Original subtitles

How do you know

the summer is really and truly over?

My dad says it's over

precisely one second after midnight on September 21.

My friend Ellen says it's over the moment you start thinking

about whether to buy a three-ring binder

or a spiral notebook for school.

But for me, the way I know the summer is a goner,

is when my brother Pete, and Artie,

the strongest man in the world, go to the beach

and try to beat up the ocean.

Take that, stupid wave.

BIG PETE: They're not crazy, just angry...

angry that the summer has to end.

I know exactly how they feel.

Every year it seems like the summer is over

about ten seconds after it started.

Especially this summer.

We'll go get you!

Die! Whoa!

� Hey smilin' strange �

� You're lookin' happily deranged �

� Can you settle to shoot me? �

� Or have you picked your target yet �

� Hey, Sandy �

� Ay-yi-yi-yi �

� Don't you talk back �

� Ay-yi-yi-yi �

� Hey, Sandy �

( guitar lick )

� Ay-yi-yi-yi �

� Hey, Sandy �

� Don't you talk back �

� Ay-yi-yi-yi �

� Hey, Sandy �

� Ay-yi-yi-yi �

� Hey, Sandy �

� Don't you talk back �

� Ay-yi-yi-yi �

� Hey Sandy. �

I'm Pete,

and this is my brother Pete,

and this is all that's left of our summer vacation.

653 photos developed for free at the Quick Pick Photo Booth,

where my friend Ellen worked all summer.

( birds singing )

Where should I start?

I know, check this out.

It's Pete and his best friend Mort Mortenson

greasing the turf on blocks of ice.

Yay!

BIG PETE: Mort shaves off all his body hair

to cut down on wind resistance,

but Pete still beats him every year.

Eat my turf, Chrome Dome.

( screaming )

It's one of the sure-fire signs that summer has begun.

I can't feel my butt.

There are other signs, too.

Your shadow gets shorter.

( loud electrical humming )

Electricity gets louder.

( loud buzzing )

Killer bees arrive from the Yucatan Peninsula.

( groans )

Confounded bees!

Or it's the annual border dispute...

I'm taking over your turf, tubby.

You'll have to kill me first.

( laughing )

...between my dad and Mrs. Blowtar gets underway.

Still, the summer isn't officially summer

until Mr. Tastee comes to town.

( children shouting excitedly )

No one knows who he is or where he comes from,

but when that first really hot day in June rolls around,

you just know the Tastee Mobile is coming to the rescue.

Tastee! Tastee!

MAN: Hey, kiddos.

Hey.

It's not

like he remembers your name, but once,

when my brother Pete was broke

and dying for a Blue Tornado Bar,

he offered Mr. Tastee a huge and evil insect for trade.

Hmm, he doesn't sing, does he?

He eats flesh.

I'll... take it.

That's just the kind of guy he was.

The other thing I should tell you

about Mr. Tastee, is that no one knows his true identity.

( squeaking )

Who is he?

Some people think he escaped from the state mental hospital

in Durango Falls, while others are pretty sure...

He's that guy.

I forgot his name, but he used to be married to Cher.

Ms. Vanderveer,

this blind millionaire who lives on our block--

she just calls him Leonard.

You never understood me, Leonard.

You never really understood me.

About the only thing anybody agrees on is

that the summer just wouldn't be summer without him.

Let me tell you the whole story.

It all started here at the Quick Pick booth

where Ellen worked part-time for her Uncle Lou.

Thank you and have a Quick Pickerific day.

What a job.

It was hot,

you had to wear this pukey polyester.

Plus, there was nowhere to go to the bathroom.

You just had to hold it in.

Outside of licking dirt for a living,

it was easily the world's deadliest job.

Then, one day, she stumbled across a clue...

a clue that could unravel the summer's greatest mystery.

( gasps )

Right in this envelope is our one chance

to find out Mr. Tastee's true identity.

Open it before somebody comes.

I can't. Come on!

It's totally against the rules.

Rules bite!

Pete, don't!

It was like opening the secret tomb of King Tut

as Pete peeled back the flap

and revealed the secret life of Mr. Tastee.

Wow.

All in all, they were pretty ordinary photos,

except for one thing--

he never took off his swirly head.

He's got to take it off.

No.

Not here.

Hey, the Statue of Liberty.

Look at this one.

He sure looks lonely, doesn't he?

