Good Humor
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| Owner | Unilever |
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| Country | Youngstown, Ohio, U.S. |
| Introduced | 1920 |
| Markets | United States |
| Previous owners | Good Humor Corporation of America |
| Website | www |
Good Humor is an Anglo-Dutch-owned American brand of ice cream novelties sold from ice cream trucks as well as stores and other retail outlets. Originally, Good Humors were chocolate-coated ice cream bars on a stick, but the line was expanded over the years to include a wide range of novelties. The Good Humor company started in Youngstown, Ohio, during the early 1920s and covered most of the country by the mid-1930s. Good Humor became a fixture in American popular culture, and at its peak in the 1950s the company operated 2,000 "sales cars".
In 1961, Good Humor was acquired by Thomas J. Lipton, the U.S. subsidiary of the international Unilever conglomerate. Profits declined when the baby boomers aged and costs increased because of labor issues, gasoline, and insurance. The company sold its fleet in 1978 but continued to distribute its products through grocery stores and independent street vendors. By 1984, Good Humor returned to profitability. Starting in 1989, Unilever expanded Good Humor through its acquisition of Gold Bond Ice Cream that included the Popsicle brand. Four years later, Unilever bought Isaly Klondike and the Breyers Ice Cream Company. As a result, Good Humor-Breyers is now a large producer of branded ice cream and frozen novelties, as part of the Unilever Heartbrand.
In 1919, Christian Nelson, an Iowa store owner, discovered how to coat an ice cream bar with chocolate, inventing the Eskimo Pie. When he heard of the discovery, Harry Burt (1875–1926), owner of a Youngstown, Ohio, ice cream parlor, replicated Nelson's product. The story is that Burt's 23-year-old daughter Ruth thought that the new novelty was too messy. Burt's son, Harry Jr. (1900–1972), suggested using a wooden stick as a convenient handle. They tried out the idea in the store's hardening room, where they discovered that the stick formed a strong bond when the ice cream cystallized. Burt outfitted twelve street vending trucks in Youngstown with rudimentary freezers and bells to sell his "Good Humor Ice Cream Suckers" in 1920. The first set was from his son's old bobsled. By 1925, Harry Burt Jr. opened a franchise in Miami, Florida.
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