Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon may be responsible for some of the ice cream industry’s most popular flavors, but neither of them were the first to marry late-night TV and the go-to dessert.
No, long before they entered the game, original Tonight Show host Steve Allen landed his own signature flavor with Baskin-Robbins.
On the heels of Ben & Jerry assuring fans that Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream flavor will survive the cancellation of Colbert’s Late Show, let’s look back on Allen’s contribution to ice cream history….
THE COLD, HARD SERVE FACTS
Allen’s flavor dates back to 1963, six-and-a-half years after he departed the Tonight Show franchise he’d created. By that point, Allen was hosting his syndicated Steve Allen Show for Westinghouse (which, as it happens, aired against The Tonight Show under its new host, Johnny Carson).
In September 1963, Allen’s show devised a stunt in partnership with Baskin-Robbins, which had been founded 18 years prior. Allen would create a new ice cream concoction on-air, and the ice cream chain would agree to sell it as his signature flavor.
“Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins… will supply Steve with an experimental freezer and flavor ingredients,” The Arizona Republic reported, noting that the ice cream company would up its 31 signature flavors to 48, to provide Allen with a wide selection of bases from which he could build his dream dessert. “Allen may select any flavors that meet his fancy in making his own ice cream,” the paper said.
Allen did just that, playing mad ice cream scientist, on-air, to create a flavor that would be dubbed “Steverino”—a popular nickname for the host. (Irv Robbins appeared alongside Allen onstage to provide “technical assistance,” The Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet reported.) Provided with a “portable ice cream factory complete with flavoring ingredients from almonds to watermelon,” Allen concocted his confection.
Ahead of the broadcast, Baskin-Robbins advertisements alerted viewers to tune into the show to watch Allen “invent” the new flavor, depicting a cartoon version of the host holding an ice cream cone.
CASHEWS AND PEACHES AND COCONUT, OH MY!
Steverino wound up consisting of Baskin-Robbins’ experimental “Fern Candy” flavor offering, with cream, sugar, coconut, cashew nuts, pistachio nuts, pineapple, peaches, raspberries, pears, cherries, and strawberries thrown into the mix. (We’ll give you a moment to process all that….)
Within days, the flavor was made available in over 200 Baskin-Robins locations across the country.
While it may have been a one-off stunt on Allen’s part, the flavor proved to be popular. According to Baskin-Robbins, Steverino sold over 1 million scoops in its first month on the market, setting what was then an ice cream industry record.
Allen left The Steve Allen Show in July 1964 after conflicts with Westinghouse, eventually taking over as host of CBS panel show I’ve Got A Secret that September. But Steverino was still going strong: newspaper ads from that week continued to list the ice cream as one of Baskin-Robbins’ monthly featured flavors.
These days, Baskin-Robbins’ Steverino offering is long gone, but late-night hosts still rule the roost in the ice cream market. Stephen Colbert’s “Americone Dream,” first introduced during the host’s Colbert Report era in 2007, was Ben & Jerry’s eighth-most popular flavor in 2024—and now is confirmed to continue on beyond Late Show‘s May 2026 swan song. Ranking No. 6 was “The Tonight Dough,” a flavor created for Jimmy Fallon in 2015 for his one-year anniversary as host of The Tonight Show. (Fallon was previously given a flavor called “Late Night Snack” on the second anniversary of his Late Night run. That flavor ran for nearly four years before it was replaced by The Tonight Dough.)
