Ice cream is, by its nature, the most fun food on the planet. That is said with all due respect to candy, but ice cream wins the day due to one simple factor: its association with cows. And cows, as anyone who has ever read “The Far Side” can tell you, are the animal kingdom’s most perfect punchline.
Is it their distinctive look? Is it the weird sounds they make? Is the plethora of puns they engender part of what makes them so – ahem – “udderly” fun? In a word, yes. It’s all of these things.
Pete Savarese knows more than most how fun ice cream can be. It’s been his calling in life since he was a kid, first hired at The Ice Cream Cone in Coligny as a scoop jockey in high school. In fact, in the ultimate demonstration of the American Ice Cream Dream, he had so much fun he eventually took over as owner.
Jack Bunker and Pete Savarese sit in front of the new artwork at the Ice Cream Cone in Coligny Plaza.
And that’s when the real fun began.
“We were working on a remodel, and Carolanne O’Fee was doing a big cartoon of Hilton Head Island, but it didn’t seem to fit the space,” he said. “So, I jokingly sent her an image of Bruce (Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”) and asked, ‘Can you make him a cow’?”
O’Fee took to the challenge with gusto. An accomplished mural artist working alongside her sister Charlotte and boyfriend Jack Bunker (check out their work on Instagram @maisonofee), she had a personal stake in this latest project. She’s not only an artist, she’s also a former employee who worked alongside Savarese during his early days.
That first bovine parody sparked a whole spree of cow-themed album covers across one counter. Andy Warhol’s famous banana cover became a banana split. Green Day’s American Idiot became Cone Day’s American Waffle Cone. You might never have heard of “The Toppings” but you’ll recognize the image of the four cow band members crossing Abbey Road. And naturally, The Rolling Stones’ 40 Licks finds an angus remix at The Ice Cream Cone.
“That was last season, and when we were making more changes to the store, I had that whole wall open,” Savarese said. “I had a lot of people commenting on the table, so I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
While the album covers opened the door for cow puns, movie posters kicked that door open. On the back wall of The Ice Cream Cone you’ll find ads for a vast range of fun – kid’s favorites (“Moonions”), crime dramas (“Beef Fiction”), comedies (“Moolander”), and even sci-fi (“The Cowminator”). The cow puns even made it onto one of the three coolers stuffed with ice cream flavors, bearing the unmistakable police lineup of “The Moosual Suspects.”
Carolanne O’Fee is photographed next to the Moosual Suspects.
“We have 30 people a day come in to look at it. It’s been a really big hit,” Savarese said. “Now I want to do the entire store.”
Savarese plans to have nearly every wall covered with cow posters over the next five years, giving him plenty of time to dream up fresh puns while living his ice cream dream. “Next year we want to work in a few sports puns,” he said, “so we’ll definitely have at least one Moohammad Ali.”
