Ice-cream ads: words fail me. In a good way.

I know nothing about the quality of the products on offer at Little Baby's Ice Cream in Philadelphia. But their excellent nightmare-fuel advertisements will haunt me in a good way forever. The one above, featuring a person covered in (made of?) ice-cream eating her or his own head while narrator Matthias Bossi reads copy that sounds like the captions on the photos printed on the sleeve inside the original Stop Making Sense album, is awesome enough.

But after the jump, there is an ad that features an endless fractal zoom-out on people made of ice-cream, whose heads have been partially ablated, sitting in ice-cream cones and contemplating eating smaller versions of themselves, forever.

(via JWZ)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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http://www.kmoser.com kmoser

I thought it was “Little Babies Ice Cream”, i.e. made of little babies.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’m pretty sure that the flavor in the top video is Eraserhead’s Baby.
Chris Burch

Those ads go through the far reaches of anti-advertisement until they actually curve back around to advertisement! A very daring voyage indeed. As ice cream is my favorite food, I now sit here astounded and confused. The perfect start to my weekend!
http://twitter.com/fitztwits Matt Fitzpatrick

I scream, you scream, we all scream for existential dread.
chgoliz

I sincerely hope this is the most disturbing thing I see this month…since it cannot now be unseen, that has to be my fallback position.
splashu

I have no mouth and I ice cream
IndexMe

Ugh. Announcer actually says “I eat little babies.. ice cream”.
That said, interesting elfish skeletal structure, kinda bjorkish / moominlike. But the announcer ruins it.
- vonbobo
  
  watched it with no sound the first time around- way creepier!
http://www.facebook.com/bj.nicholls Bj Nicholls

Thank you for helping me with my dieting.
Boundegar

Horrifying. I love it. If only I still lived in Philly.
Preston Sturges

Somewhere on the internet is a picture of a woman in a cat-like pose covered in marshmallow Fluff and licking it out of the jar.
- http://twitter.com/fnordboy fnordboy
  
  Yes there is, and it’s wonderful.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzk4e2B9Z91qz6f9yo1_500.jpg
    - http://twitter.com/mackyp4 macky pamintuan
      
      I have the weirdest boner.
snagglepuss

I just dread what Baskin-Robbin’s response might be.
- Preston Sturges
  
  I was thinking more of the old Carvel commercials with Cookie Puss and Fudgey The Whale
- http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
  
  “Ice cream and cake and cake!”
Preston Sturges

The best part? Her parietal lobe is pure caramel.
Preston Sturges

Ben & Jerry’s Cerebellum Crunch?
Josh Pincus

This is AWESOME. And Little Babies ice cream is pretty good, too.
Preston Sturges

It’s like where Anthony Hopkins feeds Ray Liotta his own brain in “Hannibal.”
Jeff Erickson

Yo dawg etc.
Preston Sturges

That’s gonna go straight to her hips….
- Chuck
  
  Then it’s obvious where she should take the next lick.
Preston Sturges

If I was going to be licked by a giant tongue, I can think of more interesting scenarios.
http://www.facebook.com/heather.cristofaro Heather Cristofaro

This made me gag… unappetizing doesn’t begin to cover it.
Jim Marchese

Little Baby’s Ice Cream – expensive as balls and worth every penny. Earl Grey Sriracha and Balsamic Banana are my favorite
SomeGuyNamedMark

This ad has convinced me that ice cream is evil.
http://profile.yahoo.com/TR3VNMZRCHH6MIBNDDB2OQXDL4 James

muy yum
Chuck

One must keeping eating to maintain equilibrium. The melty bits run away with parts of you. Curse those sneaky melty bits.
http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty

That first ad reminds me of “What Happened To Eric” in Iain Banks’ first novel ‘The Wasp Factory’
http://bearandwalrus.bandcamp.com/ thesimplicity

I’m in South Philly and I can vouch for the quality of their ice cream. Beyond amazing. The Earl Gray Sriracha is a local favorite, and I’m a big fan of their Banana Balsamic.
garyg2

A
Now I guess I’ll have to tell ‘em

E
Of my ice cream cerebellum
woid

Matthias Bossi and his wife, Carla Kihlstedt, are both fantastic musicians, video makers, and all-around artists. A few months ago, they rolled out a web site, Rabbit Rabbit Radio, where they put out a monthly compendium of new work — not just music, but video, stories, graphic art, and whatever else they’ve created with their friends that month.

Rabbit Rabbit Radio works on a pay-what-you-want basis, from as little as a dollar a month on up. I’ve been a subscriber from the start, and every month has been great.

I’m a fan (obviously), and I think fellow Boingers would be too. They’re at rabbitrabbitradio.com.
- woid
  
  Sorry, wrong rabbit.
  
  Correct address: http://rabbitrabbitradio.com/
- http://thriftfu.wordpress.com License Farm
  
  Matthias & Carla were also previously members of the superb but completely uncategorizable musical collective Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, which sadly closed up shop early this year. I once saw him vamp for about 5 minutes while Carla replaced a string on her violin, babbling stonefacedly about meeting the last man in the world, Patrick Swayze, & stroking one another’s moustaches. As I’d never heard him speak in concert, it was all the more surreal a moment.
http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

Yet more evidence of the Hollywood liberal elite agenda to promote cannibalism.
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

This is the only way advertisers can reach me now; come up with something so weird and cool that someone tells me I’ve gotta see it.

I like where this is going.
jwkrk

BLINK! My eyes were in sympathetic agony by the end…
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

First impression: “This is so freaking creepy. I’ll never want ice cream again…”

Second impression: ” That took some serious balls to put this much weirdness out there, especially in America (and not Britain)…”

Final verdict: “My god they’re geniuses! I want ice cream!”
http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie

Another satisfied client of Hades Advertising Inc.
http://hellsdonuthouse.com/ Hell’s Donut House

….and to think that in 1972, a California TV station banned the advert for Captian Beefheart’s “Lick My Decals Off, Baby” on grounds of obscenity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqDDS_RFLQ

For that matter, ten years later MTV also wouldn’t air the music video for Beefheart’s song “Ice Cream For Crow.” Hm….
http://lectiblog.blogspot.com/ lecti

I want to buy their ice cream just for having the guts to approve this ad.
http://profiles.google.com/briandonaldblank Brian Blank

Words do not fail me. In a bad way. I’ve worked in advertising for 20 years. These are quite possibly the worst commercials I’ve ever seen — definitely in the top two.
http://twitter.com/CosmicGM Gary McCoy

Their tagline should be,You’ll enjoy our ice cream even as it steals your SOUL!!!
gATO

Reminds me of oh-so-many weird and wonderful japanese commercials; even the copy sounds like engrish.
http://twitter.com/jamesbuckley James Buckley

I live in Philly and am a huge fan of their icecream. They have unusual flavors and their Birth Beer is fantastic!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=8201023 Scott Gross

Great product, great advertising, and the people behind the company are incredibly nice.