Ice Cream for Everyone: Jesse Thorn on Giving Away 1,000 Free Cones

Jesse Thorn, the host of Bullseye, and the co-host of the comedy podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go! with his pal Jordan Morris, came up with an idea a few years ago to give free ice cream away to people for no other reason than it sounded like a fun thing to do for strangers during the summer. Thorn and Morris raised nearly $10,000 on Kickstarter for the random act of kindness, teamed up with Sweet Action Ice Cream in Denver, Colo., and made a short video about it. Jesse was kind enough to take some time to answer a few questions I had about the experience.

When did you initially come up with the idea to do 1,000 Cones, and how long did it take for you to get together a plan and organize it?

It took years and it took a couple of weeks. The years version: Three or four years ago I bought an ice cream cone at a drugstore that sells them for a dollar. And it occurred to me I could afford to buy a THOUSAND ice cream cones. Which seemed amazing. I wrote to the drugstore asking if I could do that, but never heard back. And I just stewed on it.

Then last summer a listener of Jordan Jesse Go competed in the London Olympics as a modern pentathlete. There’s no money in that, so we offered to help her, and she said she needed a new laser gun for the shooting competition. We raised the two or three thousand dollars it cost and then some from listeners. It put the seed in my mind that this was something we could do.

Then this year I just decided to go for it. We had this little window of time before summer was over, and we raised the money in about a week, made the video the next week, and had it out about a week after that.

You’ve found success in raising money for other things, like helping a listener, Donna Vakalis, buy that laser gun. With the success of 1,000 Cones, does this mean you’ll do these random acts of kindness campaigns on a regular basis?

If we have a great idea, it gives us the confidence that we can do it. It’s a lot of work to do something like this — it makes me respect my friend Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere, who’s been doing stuff that’s more amazing than anything we’ve ever done for ten years plus. But if something great comes along, we can achieve it.

Have you heard or seen any reactions from the donors who helped make 1,000 cones happen?

People are just so happy. I keep seeing Facebook and Twitter things where people connect, and people just being so proud to be part of this. Which they should be. It’s a great thing. Little and not necessarily significant, but just great.

Were there any takeaways or lessons learned from this particular campaign?

We don’t have the biggest listenership in the world at Jordan Jesse Go, but the thing that ties all these people together is that they are the kind of folks who think that the internet should be used for stuff like buying strangers ice cream. And they back it up. That’s a special thing, and we’re lucky to be part of that community.

Lastly, and most importantly, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

I can’t eat chocolate, because it’s a migraine trigger, so ice cream is really fraught for me. I like peanut-butter based stuff, because I want my ice cream to be kind of heavy and creamy and substantial, but I can’t have the chocolate. At the store, I usually buy Ben & Jerry’s Clusterfluff if it’s there … but a lot of times it isn’t. The Sweet Action folks who hosted this operation actually know I love Dr Pepper and made me a Dr Pepper flavor which was just lovely, too.

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