On Wednesday, Ben & Jerry's ice cream company announced its newest flavor, Schweddy Balls, a limited-edition flavor that harks back to an "Saturday Night Live" routine and will contain vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered rum and malt balls, according to Time magazine.
As you may or may not remember, Schweddy Balls were immortalized by Alec Baldwin during one of his "SNL" appearances. Baldwin played Pete Schweddy, the owner of a holiday bakery called Season's Eatings who drops in for a low-key chat on his local NPR station with "SNL" regulars Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer.
In the bit, Schweddy notes: "There are lots of great treats this time of year. Zucchini bread. Fruitcake. But the thing I most like to bring out at this time of the year are my balls."
Schweddy, you see, sells popcorn balls, cheese balls, rum balls ... you get the picture. He ends with noting, "No one can resist my Schweddy Balls."
Baldwin, for one, is tickled. The actor, who will host "SNL's" season premiere on Sept. 24, said in a press release from Ben & Jerry's: "For a long time, I thought that ‘Here Lies Pete Schweddy' would end up on my tombstone. Now, thanks to Ben & Jerry's, the goodness of the Schweddy family recipe won't go with me to the great beyond. It is immortalized here, right now, and it's an ice cream. Ben & Jerry's and Schweddy. Two great names in American dessert, together at last.”
But despite sounding yummy, is it the new flavor a little ... tasteless?
"The name is irreverent," Ben & Jerry's spokesperson told Time. "But we've always been about having some irreverence and having some fun.... We're not trying to offend people. Our fans get the humor."
Still, the company isn't always so willing to be friendly with the play on words. "SNL" vet Jimmy Fallon, host of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" and the inspiration behind Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack flavor released earlier this year, had a problem with his own balls-related pun, based on a song done on the show (watch the video above if you want more; it's a little ... well, late-night for this forum).
"We had a song (about) tar balls floating up from the BP oil spill," he told this writer. "Ben & Jerry's didn't appreciate that. I can't play that balls game."
Good news for those who can play the ball game -- if Schweddy Balls catches on after three to four months, another batch could be on the way.
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