OneMillionMoms, an organization affiliated with the American Family Association, announced a boycott of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream over a new flavor called “Schweddy Balls.” The group said Friday on its website: “The vulgar new flavor has turned something as innocent as ice cream into something repulsive. Not exactly what you want a child asking for at the supermarket.”
The idea for the ice cream flavor’s name came from a 1998 Saturday Night Live comedy segment featuring Alec Baldwin, Molly Shannon, and Ana Gasteyer. In the sketch Baldwin plays Pete Schweddy, a baker who brings his best-selling holiday treat to share with two public radio hosts. “No one can resist my Schweddy balls,” Baldwin famously said in character.
The new Ben & Jerry’s flavor consists of vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum flavor, mixed with fudge-covered rum and milk chocolate malt balls.
The AFA-affiliated boycott group objects to the Vermont ice cream company’s use of the “Schweddy balls” name and its sexually suggestive pun. “It seems that offending customers has become an annual tradition for Ben & Jerry’s,” the organization added on its website.
Ben & Jerry’s has a history of embracing political activism, including an ice cream flavor — ‘Hubby Hubby’ — that serves as an endorsement of same-sex marriage.
“The name is irreverent,” said Ben & Jerry’s spokesman Sean Greenwood of his company’s “Schweddy” flavor. “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.”