COLD STORAGE: THE LIFE & DEATH OF TOM CARVEL

Tom Carvel — ice cream king, business tycoon, the man who brought us Fudgie the Whale. His voice was one that could sink a thousand ships, yet his was the voice of Carvel. “Who better to sell my ice cream than me?” he reasoned. And he was right. In the 1970s and ‘80s you’d hear him calling out “Buy one, get one free!” deals during commercial breaks. It was precisely that lack of Madison Avenue polish that made you believe Carvel was kindly, grandfatherly, a regular guy who just happened to make a lotta dough selling soft-serve ice cream. But all he really wanted was to make a kid smile. And you’d be wrong. Because what began as the quintessential American story — a Greek immigrant uses his ingenuity to create an empire — ended in disaster that may have resulted in Carvel’s death. It definitely resulted in litigation over his estate where the ones who benefitted most were the lawyers.

So how did something as innocent as selling ice cream turn so tragic? How could a tyrant create Cookie Puss? And does anyone really know who anyone is? “Cold Storage” is the investigative podcast that answers these questions — and brings up plenty more — in its search to discover who Tom Carvel was. Along the way we’ll learn why the invention of soft-serve ice cream was up there with the invention of the light bulb, how Carvel treated many of his franchisees like cash cows, and why a sure-fire way to success in business lies not only in your smarts but in your golf handicap.

S1E1: Tom Carvel—A Sweet Empire Till It Melted

Those of you who lived up and down the East Coast but especially in NY and NJ and are of a certain age remember Carvel ice cream shops as if there was on every corner. Now where can you find one? As it turns out, at one point Carvel stores, like those who patronized them, largely ditched the cities for strip malls in the suburbs, leaving behind the glass-front shops that had twirling cones on the roof. Now that was ice cream!

So what caused this twist of fate? Was it an inability to change with the times? Bad luck? Or murder? We'll find out in Cold Storage. Available above on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, and Acast.

S1E2: prohibition means America screams for ice cream

Prohibition turned ice cream from a sweet treat to a booming empire as people needed their sugar fix--breweries like Anheuser-Busch and Yuengling began to sell rocky road instead of beer.

By the end of Prohibition in 1933 the demand for ice cream decreased, though ice cream itself was firmly entrenched in our way of life … just in time for Tom Carvel to be riding his truck through Hartsdale, NY. Available above on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, and Acast.