The World According to Jeff Goldblum

Ice cream. Jeez, I like every single flavor, that's the truth.

Here's the problem, if I start to eat a little ice cream...

I may not stop.

So many people like it, ah!

You know, in any given year, we can consume, worldwide,

guess how much ice cream?

Up to, like, 5,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools full,

that's how much we love it.

Is there some sort of mystery around this delicious food?

Uh, maybe. I will investigate. Mm! Mm!

Kids love it, adults adore it, it is ice cream.

There was a time when ice cream was simple.

But times have changed.

All of this may be expensive and fattening, but seldom has guilt,

tasted so good.

Jeff Goldblum here.

I'm an actor, known for my hands, my stillness and my unbridled joy,

and my ability to have a childlike sense of wonder.

Come along with me, won't you, on this sweet journey?

- Come on. Come on in, Jeff. - Jeff Goldblum.

- Don't let me hold you back. - Are you ready

to have some ice cream fun today?

I sure am. Now I see you wearing your seat belt.

- Yes, yes. - You know,

I should proudly do the same, but somehow when I feel I'm filming...

- (LAUGHS) Jeff, come on. - Ah, here we go.

Um, can I... can I work the music?

I mean, I'm no DJ.

We've got a great one that has a little horse. (NEIGHS, LAUGHS)

Well, I can do, uh, an elephant sound. (TRUMPETS)

Here we go. - (GIGGLES) Okay.

Every time you have an ice cream from an ice cream truck, it's a memory.

- Yeah. - It's really the Disneyland

of sweet treats.

- Everybody loves ice cream. - Yes.

There's nothing bad about ice cream.

- Isn't it awesome? - I know.

- Hey, how many ice creams have you sold? - I'm going to venture to say

that I have definitely, definitely shared at least a million ice creams.

And then Deanna presses a button

- and in an instant... - (ICE CREAM TRUCK JINGLE PLAYING)

...oh, my gosh, it all comes flooding back.

Listen to this music.

Isn't that awesome?

- I... I think that's Little Brown Jug. - It is Little Brown Jug, yes.

- Ah! I knew it immediately. - (CHUCKLES)

That's the Pied Piper of ice cream right there.

You know, when you heard that, your eyes went like that.

You recognized that. I saw that in your eyes.

That little kid just came out.

- I'm still four in many ways. - Yeah? Are you? (LAUGHS)

I'll tell you, it takes me back to my own formative, uh, first years.

There it is, that's Isaly's, that's in Pittsburgh,

I don't know if people remember that.

That's where I first got those sky high, there they are,

skyscraper ice cream cones.

I think that's when I first discovered peach ice cream.

Look at that. Oh, there I am, look, so happy in my plaid pants,

and give that kid that peach ice cream.

That sure looks good.

Wait and minute, wait a minute, what... Are we still in the past?

And this... this looks like Back to the Future.

Uh, well, no, in fact, here, I'll give you a clue.

Deanna comes every year to this annual festival,

which celebrates '50s cars and culture, and, most importantly for us,

old fashioned ice-cream-truck-style ice cream.

Okay, so let me ask you this, Deanna, can you tell

when they come up to the window, can you go,

"Mm, I know by the way you look what you're gonna order"?

Yeah. You can tell a classic gentleman usually would choose

like a butter pecan, or a vanilla.

Sometimes a girl that is, uh,

a little older, but she might go for the sherbet.

Your younger crowd, they love cookies and cream.

Um, well, I like French vanilla and I like fruit-flavored ice cream.

- You do? - (DEANNA GASPS)

Yes. - I heard a gasp

- from Deanna. - It's the sherbet.

- It's the sherbet. - Okay there, there you go.

Oh, my gosh. Taste that, see what you think of that.

That's amazing, I love sherbet.

Ice cream, for me, was pretty fancy, and the nearest grocery was pretty far,

so my mom made ice cream, and I never had sherbet,

because it was too fancy for that store.

So she learned how to make it from an old recipe book.

Why is it that ice cream seems to be a potent trigger for memory?

I guess we always associate it with happy memories.

- Yeah. - There's a lot of pleasure comes from it.

- Yeah. - Not only does it taste pleasurable,

- I think a lot of times. - Yeah, you associate it with holidays...

- It's always a treat. - ...and going on trips.

It's always a treat.

