If you grew up in the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s, the sound of an ice cream truck changed the trajectory of your entire afternoon. You heard that jingle from three blocks away. You dropped everything — the bike, the ball, the garden hose — and sprinted for loose change. The whole neighborhood materialized on the curb in under 90 seconds. This is the complete guide to those trucks, those treats, what they cost then, and which ones you can still track down today.
The Sound of Summer
The jingle was everything. Before you saw the truck, you heard it. Those melodies were chosen for a specific reason: they had to be recognizable from a great distance through a cheap, tinny loudspeaker mounted on the roof of a moving vehicle. Simple, repetitive tunes with high-pitched notes carried the farthest.
"Turkey in the Straw" was the most common ice cream truck melody in America from the 1940s through the 1970s. Its origins trace back to minstrel-era folk songs, and in recent years some ice cream companies have retired it because of those associations. But for millions of kids growing up mid-century, those opening notes meant one thing: drop everything and run.
"Do Your Ears Hang Low" (adapted from an older song with considerably less polite lyrics) became the signature tune for many trucks in the 1960s and 1970s. Its repetitive, nursery-rhyme structure was perfectly engineered for the job — you could identify it in the first three notes, even through walls and closed windows.
"The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin took over many trucks in the late 1970s and 1980s, especially after its use in the 1973 film The Sting brought ragtime back into the mainstream. Mr. Softee had its own proprietary jingle — a custom composition written in 1956 by Les Waas that became so iconic the company trademarked it.
The music boxes in those trucks were mechanical at first — actual metal cylinders with pins that plucked metal tines, like a massive music box bolted to the roof. By the 1970s, most had switched to electronic loops. Either way, the volume was set to exactly one level: loud enough to hear from inside your house with the TV on.
The Classic Menu
The menu was printed on the side of the truck in fading, sun-bleached photographs that made everything look slightly more appealing than it was. The prices were hand-painted or stuck on with adhesive numbers. Here is what that menu looked like, and what those treats cost then versus now:
| Treat | 1960s-1970s Price | Today's Price | Still Available? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bomb Pop | $0.15 | $2.50 | Yes — grocery & trucks |
| Drumstick | $0.25 | $3.50 | Yes — grocery & trucks |
| Push-Up Pop | $0.10 | $2.00 | Yes — grocery stores |
| Creamsicle | $0.15 | $2.50 | Yes — grocery & trucks |
| Snow Cone | $0.10 | $1.50 | Yes — trucks & stands |
| Fudgsicle | $0.10 | $2.00 | Yes — grocery stores |
| Screwball | $0.15 | $2.00 | Limited — some trucks |
| Choco Taco | $0.50 | Discontinued | No — discontinued 2022 |
| Strawberry Shortcake Bar | $0.25 | $3.00 | Yes — grocery & trucks |
| Ice Cream Sandwich | $0.10 | $2.00 | Yes — everywhere |
The Bomb Pop — red, white, and blue, cherry-lime-blue raspberry — was introduced in 1955 by James S. Merritt and D.S. Abernethy in Kansas City. It was patriotic, it was three flavors in one, and it melted down your arm faster than you could eat it. The race against gravity was half the fun.
The Drumstick (a sugar cone filled with vanilla ice cream, topped with chocolate and peanuts, with a solid chocolate plug at the bottom of the cone) dates back to 1928. The chocolate plug was not a bonus — it was a structural innovation to prevent the ice cream from leaking out the bottom. Engineering disguised as dessert.
The Push-Up Pop was pure simplicity: sherbet or ice cream in a cardboard tube with a stick at the bottom. You pushed the stick up to advance the treat. No dripping, no wrapper, no mess — at least in theory. In practice, the cardboard got soggy and the stick bent. But at $0.10, nobody complained.
The Strawberry Shortcake Bar — vanilla ice cream with a strawberry swirl, coated in a crumbly strawberry-flavored shell — was the choice for kids who wanted something that felt fancy. It was the closest thing to an actual dessert that you could eat with one hand while riding a bike.
