Have you seen any Magnum Ice Cream commercials lately?
In one, Rachel Bilson, the beautiful actress from The O.C. and Hart of Dixie, runs barefoot over the hoods of a dozen cars in pursuit of the Magnum Ice Cream truck, while men watch with their tongues all but wagging. (Wagging for Magnum, or Rachel? You decide). It ends with Rachel taking a slow motion bite from an ice cream bar.
There’s one where a movie-star beautiful woman drives up to a castle and turns over her empty wooden Magnum bar stick as her ticket into what is surely the world’s most exclusive party. She sidles up to the bar in an Oscar-worthy dress and the bartender serves her a Magnum Ice Cream bar, from which she takes a lovely slow-motion bite as the curtain closes on the scene.
Then of course there’s the one where beautiful young women run through vaguely European streets after gold balloons filled with Magnum Ice Cream bars. I didn’t bother watching this one to the end, but I’ll bet all those women took sexy, slow motion bites.
Their tagline is Take Pleasure Seriously, a double entendre if ever I heard one.
But they finally came up with one that got me—a high tech factory pours ice cream into a container and seals it with a hard chocolate coating. When the sexy woman buys the pint, she has to squeeze it and crack the coating before she opens the container.
Okay, you—finally—have my attention, Magnum. I want to crack the coating and take my pleasure.
I have a strict rule—no ice cream in the house—which I decided to break. (No ice cream in the house is an excellent rule when you live alone and could theoretically eat a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting with no witnesses—or even someone to say the next morning, “Honey, what happened to the butter pecan?”)
But I decided Magnum could be a one-time exception. And I wouldn’t eat the whole pint—I’d just crack the container, eat about half of it, and throw the rest away. How bad could a little taste of Magnum be? In fact, if there is any truth in advertising (ha ha), it might make me irresistible and ready for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
So I drove out to the store and found the Magnum Tub Milk Chocolate Hazelnut and brought it home. Everything was going fine until I looked at the dreaded nutrition facts on the back.
First off, this “pint” is not a pint. It is 14.8 ounces. And this not-really-a-pint has 1,020 calories in it. As in, two Big Mac’s worth.
And a whopping 72 grams of fat. That’s more fat and calories than a plate of fettuccine alfredo (aka Heart Attack on a Plate) from the Olive Garden.
Methinks these skinny woman are not actually eating the Magnum bars in these commercials. (Or if they are, a finger goes down the throat the moment the cameras are off).
Still, as a woman of 2018, I persisted. I squeezed the container to crack the shell. Unlike the woman in the commercial, I didn’t get a resounding, sexy crack.
I got nothing. I squeezed and squeezed, but no loud crack. Hmm.
I pulled off the lid and found directions. Directions, by the way, that would’ve been helpful on the outside of the container.
Set out and wait ten minutes before cracking.
While waiting I watched all the commercials again, and found an old one where people went around erotically biting strangers. Apparently their former tagline was, Pleasure Begins With a Bite. They might as well cross-promote and sell them with another box of Magnums, if you take my meaning. I haven’t seen such erotic biting since Interview with the Vampire.
When I was finished, I still had six minutes to wait. I squeezed. It didn’t crack. I beat on it with a spoon. It didn’t crack.
When ten minutes finally passed, it cracked. But I have to say, ten minutes of fighting with my ice cream did not make me feel like Rachel Bison.
Or a Swimsuit Model.
I took a slow motion bite, just like the ladies on television.
The ice cream touched my lips.
It was good. It was great. No, it was orgasmic, just like the ladies on television promised.
I had to get it out of the house.
There would be no rest until I had eaten every bite of that not-really-a-pint (and licked the sides) or removed it from my house. I tried throwing it in the garbage, but five minutes later I dug it back out.
So like a reverse Rachel Bilson, I got in my car and drove the Magnum Ice Cream away from my house. I drove about three miles away, took my pleasure seriously one last time, and chucked the three-quarters-full not-really-a-pint out the window and over the hill into a deep ravine.
Yes, it was littering.
But I plead temporary Magnum-induced insanity.
And just for the record, no men wagged their tongues at the ice cream as it flew out my window.
So they were definitely lusting after Rachel Bilson
And she has definitely never eaten a Magnum bar in her life.