Schussler: From idea man to TV ad star for ice cream

Restaurant concepts creator Steve Schussler's turn as Clemmy's ice cream pitchman was a hit with Palm Springs, Calif.'s ADDY Awards.

"Clemmy's national TV commercials, the ones with Steve in them, won a local Gold ADDY Award," said Jon Gordon, founder and creator of Clemmy's all-natural, sugar-, lactose- and gluten-free ice cream.

"Everybody wants to know who our spokesperson is," said Gordon. "I said, 'I'm his agent, so if you want to do anything, come to me.' Now that we've won the local ADDYs, the commercials go up for a national ADDY Award." (I thought there was a stop at the regional ADDYs before the nationals, but Gordon wasn't sure.)

When last we visited, Gordon was making great progress in getting his product into Twin Cities stores controlled by SuperValu, the Eden Prairie grocery retailer. But there's been a setback.

The buyer who saw the light about putting Clemmy's in metro stores "left SuperValu, and now we have another person in there as a buyer who put us back in California in all the Albertsons stores and told our broker, We don't think sugar-free ice cream will sell anyplace but California. I'm still dealing with it," said Gordon.

"Baby steps. We will be in close to 6,000 stores in 44 states between now and the end of June. Obviously, a lot of other stores disagree with the SuperValu buyer."

As for Schussler, the award-winning pitchman, Gordon asked: "Is there anything more that could swell the head of that friend of mine?"

Weekends with The Greatest

Steven Schussler is spending his second weekend in a row in the company of Muhammad Ali.

Last weekend, while in Arizona on business, "I was lucky enough to get an invitation to come to Muhammad Ali's home and meet him and his wife, Lonnie Ali," Schussler said. "This weekend, Muhammad Ali is having his annual fundraiser, Celebrity Fight Night. They raised over $65 million for the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in Phoenix and for other charities.

"It's one of the biggest fundraisers in the United States. One of the sponsors of the event is Clemmy's ice cream, so I'm meeting Jon Gordon there. The names of the people who are going to be there are unbelievable."

Former Vikings owner Red McCombs is among the celebrities being honored at the gala Saturday, but I assigned Schussler the arduous task of getting me his picture with Halle Berry, who's also being honored.

Buzz is that The Foo Fighters were scouting Minneapolis locations to shoot a flaming hot hot hot video here.

Dionne the Difficult

Some viewers are surprised by what a piece of work singer Dionne Warwick has been on NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice" -- but my readers shouldn't be.

"I knew she had shady financial dealings, but I never knew how downright mean she was," said my colleague at janetcharltonshollywood.com when we were talking about how entertaining this installment of the "Apprentice" franchise has been.

NeNe Leakes and Star Jones getting ready to rumble... Jones and Lisa Rinna beefing. Funnier yet are reports of Jones threatening to sue Rinna for posting photos of monsters with captions such as: Star without her wig. Jones is a public figure, and unless there's much more to this, Ms. I'm A Lawyer should know suing would be a waste of money.

There was a little snapshot (about which you can refresh you memory at www.startribune.com/a263) into how difficult Warwick can be when she came to the metro in 2008 promoting "Say A Little Prayer."