Cookie Puss is an ice cream cake

Ice cream cake

Ice cream cake is either ice cream in the shape of a cake or ice cream and cake layered together to make a single form. The idea of ice cream cake came from desserts composed of cream and cookies or cake called trifles, which first turned up in the Renaissance...

 character created by Carvel in the 1970s

1970s

File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

 as an expansion of its line of freshly made products sold only in its stores, along with Hug-Me Bear and Fudgie the Whale

Fudgie The Whale

Fudgie the Whale is a type of ice cream cake produced and sold by Carvel in its franchise stores. It was developed by Carvel in the 1970s as an expansion of its line of freshly made products, along with Hug-Me Bear and Cookie Puss.-Development:...

. According to Carvel lore, Cookie Puss is a space alien (his original name was "Celestial Person" and his initials, "C.P.", later came to stand for "Cookie Puss") who was born on planet Birthday. In his television commercials, Cookie Puss has the ability to fly, though he requires a saucer-shaped spacecraft for interplanetary travel. During the 1980s Cookie Puss was repurposed to serve as a cake for St Patrick's Day, dubbed "Cookie O'Puss".

In Media

Cookie Puss was a frequent topic used for comic effect on The Howard Stern Show. Typically, the cast of the show would torment Fred Norris

Fred Norris

Eric Fred Norris is an American radio personality known for being the longest-tenured staff member of The Howard Stern Show aside from Stern himself...

 for having purchased Cookie Puss as a gift for his mother on Mother's Day. Howard Stern

Howard Stern

Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...

 would use voice enhancements to impersonate the voice of Cookie Puss from the Carvel commercials, often excusing his inappropriate comments because he could "speak his mind, now that Tom Carvel

Tom Carvel

Thomas A. Carvelas, also known as Tom Carvel was a Greek-born American businessman and entrepreneur known for the invention and promotion of soft ice cream in the northeastern United States...

 is dead." These bits are still heard in Sirius Radio replays to this day.

Cookie Puss was the focus of the Beastie Boys song "Cooky Puss

Cooky Puss

Cooky Puss is the second EP by the Beastie Boys, and features their first Hip hop recording. It was released in 1983 as a 12-inch single on Rat Cage Records...

".

Cookie Puss's appearance

Since its introduction in 1972, the Cookie Puss design developed by Carvel corporate chef Andrew Bianchi has evolved into the version we know today. The initial design introduced the general pear shape of the cake, but all ornamentation was frosting applied by the stores. The first effort to achieve a consistent look was a face printed on a large cookie wafer using edible inks. A group of franchisees led by Liam Gray of Schenectady, NY rallied against the corporate requirement for stores to purchase the pre-printed wafers. Mr. Gray created a new variation using items already stocked in Carvel shops - sugar cones and Flying Saucer ice cream sandwiches. The other franchisees in the (now defunct) North East Carvel Franchisee Group followed suit, and by May 1974, the Carvel corporation had adopted this as the official design of the Cookie Puss product.