When Is a Fribble Awful Awful?
True ice cream old-timers will remember the pre-Fribble days, when Friendly served the Awful Awful. Yes, Friendly. No, not Newport Creamery— well, both actually. Let me start over.
Back in the 1940s, Bond’s Ice Cream of New Jersey invented a frosty drink of flavored syrup and ice milk. Legend says a Bond’s customer gulped down the 24-ounce concoction and promptly declared it awful big and awful good. The name stuck.
After applying for a trademark in June 1948, Bond licensed the Awful Awful to Friendly over in Massachusetts and subsequently to Newport Creamery in Rhode Island. The two were New England competitors, true, but
wicked polite ones: Neither seemed to mind sharing.
When Friendly (today called Friendly’s) decided to expand into Bond’s territory in the 1960s, however, it needed to rename the Awful Awful. In a contest, three customers came up with “Fribble”— a real word meaning “a thing of no great importance”— and each got $100. Then, when Bond’s went into bankruptcy in the early ’70s, Newport Creamery snatched up the Awful Awful for $1,000.
So that’s how Friendly’s ended up with its Fribble, and Newport Creamery with its Awful Awful. Now, howis it that both places still have Big Beef Burgers?