The Quest for the Biggy Iggy! (Part One)

(Click here to jump to the recommended song, the Sam and Max Office Theme by Jared Emerson-Johnson!)

I leaned back in my chair with my feet on my desk and my fedora over my face. I was contemplating the disappearance of someone well-known in his neck of the woods. Went by the name of Biggy Iggy. 

He was the face of a line of ice cream sandwiches, a big hit in Massachusetts and Vermont.

He was a big fella with a big smile, great hair and a winning personality.  He was often seen with his kooky partner in crime, Chewy Louie, but for some unknown reason the two of them vanished. Just disappeared off the face of the earth. No goodbyes- and the craziest part was, no one seemed to notice.

I saw a picture of Iggy once, on a wrapper to one of his fine products. Found it on the side of the road in ‘17 or ‘18. But I threw it away when I got home. Never saw it again. It was a shame. Something about him really clicked with me. Maybe it was his old-school style. Woulda liked to meet the guy.

After finding that picture, I went to the Internet to start looking for the guy. I found forum posts from Massachusetts residents saying they hadn’t seen him in over ten years, and the posts themselves weren’t exactly fresh and new. He was seen in Vermont as recently as 2018, but to me that’s still no good.

What’s worse, the man’s Facebook page hadn’t been updated since that year.

I tried to get to Iggy’s “bosses” through both Facebook and their company email- no luck.

I looked to Reddit. A buncha Vermonters say they found Iggy in a few Cumberland Farms stores, and some smaller, local businesses. One person said “you can order” the ice cream sandwiches. I private-messaged them with no luck- turns out their account hasn’t been active for one or two years.

My ray of sunshine came when I scrubbed through the pages of DuckDuckGo once more, this time simply looking up “Biggy Iggy Ice Cream Sandwiches”. That's when I found it- the Richmond Market website. This Vermont store said they had the swag.

But did they really? I had to be sure.

I called the place. A nice woman on the line told me not only do they have the goods, they order them constantly with “no trouble”.

Well, it doesn’t take a sleuth to figure out that I was pleased by this news. Though on top of that, mildly embarrassed that I’d make such a big deal out of this search. Here I was, on a missing ice creams case when the ice cream I was looking for wasn’t even missing.

Oh, well. With my .45 in its holster and fedora on my head, I set out to find the elusive Biggy Iggy.

***

How was that? Be brutal.

 

Even though it’s snappier than my regular blog writing, the above story is 99% true. The other 1% is the part where I have a fedora, a gun and a holster to keep it in. And also a chair and a desk. Believe it or not, I do not have my own chair or desk.

After spending a lot more time than I probably should have, I found out that Richmond Market of Richmond, Vermont is selling the Biggy Iggy ice cream sandwiches. 

 

I think my difficulty came from using DuckDuckGo instead of Google. It turns out, frustratingly enough, that Google shows Richmond Market on the front page when I look up "Biggy Iggy Ice Cream Sandwich". DuckDuckGo doesn't.

 

I'm still too proud to start using Google again, though. Bad enough I use their Blogger service.

 

It must also be said that I've found Richmond Market before, but I thought they no longer had Biggy Iggys because I... didn't let the search page load, or something.

Food distribution company Foodmark is responsible for this ice cream sandwich. Trademarkia.com indicates the company had many packaged food brands under their belt, but now their only live trademarks are Biggy Iggy and Chewy Louie.

The website also has a “Biggy Iggy and Chewy Louie Microsite” that just recently stopped working because it ran on Flash. I thought it was really cool, though, so I might try to run it in Flashpoint and record a video of me using it. No guarantees, as I have little technical knowledge.

The ice cream sandwiches appeared to be pretty rare from where I was standing. The Facebook page hadn't updated since 2018, and no one on the Internet had mentioned Biggy Iggy since that year. Now that I know about Richmond Market, I feel like Vermont's kept this secret from me just to send me on a wild goose chase.

What made me want to find this ice cream sandwich in the first place?

I already explained it in the noir-style story above. I really did just find a Biggy Iggy wrapper on the side of the road while I was on a walk one day. I guess someone on their way from Vermont just casually dropped this masterpiece on the road. This design is iconic.

Photo Credit: Richmond Market

Just look at this guy! Don't you think he drives a heavily modded Model A?

Here’s his weird little friend, too. There may be minor Rat Fink influences, but the similarities seem to end at the green skin, bare feet and the initials on his shirt. If that was the intention, they either did it from memory or they just wanted a "Rat Fink-Inspired" design that was friendly and marketable instead of terrifying.

Look up Rat Fink and try to spot all 3 similarities!
Photo Credit: Richmond Market

I’d like to know who did all the original art for Foodmark. Lemme tell ya, I am a fan. I love the childlike dinkiness of this art style. You can really tell Biggy Iggy and Chewie Louie are Foodmark’s “Originals”. It’s just too bad they’re their only products now.

Photo Credit: Foodmark

I also made a bootleg tee shirt of Biggy Iggy. It was a vector tracing of a reduced-color version of a low-resolution picture of the wrapper art, so it didn’t come out amazing (there are some squarish edges), but it’s the best I can do. I don’t have a picture of the shirt, but here’s the graphic:

You know I’m wearing this to Vermont.

I don't have an official date yet, but I am planning to go either this or next month. I will update this post when I have a date planned.

Hopefully you already clicked on the recommended song for today, but here it is. It's the Office Theme from Sam and Max Season One, by Jared Emerson-Johnson. You can expect more from this composer in later posts.

Stay Sexy!

 

Update 8/23/21: Gave a link to Richmond Market and explained why this search was so hard in the first place. It was partially my fault.