Yeah, it's weird.

But how could he not have any friends?

Problem foot odor?

Maybe

he doesn't have any friends.

ELLEN: I don't know.

Maybe he does.

Who?

Us.

We really didn't know what to do.

I call this one

the shimmy, shimmy shake.

Mm-hmm.

And we really didn't know what to say.

So, uh, how fast does this baby go?

But we tried our best to somehow make friends

with the mysterious man behind the plastic mask.

So, do you have a girlfriend?

( chuckling )

Sure, I got 49 of 'em.

Let's see.

There's the Boomerang Bar,

the Hydrogen Pop, Meringue Ka-Bang,

Blue Tornado Bar-- Mmm-- Chocolate Thunder Chunks,

Lemon Licky Nubs, Orange Splurto Sticks...

Finally, on one fateful Thursday...

Mr. Tastee?

Yes?

BIG PETE: We were

kind-kind of wondering...

Uh-huh.

Um...

Would you like to go trout fishing with us tomorrow?

I'm bringing the dynamite.

Thanks, kiddos,

but that's my day to hot wax the Tastee Mobile.

Can we help? Well, it's kind of a

( chuckles ): one-man job.

Maybe next time.

Mr. Tastee?

Mm-hmm.

Do you have any friends?

Well, sure.

All kids are my friends.

( laughs )

Yeah,

okay.

But don't you feel, like, kind of lonely sometimes?

An ice cream man, lonely? Come on.

Yeah, like, maybe you feel like

nobody really knows you, or even cares.

Hey,

everybody knows me.

I'm, um, Mr. Tastee.

( chuckles ): Now, uh,

( clears throat ): what can I do for you kiddos?

Let us be your friends. I know!

How about a bodacious Blue Tornado Bar

to tickle your tonsils?

Boffo!

No, that's not enough anymore.

I-I'm sorry.

I-I wish it could be different, but, uh,

it's for your own good.

Take them.

They're starting to melt.

Please? They're all

you really need. ELLEN: They're just

Popsicles.

Exactly.

And I'm just an ice-cream man,

and you're just my customers,

and that's the way it has to be.

How can you say that?

There's no other way.

Just give us a chance.

I-I can't.

Now, here. It's...

It's the best I can do.

Good-bye, kiddos.

When he didn't come back the next day,

nobody got too worried.

He's probably just hot-waxing his head.

But when the heat wave hit Sunday, and still no Tastee,

the Great Blue Tornado Bar panic was officially underway.

( whispering ): Tastee.

Out on the street, you'd see all kinds of kids

going through Blue Tornado Bar withdrawal.

Tastee!

Tastee?

I'll have two Blue Tornado Bars

and a Meringue Ka-Bang for my sister, Lucy.

While some of us started hallucinating,

other people just lost their mind.

I didn't mean it, Leonard.

Leonard, you were good to me.

The summer had turned to crud.

About all we ever did was sit around

spreading Tastee rumors.

I heard his truck crashed.

I heard his head melted.

I heard he remarried Cher.

Other than that, we'd just stare for hours

at the hypnotic, swaying motion

of Mrs. Blowtard's colossal arm flub.

Look at that flub go.

It's a flesh avalanche.

And we probably would have kept on staring,

but then our personal superhero...

Artie, the strongest man...

( fanfare plays )

...in the world!

...came along and accidentally saved the day.

Here's how it happened.

In his super-human struggle

to destroy the killer bees' diabolical hive,

Artie decided to take on the queen bee herself

in a winner-take-all staring contest.

She was a wily bee all right, but Artie was even wilier,

and finally, he had the murderous queen

just where he wanted her...

( panting )

Say your bee prayers, my puny, hybrid foe.

...as he zeroed in for the kill.

Oh! Blink!

Blink, I say, you stinky bee!

( buzzing )

His powerful Artie vision caught sight of something

off on the horizon.

( grunting )

It can't be!

( grunts ) ( screams )

( grunts, panting )

Greetings, Photo Gal.

Artie!

I saw it!

A flash of white near the curve of the Earth.

Then it was gone.

Saw what, Artie?

The Tastee Mobile!

( gasps )

( laughs )

Taking into consideration the height of the water tower,

the rotation of the Earth,

and the prescription of Artie's eyeglasses,

Ellen made some trigonomic calculations

and pinpointed Mr. Tastee's coordinates

to a stretch of interstate in Northern Kentucky.