The Trucks Themselves
The trucks were almost always white — white because it reflected heat and kept the freezers colder, and white because it looked clean and trustworthy. Most were modified step vans or panel trucks with a serving window cut into the passenger side. The freezer ran off a separate generator or the truck's engine, which is why the truck kept running while it was parked.
Good Humor was the original. Founded in 1920 by Harry Burt in Youngstown, Ohio, Good Humor operated a fleet of white trucks with uniformed drivers across the country from the 1920s through the 1970s. At its peak, the company had thousands of trucks. Good Humor didn't franchise — it owned the trucks, employed the drivers, and maintained the routes. This gave it a consistency and professionalism that local operators couldn't match.
Mr. Softee started in 1956 in Philadelphia, founded by William and James Conway. Mr. Softee's innovation was soft-serve ice cream dispensed from a machine inside the truck — cones and sundaes made to order, not pre-packaged bars from a freezer. The company's smiling cone-headed mascot and that unmistakable jingle made it the dominant truck brand in the Northeast, and it remains the largest ice cream truck franchise in the United States today with over 600 trucks.
Then there were the independents — local operators who bought a used truck, bolted a freezer in the back, stuck a music box on the roof, and drove the neighborhoods. Quality varied wildly. Some were beloved institutions. Others were questionable operations with dubious hygiene and music boxes stuck on one song. Every neighborhood had a strong opinion about which truck was "the good one."
Regional Favorites
What you got from the truck depended heavily on where you lived. The national brands were everywhere, but the regional specialties were what made your truck yours.
In the Northeast, Italian ice was king — cups of flavored ice in lemon, cherry, and watermelon, often sold from trucks that specialized exclusively in Italian ices and were considered a different category entirely from ice cream trucks. In New York City, Mr. Softee trucks outnumbered all other brands combined, and territorial disputes between truck operators were legendary (and occasionally made the news).
In the Southwest, paletas — Mexican-style ice pops made from fresh fruit — were the signature truck treat. Paleteros (paleta vendors) pushed carts through neighborhoods, ringing a hand bell. The mango con chile paleta, dusted with chili powder and lime, was a revelation if you'd only ever known Popsicles.
In the South, banana Popsicles and Nutty Buddys (a regional name for what the rest of the country called a Drumstick) were staples. Some Southern trucks carried frozen Kool-Aid in Dixie cups — a homemade item that no national brand replicated.
In the Midwest, the ice cream truck was often the only mobile vendor kids encountered, and trucks ran long routes through suburban subdivisions. Blue Moon ice cream — a vivid blue, almond-flavored Midwest exclusive — appeared on truck menus throughout Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
The Good Humor Man
The Good Humor Man was a specific type of person in American culture from the 1930s through the 1970s. He wore an all-white uniform — white pants, white shirt, white cap, black bow tie. He carried a coin changer on his belt. He rang a set of bells mounted on the truck (before the switch to electronic jingles). He was clean-cut, polite, and professional.
Good Humor screened and trained its drivers. They were expected to be courteous to children, make correct change quickly, and keep their trucks spotless. In many neighborhoods, the Good Humor Man was as trusted and familiar as the mailman. Parents sent children outside with money and never thought twice about it. The Good Humor Man knew the kids' names. He knew which houses had dogs. He knew to skip the corner house because Mrs. Henderson didn't like the jingle.
The uniform mattered. It signaled legitimacy. When Good Humor sold off its truck fleet in 1976 and shifted to grocery store distribution, the uniformed driver disappeared — and with him, a specific kind of neighborhood trust that independent operators have never fully recaptured.
What Happened to the Ice Cream Truck
The ice cream truck's decline started in the late 1970s and accelerated through the 1990s. Several forces converged.
Good Humor exited the truck business in 1976. Rising fuel costs, labor costs, and the growing availability of the same products in supermarkets made the truck model unprofitable for a large corporation. Unilever (which acquired Good Humor) found it could sell far more product through grocery distribution with none of the overhead of maintaining a fleet and payroll.
