, a bunch of reporters asked him what he was going to do now that he won. He said, “I’m gonna change that effin’ jingle. It’s driving me nuts.â€
We went to the beach in August and the ice cream truck came around playing Christmas music.
An ice cream truck in our old LA neighborhood played Russian funeral dirges.
The Snack-n-Crack* that sticks around the questionable apartment complex some blocks away usually blares a tinny rendition of either Jingle Bells or Happy Birthday. I long for the day when the police are finally able to bust whoever owns it if for no reason other than never, ever having to hear those two songs repeated for hours and hours!
(*Not the actual name, just the local nickname because ice cream at half-past eleven in the middle of December? Not a kid in sight, just a handful of twitchy adults? Right.)
Excuse me, I’m looking for a car that’s tricked out to look like an ice cream truck. You know, with colorful pictures with ice cream treats. And it plays a tune that’s fun for the young children.
We have an ice cream truck in our town of 2,200 people that plays the same Christmas music (and other songs including the theme from Godfather – THAT’s creepy) all year round. Worse yet, the driver has a relative next door to us, and sometimes parks there while visiting… sometimes for a couple hours… and leaves the truck running.
I’m in Sonoma County and we don’t even have ice cream trucks as far as I can tell. We have ice cream… bicycles? Hispanic men drive these bikes around with like a freezer or something attached to the front, and they sell cotton candy too. I’m from Boston so this is very foreign to me.
I wonder where this was shot my SIL was telling me a few weeks ago that they have a ice cream truck that plays christmas songs and it was creeping her out.
I’d almost prefer that to the ripped off crappy versions of Disney music that the ice cream trucks in my area play.
Our neighborhood IC truck also plays a loop of terrible, out-of-tune public domain music that includes random Christmas carols. I just assume that this device was manufactured somewhere that they don’t know or don’t care what meanings may be associated with the tunes. It also plays Happy Birthday.
On a related note, our son is such a good, regular customer that every day the truck now parks in front of our house for about 10 minutes, or until he comes out and buys something… so I get to hear this miserable loop several times a week.
I’ve seen the same thing in my neighborhood. The driver appears to be Middle Eastern or maybe Indian – So odds are he is not Christian. If that’s the case, I’m wondering if he doesn’t even know that he’s playing Christmas music.