Good Humor

[2] Starting in 1989, Unilever expanded Good Humor through its acquisition of Gold Bond Ice Cream that included the Popsicle brand.

As a result, Good Humor-Breyers is now a large producer of branded ice cream and frozen novelties, as part of the international Unilever Heartbrand.

[3] In 1919, Christian Nelson, an Iowa store owner, discovered how to coat an ice cream bar with chocolate, inventing the Eskimo Pie.

When he heard of the discovery, Harry Burt (1875–1926), owner of a Youngstown, Ohio, ice cream parlor, replicated Nelson's product.

They tried out the idea in the store's hardening room, where they discovered that the stick formed a strong bond when the ice cream crystallized.

[5] Burt outfitted twelve street vending trucks in Youngstown with rudimentary freezers and bells to sell his "Good Humor Ice Cream Suckers" in 1920.

Popsicle agreed to pay Good Humor a licence fee to manufacture what was called frozen suckers from ice and sherbet products.

[8] Harry Burt died in 1926, and two years later his widow sold her interest to the Midland Food Products Company, owned by a group of Cleveland businessmen.

[8] Midland Food changed the company's name to the Good Humor Corporation of America and started selling franchises with a $100 down payment.

[11] The Meehan family's Good Humor Corporation of America operated in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Detroit, and Chicago.

[11] Two years later, 21-year-old Joseph A. Meehan (1917–1972) became the youngest broker with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and chairman of Good Humor Corporation, a position he held until 1961.

Mahoney was the head of the advertising firm serving Good Humor and later became the president of the large Norton Simon conglomerate.

[19] By 1960 Good Humor expanded and included 85 different treats: sundaes in chocolate, butterscotch, and strawberry; single-serve cups in apricot and honeydew; and more.

[7] Insurance costs increased because courts found ice cream vendors responsible for pedestrian accidents while crossing streets to and from the truck.

[7] Good Humor also worked with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to equip vending trucks with school bus "stop" swing arms to reduce pedestrian accidents.

[26] Beginning in the 1950s, the labor pool dried up and Good Humor operated over half of its fleet with seasonal employees, mostly college students.

The entire industry, except Good Humor, stopped using commissioned employees and became distributors who leased trucks to the drivers and sold them their products wholesale.

In June 2020, Good Humor collaborated with music producer RZA to create a new jingle for ice cream trucks to play, to replace "Turkey in the Straw", since that song had been paired in the past with racist lyrics.

Weekly specials came in a wide assortment of flavors, including a red, white, and blue Good Humor for the Fourth of July.

The commander could not understand how the opposing artillery was quickly locating his position until he realized that the spotters were using the white Good Humor truck as a guide.

[7] After the war, a Good Humor vendor took pity on a youngster who was a nickel short and accepted a new magazine in place of the missing five cents.

When he returned the next day, the street was lined with stacks of magazines piled by children eager to exchange periodicals for Good Humors.

An early Good Humor truck, a.k.a. "sales car"
Good Humor vendor with a conventional sales car, Point Pleasant, New Jersey, 1966
A Good Humor conventional sales car from the 1960s
Good Humor vendor with an inside sales car, c. 1975
The Good Humor logo used until 1998
Canadian Good Humor ice cream cart in Toronto, 1984.