Alec Baldwin scooped Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough from a large bucket into small dishes in the lobby of the Flynn Theater Monday night, handing them to adoring fans at the VIP pre-show “Ice Cream Social.”
In between, he stopped and plunged his face forward and flashed his signature devilish grin to satisfy another smartphone photo request.
One of the hottest celebrities on television and radio was clearly tired. And for good reason. The night before, his new television interview show had premiered, with Robert De Niro a guest. The night before that, Baldwin made another memorable appearance as President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live.”
“When Lorne (Michaels) called, he said three shows, that’s it,” Baldwin told the full house later. That was before the election, when Trump’s candidacy was considered a joke and a long shot. “Now look,” he said, smiling and rolling his eyes, a seeming mix of pain and pleasure about his ongoing regular SNL gig.
The 30 Rock star was at the Flynn to record his popular weekly radio show, “Here’s the Thing,” with Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield as his guests. Baldwin said interviewing the pair about one of his favorite foods was as decadent as Imelda Marcos doing a show about shoes. Baldwin claimed he ate four dishes during the “Ice Cream Social” and before the show. He noted a creamy, white spot at the bottom of his pant leg halfway through the almost hour and a half interview.
Politics came up plenty, but Baldwin didn’t make that the point of the evening. For sure, they all talked about campaign finance reform. They mentioned Bernie. And Baldwin went on a rant about government spending priorities. Ben acknowledged the company’s first social mission that started in 1988, 1 Percent for Peace, an effort to shift Pentagon spending to peace-promoting projects, had been largely unsuccessful, because of the political influence of defense contractors. To punctuate his point, Ben flashed his “Stamp Money Out of Politics” T-shirt.
Jerry talked passionately about activism too — both served as surrogates for Sanders in 2016 and said he should be the nominee in 2020 — but Jerry, the more introverted of two, said he had always been a step behind Ben, including on social activism. It was, Jerry said fondly, a good place to be. Safer too, he added, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Baldwin did a brief impersonation of Trump that lit up the crowd — he had to. He played The Donald while showing the moves he used to get into character, the exaggerated arched eyebrow, the scrunched up face — but politics played such a back seat in the discussion that the name of the most recent Supreme Court justice never came up. The country, Baldwin observed, is suffering from “Trump fatigue.” He was preaching to the choir. When Baldwin asked how many Republicans were in attendance, only a few people in the balcony clapped. Baldwin said he counted four.
Baldwin put the focus on Ben and Jerry’s enduring friendship — bonding as “fat kids in junior high,” Ben said. There were stories about the early years when the entrepreneurs were on the financial ropes, Jerry slicing into thirds Heath Bars they’d bought retail until Fred “Chico” Lager came along and cut a deal to buy the candy straight from manufacturer and generally whipped the company into shape.
Ben described how they measured whether the ingredients were right by slicing the pint into fours, a virtual ice cream autopsy. There was nostalgia about the ice cream they all ate growing up, half-gallons of Breyer’s, and how Unilever, which bought Ben & Jerry’s over the founders’ objections, has scooped up many other ice creams brand names, including Good Humor, Popsicle, Magnum and Walls.
The biggest laugh of the night wasn’t about Trump — it came when Baldwin declared with point-blank clarity that if he ever showed up at Greenfield’s house and the freezer was bare “I would absolutely kick your ass.”
Yes, the interview wasn’t perfect. Several times, Baldwin asked too long a question and moved on too quickly, not letting Ben or Jerry fully answer. He missed a key chapter in the company’s history when the two were low on money and took on Pillsbury, asking “What’s the DoughBoy afraid of?” when Pillsbury threatened retailers who also sold Ben & Jerry’s alongside their Haagen-Dazs pints. It was a key turning point.
Baldwin spoke long on funding for the arts, but it was OK because the audience was there as much, if not more, to see Baldwin as the two ice cream moguls. At one point, Baldwin captured perfectly the shock and disappointment of the plastic spoon scraping along an empty pint bottom.
There were insights and quirks about Ben and Jerry that many longtime lovers of Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia may not have heard before that Baldwin successfully teased out. There was the story of Jerry living on a combo of Cream of Wheat and Cream of Mushroom Soup during the company’s early years. Ben, the audience learned, made up all of the new flavors (along with some suggested by followers) and none came from Jerry. There was a funny, shaggy-dog story about the legal department for Nabisco insisting on changing the wording on the packaging of B & J’s Mint with Oreos ice cream, their first added-feature flavor. Jerry Garcia was in the hospital in a diabetic coma when they packed in dry ice the first pint of Cherry Garcia that came off the assembly line and sent it to the Grateful Dead frontman. Then there was the tale of Heath Bar Crunch and how Jerry stopped cutting the Heath Bars into perfect shapes after a large bag fell from a high shelf and the candy broke into just the right random sizes.
The day of the interview, the two talked twice about what they would wear, Ben calling back after his wife recommended against the button-down shirt he initially put on. They spoke about how they maintained their enduring friendship. They expressed surprise and gratitude the company’s social mission has continued to be so strong despite the two having no connection to the company anymore, not even a promotional role.
They are so out of the loop that Ben said he can’t even get the higher-ups to listen to his newest idea, a flavor inspired by a fan, one that drew ooohs and ahs and applause from the crowd.
It’s well known, Ben explained, that ice cream is the number one salve for a broken heart, so why not a brand targeted for those that just suffered a bad breakup, a pint a girlfriend can bring to another.
The name?
“You Can Do Better…scotch,” Ben told the crowd. A soothing mix of coffee ice cream with streaks of butterscotch, inside a pink container, he explained.
Now, there’s a scoop for you.
