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4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door

Ice Cream Trucks Once Ditched Their Creepy Chimes for Oasis and Spice Girls

What’s more likely to lure you to an ice cream truck? The latest Top 40 hit on the speakers, or the actual ice cream you’re there to buy?

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When you think of the sound of an ice cream truck ambling slowly through a neighborhood, what comes to mind first? Probably something like “Turkey in the Straw”, or the eternal “The Entertainer”. Depending on how many horror-thrillers you’ve seen, these range from crisp and cheerful chimes, to off-key and sinister tunes.

Of course, across the pond, they had their own signature ice cream truck songs. Vans in the U.K. often played “Greensleeves” or “Pop Goes the Weasel”. But in July 1999, frozen food conglomerate Birds Eye Wall’s proposed a drastic change.

Instead of the familiar and long-standing jingles, they wanted to use current mainstream hits to lure kids in. The idea was that the old jingles were exactly that:........

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