I bought one of these:
These have been around since I was a youngling, and were always a special treat when we were kids. Here’s what it looked like out of the wrapper:
First of all we observe the ice crystals and the fact the nose is coming out of the bottom of his right eye, but if we ignore that we concede he’s mostly accurate to the packaging, down to the bullet hole in the top right of his hat. I don’t remember the chocolate backing from when I was a child, but I’m sure it’s always been there.
So how does it taste?
In a word: awful. Even overlooking the fact I dislike chocolate ice cream, I found the texture of the ice-cream to be weirdly soft and dusty and the chocolate on the back tasted hideous. Luckily Sue was happy to eat the chocolate and handed it back with only the strawberry ice-cream left:
Even this was awful. The taste was marginally better than the chocolate but it had the texture of popcorn chicken, which is to say more like tofu or aerogel than actual ice cream. As this point this frozen novelty was pretty much the worst ice cream I’ve ever eaten, but it still had the bubblegum nose and this could turn the entire thing around…
But… it was abysmal. The ball (which seems smaller than when we were kids) was more like compounded powder than gum, and tasted of pez or sweet tarts (ie. awful). I suspect this is that sort of sweet that starts as candy and turns to gum in the mouth, but the taste and impression of eating it was so terrible I had to spit it out. When we were kids this was a bubblegum nose, not a weird lolly that (maybe?) turns to bubblegum after a while!!
Ultimately this frozen novelty was an absolute fail. I hated the taste and texture of the ice cream, the chocolate backing and – worst of all – the nose. I’ll never eat one of these ever again, and perhaps even my fond memories from childhood are now erased. You can guess my score!
I like dusty ice cream. The coconut milk ice cream I occasionally get is like that.
I remember Bubble ‘O Bills as a sort of special occasion ice cream. It was more expensive compared to a Paddle Pop or Icy Pole so it wouldn’t be an everyday thing.