We have to find him.

The search for Mr. Tastee had begun.

After Artie's miraculous sighting of the Tastee Mobile,

we sprang into action.

The summer was half over, and out there, somewhere,

the loneliest man in the world was driving further and further

away from the only friends he had--

us.

If we didn't find him, nobody would.

Ellen turned her booth into a command center,

took over every shift, and devoted her life

to tracking him as he burned across the continent.

She knew she was violating

about 1,700 Quick Pick regulations,

but the only way to find Tastee was by looking for clues

at every single photograph that came in.

When a clue would turn up, she'd plant another push pin

in her map and try to predict his next cunning move.

ELLEN: Tacoma, of course.

Then she'd contact the local police

and have them put up all kinds of flyers

and stuff she made herself.

My job was to handle the phones in case anyone called,

while Pete did his part by keeping a lookout

at the Splankton Municipal Pool.

Everything was going smoothly until that fateful day

when lifeguard Den Cleary tried to take Pete on.

Mister!

I want you off of that board in ten seconds!

Suck chowder, muscle head!

Chow... five,

four,

three,

two, one!

You'll be sorry.

The thing you have to understand

about Pete and Den Cleary

is that they've been feuding for years.

Last year,

after Den Cleary caught Pete eating in the pool,

he banned him from the water for the whole summer.

This summer, Pete was taking no prisoners.

His plan seemed innocent enough at first.

The day Den Cleary

made Pete jump,

he jumped 43 more times.

The next day,

79 times.

Then 104 times.

Pete knew it might take a while,

but all that jumping, day after day,

well, it began to get to Den Cleary.

He tried to out-maneuver people by calling

countless adult swims.

Adults Only! Kids out!

Kids out! Adults only!

But when the constantly plunging Pete

got to 269 jumps one day, Den Cleary finally snapped.

( sobbing ): Oh, talk to him, please.

He'll listen to you.

I can't take it anymore.

Please...

just make him stop!

I'll see what I can do.

Pete, come here.

( whispering ): The situation calls for Plan... Plan F.

Let's go!

With Den Cleary out of the picture,

Pete was free to continue his lookout vigil.

The new lifeguard didn't seem to mind.

How's the weather up there, my little Viking?

Sweet!

Meanwhile, back at the command center,

Ellen was getting increasingly frustrated.

The summer was fading fast,

and she was still one step behind the illusive Mr. Tastee.

I'm so close.

Our only hope was to try

and talk to someone who knew Tastee.

Somebody like Ms. Vanderveer.

It's worth a try.

Leonard said my eyes

were bluer than the bluest Blue Tornado Bar.

He did.

He said that.

When that plan didn't work,

I took my search to Clog Haven Beach.

It isn't the best beach in the world,

but dad keeps coming back every year,

hoping he'll find buried treasure

with his trusty metal detector.

Why Clog Haven?

Because, as dad has told us about a million times...

This is where I found your mom.

There I was,

22 years old, fresh out of the army,

broke, out of my mind, looking for treasure.

Then all of a sudden, the detector starts beeping

like a banshee, you know,

( beeping faster ) I'm thinking Spanish dubloons, right?

And then suddenly I'm shocked to see your mother's beautiful face

blinking beneath me.

And I'm thinking, "What the Sam Hill?"

( beeping faster ) When your mother says...

Go ahead, honey. Say it.

It's me! I have a metal plate in my head.

DAD: Can you believe that?

A metal plate from some accident

she had when she was a kid.

We get to talking, and next thing you know, uh, honey?

Next thing you know?

Wedding bells are ringing.

Ugh.

Will you turn that thing off, now.

Sure, I'm sorry.

Did I ever tell you guys

that story before?

Huh? Oh.

Before he launched into the story

of their wild honeymoon at the Hoover Dam,

I veered toward the boardwalk,

hoping I'd find an ice-cream man

with some answers about Mister Tastee.

( bell ringing )

What can I get you, son?

How about a Sludgecicle?

You seem like a bona fide Sludgecicle man.

You don't have any Blue Tornado Bars do you?

Nope.

No, I don't.

You'll have to talk to Mr. Tastee

if it's a Blue Tornado you're after.

Do you know where I can find him?

Nope.

I heard he got run out of town by a bunch of nosy kids.

