1965 Ford 250 Good Humor Ice Cream Truck - More Than Just An Ice Cream Truck

The rhythmic tinkling of the bells on Good Humor ice cream trucks was as much a part of growing up on Long Island as the quacking of the ducks in the park next to my house. Growing up in Nassau County, just a stone's throw from Kennedy Airport, whenever one of those trucks turned onto Overlook Place it was about as Norman Rockwellian as my life ever got. The ice cream was pretty good, too.

In my mind's eye, the Good Humor trucks that pulled onto my block looked exactly like this one. Everything from the dashboard forward—and everything underneath—was essentially a 1965 Ford F-250. It was, of course, that massive freezer out back, with its mini vault-like doors that opened and closed with wonderful solidity, that made a Good Humor truck a Good Humor truck.

Good Humor was founded by candy maker Harry Burt in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1920. Burt's first successful invention was the "Jolly Boy Sucker," a lollipop on a stick. While experimenting in his ice cream parlor, he developed a chocolate coating that would adhere to ice cream without cracking or sliding off. His daughter, Ruth, reportedly thought it tasted wonderful but was messy to eat. It was his son, Harry Jr., who suggested inserting the same wooden sticks used in the Jolly Boy Suckers into the ice cream to serve as handles. Burt called his new creation the Good Humor Bar, a name inspired by the then-common belief that a person's mood—or "humor"—was influenced by what they ate.

In the beginning, Good Humor bars were sold from white wagons by door-to-door salesmen dressed in crisp white uniforms. The uniforms were intended to convey cleanliness, professionalism and safety, helping build trust in neighborhoods where the company was introducing a completely new product.

With the advent of refrigerated delivery trucks, Good Humor transitioned to the porcelain-white trucks that became synonymous with the brand. In 1930, Burt sold a controlling interest in the company to M.J. Meehan, who rapidly expanded Good Humor's distribution. By the mid-1930s, Good Humor bars were being sold throughout much of the United States.

Most of the Good Humor trucks I remember were heavy-duty Ford or Chevrolet pickups fitted with insulated bodies built by Hackney Brothers Body Company of Washington, North Carolina.

The refrigeration systems were plug-in "cold plate" freezers. Overnight, the trucks would be connected to 220-volt power, allowing the cold plates to freeze to temperatures well below zero. During the day, those plates kept the ice cream frozen without the need for a continuously running refrigeration unit. Depending on outside temperatures and how often the freezer doors were opened, the system could typically keep the ice cream frozen for several days before needing to be plugged in again. As a safety precaution, many Good Humor trucks omitted the driver's-side door so drivers would always exit curbside rather than into traffic.

By the way, I don't recall Good Humor drivers dressed in uniforms like this. By the time I was a kid, they were usually young guys with long hair, T-shirts and cutoffs. It was a far cry from the wholesome, middle-American image Good Humor cultivated in the 1940s and '50s, but it worked well enough for me.

In 1961, the Meehan family sold Good Humor to the Thomas J. Lipton Company, Unilever's U.S. subsidiary. In 1976, Lipton discontinued what it called "direct selling" and shifted its focus to selling Good Humor products through supermarkets and convenience stores. Many local fleets of Good Humor trucks were sold to independent ice cream distributors, who simply repainted them and replaced the familiar Good Humor logos with their own.

That explains why, in the late '70s, I'd still see trucks that looked exactly like Good Humor trucks cruising neighborhoods selling what could best be described as generic ice cream. While buying Good Humor bars at the supermarket was certainly more convenient than waiting for the truck to come down the block, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that in 1976, Lipton phased out far more than just a fleet of ice cream trucks. It quietly brought an end to one of the great rites of the American summer.