This is so interesting. I love these old cars,

and now I got what used to be my favorite ice cream bar,

the ice cream sandwich, oh baby, baby.

And you know, it takes you back. Mm! Mm! Mm!

Oh yeah. Yeah, it's like a time machine.

Why is that? Why, why, why? I have so many questions.

Where does it come from? What's the history?

As my dad said to me once, the kid is stimulated.

- (TRUCK SQUEAKING) - We're so lucky because, you know,

if you want ice cream, you can get it

just about any place on every street corner.

- But let's go back in history. - Hello.

It wasn't always like that.

For the ancient Greeks, for instance, and the Romans,

making a refreshing icy treat meant dragging blocks of ice

off of the mountain tops and then crushing them up with honey.

Only a few hundred years after that, in China,

the Emperor enjoyed these sort of slushies made of snow and milk and spice.

Now, we go to, um...

- (GASPING) - ...renaissance Italians,

and they discovered that if you mixed snow with salt,

it caused a chemical reaction that helped chill the whole mix

without freezing it, and that was a big deal.

Okay, 1843, America, in Philadelphia,

there's a woman named Nancy Johnson, she made a machine,

this hand-cranked ice cream maker that prevented large ice crystals

from forming in the mix,

creating, finally, that... that, uh, silky smooth, creamy treasure

that, thanks to modern refrigeration, and that was important,

could now be found so, so many places.

Well, you know, you throw a stick and you hit six of them.

Well, America,

it's still the place where pioneers dominate the ice cream market.

- You are? - Jerry.

- And you are? - Ben.

- And this is? - Ice cream.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield still live

in the place where they started the whole darn operation...

and they love ice cream, I think, today

as much as they did in their tie-dyed and, uh, colorful youth.

What do you say we get a scoop

- of caramel almond brittle? - I think we ought to, excuse me.

And your pictures are on...

- are still on everything, right? - It's a really good flavor. Whoa!

Oh! I just saved his life.

- Chubby Hubby. - Hang on.

- What am I eating? - It's non-dairy caramel almond brittle.

I'm going to sit on this, if you don't mind.

- What's that do? - It warms it up.

What happens when you sit on something, man?

- I've never sat on a tub of ice cream. - (BEN AND JERRY LAUGH)

Is your tuchus the warmest part of the body?

Well, isn't that where they take your temp...

They used to take your temperature there

- when you were a little kid. - Oh!

- Oh, yeah. - Oh, you're right.

That's bringing some memories back, isn't it?

Yes, it does.

(BEN AND JERRY LAUGH )

Well, you know, I mean, we were familiar with traditional ice cream flavors

that have, you know, nuts in them, or...

- Right. - ...chocolate chips in them.

- Yeah. And instead of chips,

we decided to do chunks.

- Why? Where'd that come? You... You know,

- where'd that come from... Yeah.

- ...is that I can't taste. (LAUGHS) - (LAUGHS)

It was a well-kept secret that the chief taster

- couldn't really taste. - Yeah, and what do you have

in your nose? How uncommon... How rare is it? It's some...

- You can't smell anything? - Anosmia,

it's... it's pretty rare. You know, I can smell a little.

You know, Jerry would come up with these flavors,

they'd say they're really good,

but I can't tell what the flavor is, you have to add more flavoring.

- Right. - So, then he would keep on adding

more flavoring and I'd say,

"I still can't taste it, you got to add more flavor."

And eventually, they'd come to a level where I could taste it.

- Right. - And so our ice cream ended up

- being highly flavored. Yeah.

There's something in this nostalgia business

about going home again.

Right, and ice cream is home,

- I mean, you talk about comfort food. - Yeah.

I think that there might be some association with mother's milk.

- Yeah. - I mean, I've seen babies...

- in ecstasy. - Yeah, it's ecstasy

- and it's some otherworldly place. - That's... that's exactly it.

Well, listen to this, our passion for everything that's sweet

starts early, when we're inside our mommies.

Because, in fact, babies consume more amniotic fluid

when that fluid is sugary.

Long before anybody knew anything about ice cream,

we weren't always sure, early in our species,

where our next meal was coming from...

and the sweet taste would have alerted us to foods

offering a lot of bang for their buck, so to speak.

And a lot of calories meant a lot of energy...

which increased our chances of survival.