My Love Affair And Ugly Breakup With Twinkie The Kid

Hostess and I go way back. I used to have a thing for her. Hostess had my preferred snacks, the pleasant surprises I would sometimes find in my lunch box. Times were good when my parents could afford Hostess. A Hostess product was a status symbol for children too young to know what a status symbol was. I don’t know of any stories of kids being beaten up for their Ding Dongs the way they were for their Nikes a decade later, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it happened. They’d have been in for a scrap if anyone ever tried to take mine from me, though.

Actually,Twinkies were always the weak batter in the Hostess lineup. All cake and no frosting. Ding Dongs and Ho Ho’s were the heavy hitters, chocolatey goodness covering devil’s food cake and a surely toxic but undeniably yummy white fluff. How they were able to get that taste and texture from a test tube is a testament to science.

Suzie Q wasn’t able to lift your taste buds up into the stratosphere quite like King Ding Dong or Happy Ho Ho could. In fact, Suzie Q was the one Hostess offering that never even merited a mascot. Nevertheless, Suzie stood head and shoulders above Twinkie The Kid. And as far as sheer calories went, Suzie Q was unmatched.

Oh my God, how did I forget Captain Cupcake? Maybe he wasn’t surrounded by chocolate the way Happy Ho Ho and King Ding Dong were, but the frosting he had on top was extra thick. And he often travelled in pairs, so that you were able to overdose on completely valueless calories when…