I often find some of the Ben & Jerry's flavors to be either too sweet, or too busy, or both.  As far as I'm concerned, there are only so many things you can add to ice cream before it's just too much.  Flavors like Phish Food are delicious, but too cluttered to really enjoy properly.

By comparison. Americone Dream is relatively simple.  You have vanilla ice cream, a caramel swirl, and chunks of chocolate covered waffle cone.  The caramel swirl was relatively understated, which is good, because it definitely had an overpowering flavor.  Thankfully they toned down the caramel, so that it's about the same as a light drizzle of caramel topping.  

My only complaint about Americone Dream is that some of the waffle pieces had turned rubbery or chewy.  The texture of waffle cone was never meant to sit in ice cream for months at a time.  I assume the fudge coating was meant to protect the cone pieces from getting saturated, and it mostly does this.  But some of the smaller pieces in particular had gaps in their protective coating, and had turned sad.

At their best, the waffle cone pieces have that wonderful texture of a graham cracker used for an ice cream sandwich.  A little bit crispy, a little bit chewy, and with a nice toasted flavor.

Ice cream snobs often look down their noses at Ben & Jerry's, partly because of its ubiquity.  Ben & Jerry's brought high-end ice cream to the masses, following the lead of Haagen-Dasz but without the fake Danish thing, and without the air of vintage 1980s mock opulence.

As long as it's been kept properly - and my experience is that it hasn't always, depending on the store - Ben & Jerry's is a solid candidate for dessert.  (Or - let's be honest - for dinner.)  It uses "real ingredients" like cream, skim milk, and egg yolks.  It's a good dense weight, softens nicely, and is pretty darned tasty all around.

Noted liberal ice creamery Ben & Jerry's often makes special runs of their ice cream, and several of them have recently been overtly political.  I've heard that they renamed Chubby Hubby to Hubby Hubby in support of gay marriage (yay!) and that they released a Barack Obama flavor called Yes Pecan.  Sadly I haven't had any luck tracking these flavors down.

Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream has frequently been spotted on sale in my part of the world.  I live in a fairly liberal part of Washington state, but it's still a rural area, with some conservative politics.  Skagit county is split right down the middle, politically speaking.  But I can't help but wonder if this has something to do with the relative unpopularity of Americone Dream.

It's true that a purchase of Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream helps support some of Stephen Colbert's favorite charities.  According to Wikipedia, "Colbert is donating the proceeds to charity including "food and medical assistance for disadvantaged children, helping veterans and their families, and environmental causes."  

But the real shame is that anyone who passes on this ice cream is missing out on a real treat.