Among the cast of characters at Halloween are various monsters: vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, goblins, zombies, etc. Most of these are scary, or at least eerie.

But then there’s the Cookie Monster. I’m not sure exactly what it is that qualifies him as a monster, but since “monster” is in his name, I’ll let it go.

There’s nothing scary at all about Cookie Monster. In fact, he’s beloved by toddlers all over the world. So let me explain why we’re talking about him: Today I went to the town of Folsom in search of a new Halloween-season ice cream. I went to Handels, which belongs to an Ohio-based chain of ice cream shops that all make their ice cream on premises. Among their seasonal flavors were the usual pumpkin and some kind of caramel-apple concoction. But what caught my eye was a bright blue ice cream called “Cookie Monster.” It contains not one but two kinds of cookies (Chips Ahoy and Oreos). Let’s try it!

Conceptual Soundness: Cookie Monster stuffs himself with cookies, and this ice cream is stuffed with cookies. That’s a pretty good concept, especially when you color the ice cream cookie-monster-blue. Let’s give it 3 points.

Appearance: As you can see, it’s close to the same shade of blue as Cookie Monster. You also see that they were quite generous with the cookie pieces, which jut out like tombstones from a hilltop graveyard. I wouldn’t say it looks especially appetizing, but it does look interesting and novel. That’s worth 2 points.

Taste: Turns out this is just cookies ‘n’ cream (C&C) ice cream with blue food coloring. Don’t get me wrong; I like C&C ice cream. And this is a high-quality specimen of it. But it seems Handels missed an opportunity to leverage the blue color: give it a blueberry flavor, for example, or maybe add actual blueberries. Instead, if you were eating this in the dark, it’d be indistinguishable from ordinary C&C. Yes, there are two different kinds of cookies in this, but you really can’t distinguish them here. Its average-ness only justifies 2 points. That said, the quality of this ice cream is impressive, so that kicks it up to 3 points.

Value: I got a small cup, which cost $5.50. That’s slightly more than the B-R cone I had the other day. On the other hand, this scoop was significantly larger, and the quality was higher, and frankly the flavor was more enjoyable. 3.5 points.

Total Treat Score: 11.5 fabulous points! Ah-hah-hah!

MAIL BAG

One of Chasing Phantoms’ younger fans decided to check out the BuzzBallz we reviewed last weekend.