What Inspired This Flavor?

This from Slashfood.com

The battle for late-night supremacy now moves to the ice-cream aisle. On the heels of Stephen Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" comes a new late-night funnyman-inspired ice cream flavor from Ben & Jerry's. That's right; in conjunction with the two-year anniversary of SNL alum Jimmy Fallon taking over Conan O'Brien's NBC post at Late Night, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have created "Late Night Snack," a premium ice cream complete with Fallon's mug on the lid. Here's how it rates:

The Claims: Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack is vanilla bean ice cream with a salty caramel swirl and fudge-covered potato chip clusters.

The Verdict: Grade A. One might wonder what Ben, Jerry, and Jimmy were doing late at night when the idea for this peculiar ice cream and potato chip combination came about, but whatever it was, it worked. The combination of sweet and salty is harmonious, but not exactly balanced evenly; it's more sweet than salty, which is a good thing -- it's ice cream after all. The hints of saltiness in the potato chips adds dimension, much like Ben & Jerry's famous "Chubby Hubby," which contains fudge-covered, peanut-butter-filled pretzels. The fudge-covered potato chip clusters of "Late Night Snack" add a nice texture, but the clusters don't get in the way of the smoothness and creaminess of the ice cream and caramel.
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This new ice cream flavor was announced at a press event in Late Night's Studio 6B, where last summer Fallon and his house band The Roots performed a Ben & Jerry's tribute song, "Ladysmith Snack Mambazo," in the style of South African a cappella singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It was this skit that inspired Ben & Jerry's to approach Fallon and NBC for a co-branded ice cream flavor, provided that they were willing to support the ice cream company's pledge to support Fair Trade ingredients. (Proceeds from the sales of Late Night Snack also benefit Fair Trade Universities.) The vanilla beans and cocoa used in this new flavor come from Fair Trade suppliers -- not that you'll taste the difference on your tongue when you eat it. However, Cohen and Greenfield stressed the importance of supporting Fair Trade, an effort hoped to be fully realized by 2013 for their entire product line. While Fallon supported this, he was also proud of his flavor's originality. "Stephen Colbert is a jealous son of a bitch," he joked, desparaging Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" flavor. "Like no one was going to think of putting ice cream with a cone." Indeed, Fallon's potato chips dipped in fudge are a bit more inventive than Colbert's waffle cone pieces dipped in fudge, but there's room for both of them -- they do have different time slots, after all.