Safety concerns grew. By the 1980s and 1990s, parents were more reluctant to send children to the curb with cash to meet an unvetted stranger in a van. Several high-profile incidents (though statistically rare) fueled anxiety. Cities began requiring background checks, permits, and insurance for ice cream truck operators — reasonable regulations that also made it harder for small operators to stay in business.
Noise ordinances targeted the jingles. Suburban communities that once welcomed the music began passing restrictions on mobile vendor sound levels, hours of operation, and routes. Some cities banned ice cream truck jingles outright.
The economics changed. A treat that sold for $0.15 in 1970 might sell for $2.50 today, but the cost of the truck, fuel, insurance, permits, commissary fees, and product have risen faster than the price customers will pay from a truck window. Margins are thin. Many operators today rely on events, festivals, and private bookings rather than neighborhood routes.
But the ice cream truck never fully disappeared. In many cities, it has been making a quiet comeback — often with a twist. Gourmet ice cream trucks, artisanal popsicle trucks, and nitrogen ice cream trucks have appeared in urban markets. And in many working-class and immigrant neighborhoods, the ice cream truck never left at all.
Where to Find These Treats Today
The good news: most of the classic treats survived. They are just not on a truck anymore.
Grocery stores carry Bomb Pops, Drumsticks, Creamsicles, Fudgsicles, Push-Up Pops, Strawberry Shortcake Bars, and Ice Cream Sandwiches in multi-packs. The brands are now owned by large conglomerates (Unilever, Nestle, Wells Enterprises), but the recipes are largely unchanged. A box of Bomb Pops from the freezer aisle is the same Bomb Pop you ate in 1972.
Mr. Softee still operates over 600 trucks, primarily in the eastern United States. The company's website has a truck locator. If you are in the New York, New Jersey, or Philadelphia metro areas, Mr. Softee trucks are still a regular summer presence.
Retro ice cream shops have become a niche market. Shops specializing in vintage treats — hand-dipped bars, old-fashioned sundaes, and ice cream truck nostalgia — have opened in cities across the country. Many stock the exact brands and products that once appeared on truck menus.
Event trucks are the modern iteration. You can hire an ice cream truck for a birthday party, corporate event, or neighborhood block party. Many operators stock classic treats alongside modern options and will play the jingle on request.
The Choco Taco Story
The Choco Taco deserves its own section because its story is one of the stranger chapters in American food culture.
Invented in 1983 by Alan Drazen, a product developer at Jack and Jill Ice Cream (a Philadelphia company that later became part of Good Humor-Breyers, which is owned by Unilever), the Choco Taco was a waffle cone shaped like a taco, filled with vanilla ice cream swirled with fudge, dipped in chocolate, and coated with peanuts. It was an engineering marvel of the novelty ice cream world.
Klondike (owned by Unilever) manufactured the Choco Taco for decades. It became a cult favorite — the kind of product that inspired genuine devotion. People did not just like the Choco Taco. They built part of their identity around it.
In July 2022, Klondike announced the Choco Taco was being discontinued. The reaction was immediate and volcanic. Social media erupted. News outlets covered it as a national tragedy. U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut called it "a moment for the country to come together." Taco Bell, which had sold Choco Tacos in some locations, publicly mourned the loss.
Klondike briefly brought the Choco Taco back in limited quantities in 2023, but as of this writing, it remains essentially discontinued — not manufactured at scale, not available in most stores, and not on truck menus. For a product that cost $0.50 from a truck window in the 1980s, the Choco Taco left an outsized hole in American dessert culture.
The Bottom Line
The ice cream truck was never just about ice cream. It was a social event — the entire neighborhood converging on a single point, standing on the curb together, making small talk while kids agonized over whether to get the Bomb Pop or the Screwball. It was the sound of summer made tangible. The trucks are fewer now, the prices are higher, and the Good Humor Man in his white uniform is gone. But the Bomb Pop still tastes the same. The Drumstick still has that chocolate plug at the bottom of the cone. And if you close your eyes while eating a Creamsicle on your front porch, you can almost hear that jingle coming around the corner.