I heard they just wanted to be his friends.

So that's what happened.

What do you mean?

Tastee knows the rules.

Why do you think he wears

that plastic head all the time?

To keep kids like you

from asking too many personal questions.

Why? What are you guys so afraid of?

Look, aren't we here on the first hot day of every summer?

Aren't we?

Don't we carry 49 different

flavorific flavors, including Pineapple Blurt?

What else do you

want from us?

I... I...

I don't know anymore.

Well, how about that Sludgecicle?

Like I said, you look like

a bona fide Sludgecicle man.

I had come hoping for a miracle.

Instead, all I got was a cruddy Sludgecicle,

and a sinking feeling

that Mr. Tastee was gone for good.

( metal detector beeping )

Hey! Hey, hey! We got something!

Something... something here! Something big!

Come here! Come on!

Hey, hey, I think it's like an Oldsmobile,

you know, like a Delta 88

or maybe, you know, a Cutlass Supreme.

Oh.

Oh! Oh!

We all pitched in and within the hour,

we were the proud owners of a 1978 Cutlass Supreme.

All right, buckle up. Let's go.

All right.

It ran perfectly and had tons of leg room.

� I got a new car, I didn't have to go far �

Our dad was so happy he sang all the way home.

� I got a Cutlass Supreme �

� It's got a radio �

� Windows, headlights �

As much as I enjoyed Dad's beautiful voice,

I knew Ellen was finishing her second shift.

So I had Dad drop me off at the mall.

So how'd it go at the beach?

Dad found a car, a Cutlass Supreme.

Did you find anybody who knows Tastee?

Yeah, this guy Captain Scrummy.

What did he say?

He said I looked like a bona fide Sludgecicle man.

Mr. Tastee's never coming back, is he?

No. I don't think so.

Let's go, I'll walk you home.

There was nothing left to do.

He probably had found himself

a new town where nobody knew how lonely he was.

Our search for Mr. Tastee had come to a close.

Pete refused to give up his post at first,

but one chilly night in early September...

See ya, Tastee.

He left the board for good.

Occasionally I would walk by the Tastee phone,

but all I expected to find was maybe some loose change.

It was hopeless.

The signs that the summer was ending were all around us.

Back to Yucatan with you, stinky!

We will battle next year.

Poof.

Finally, late one afternoon,

there was nothing left to do but close the command center

once and for all.

( knocking )

Sorry, we're closed.

( knocking )

We're closed for the day.

Could you please...

Mr. Tastee!

Hey, kiddos.

BIG PETE: Mr. Tastee!

You're back!

Where were you?

Where?

I think you know where I was.

Ellen, right?

I saw this on a telephone pole outside Biloxi.

And this one near Duluth.

It seems everywhere I went, there I was.

Why did you come back?

Oh, I had to.

I wanted to pick up my photographs.

Oh, yeah, they're right here.

I guess you know we looked at them.

I kind of figured you did.

How'd they turn out?

Ooh, hey, you ever been to the Statue of Liberty?

You should go!

I pretended a Blue Tornado Bar was the torch.

I wish it was.

Me, too.

We missed you, Mr. Tastee.

Please. Don't say that.

But why is it so terrible?

Because, every year, on this day, the summer ends

and I always have to say good-bye.

It's hard enough without having you kiddos missing me.

Then don't go.

I have to, Pete.

I'm an ice-cream man.

I am what the summer is.

Fireflies, thunderstorms, butt sweat on the car seat...

and when it all goes, I have to go with it.

Couldn't you just stay a little bit longer?

Well, I'll tell you what.

There's a little daylight left.

What do you say you kiddos help me wax the Tastee Mobile?

Didn't you say that was a one-man job?

Not anymore.

I guess we thought that if we just kept waxing and waxing

maybe Mr. Tastee would never leave.

But when the sun finally set, it was time for him to go.

Okay, kiddos, come on.

I've got a long drive ahead of me.

Now, don't worry.

I'll be back, first hot day, like always.

Until then, I was wondering...

Yeah?

Could I get a shot of all of us together?

It'd mean a lot to me.

Sure.

Great.

No one knows who he is or where he comes from,

and probably no one ever will.

I guess some things are supposed to stay a mystery.

All we know is that he's more than just an ice-cream man.

We're more than just his customers.

When it comes to people missing you,

it's really not that terrible at all.