Happy 4th of July!

This Hostess baseball card album is from 1976. It seemed like a patriotic choice to post on Independence Day. Have a great 4th of July!

Olympic Fruit Pie Fever!

With the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics beginning, I thought this would be a nice tribute to the games that we'll enjoy over the next few weeks.

This Hostess Fruit Pie wrapper is from 1983, promoting a contest for a trip to the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Our pal Fruit Pie The Magician is in his rightful spot, waving his wand to make that contest logo appear out of thin air, covering up the customary blueberries. Poof!

Looking at the runner-up prizes on the back, I'm certainly curious about the 5,000 4th place prizes -- coupons for free Fruit Pies! Though I'll probably will never find one, I like to imagine it was something spectacular looking with the Magician on it. Ah, maybe one will turn up some day...

If you come across any other fruit pie wrappers, drop me an e-mail. I'd love to see them and know what's out there.

King Ding Dong shirts at Target!

I enjoy all of the retro t-shirts that have been on the market in recent years, especially those featuring advertising characters. Last week I was shopping at Target and popped over to the men's department to see if they had any new shirts.

And oh boy, it was my lucky day!

"Zoinks!" I said as I discovered these new Hostess Ding Dongs t-shirts featuring the honorable King Ding Dong. Fortunately the department was void of customers and my outburst did not cause a scene. In my own way, I had just won the lottery.

It's such a joy to find things like this. It's been 40 years since King Ding Dong was introduced as spokes-cake for Ding Dongs, well over 25 years since he was last on product boxes and a few years removed from the Hostess Cakes website. This is officially licensed by Hostess and dated 2010.

Naturally, I bought one to wear and will get another to save as-is. I sure hope this trend continues and that we'll see more shirts featuring the old mascots we used to know and love so much.

Hail to The King, from this loyal, sweet-toothed subject!

Hostess Cakes Logos and News

It was announced on November 2, 2009 that Interstate Bakeries Corporation was changing its name to Hostess Brands! As a long-time Hostess cakes fan, I thought this was pretty substantial news.

Interstate Bakeries Corporation has also been known at different times as Interstate Brands Corporation, Interstate Brands Companies, IBC Holdings Company and Interstate Baking Company. IBC has a long history before acquiring Hostess in 1995, including Dolly Madison cakes and Drake's cakes among other brands.

I thought I would post a little history of the Hostess brand name and the companies responsible for making such tasty treats as Hostess Twinkies, Hostess Ding Dongs and Hostess Fruit Pies. After doing some extensive research, I found a fair amount of inaccurate information out there on the internet. Here's a summary I put together which should be reliable enough:

• 1919 - Continental Baking Company creates their "CupCakes", though not branded as Hostess yet.
• 1925 - Hostess brand name started as part of Continental Baking Company (CBC) when CBC bought Taggart Bakery, makers of Wonder Bread.
• 1930 - James Dewar invents the Twinkie for CBC in Indianapolis.
• March 1967 - Hostess Ding Dongs are created.
• April 1967 - Hostess Ho Hos are created in San Francisco.
• September 13, 1968 - ITT Corporation (International Telephone and Telegraph) bought CBC, making it a wholly owned subsidiary, forming ITT Continental Baking Company (ITT Continental) with headquarters in Rye, NY.
• 1970-1971 - Hostess mascots such as Twinkie the Kid, Captain CupCake, King Ding Dong and others are created by artist Don Duga to represent products in animated commercials.
• October 9, 1984 - ITT sold CBC to Ralston-Purina (RP). RP retained the CBC name as a subsidiary, headquartered in St. Louis, MO.
• 1984-1995 - As far as I've been able to tell, the Ralston-Purina (RP) name and "checkerboard" logo were never used on Hostess packaging. Products still maintained the Hostess and Continental Baking Company names.
• July 24, 1995 - Interstate Brands Corporation completed purchasing CBC from RP.
• 1995 - The Continental Baking Company name was no longer used at this point.
• 1995 - Interstate Brands Company changes its name to Interstate Bakeries Corporation and the headquarters was in Kansas City, MO.
• 2009 - IBC corporate headquarters moved to Irving, TX (near Dallas) after emerging from bankruptcy.
• November 2, 2009 - Interstate Bakeries Corporation changes company name to Hostess Brands.

Despite all of the changes over the years, the Hostess brand name has remained steady and strong for nearly 85 years!

Here are some Hostess logos over the years.

Late '60s to early '70s bird logo (courtesy of Jason)

1970

1977

1978

1991

2001

2008

2000 IBC

2008 IBC

1978 Freshness Pledge

1991 Freshness Pledge

2000 Quality Pledge

Sorry for the boring post, but as a fan and collector of Hostess items, I think it is important to know some of the history.

For those who stuck it out to the end of this post, you are hereby rewarded with this YouTube commercial posted by FuzzyMemoriesTV and featuring Twinkie the Kid and Fruit Pie the Magician.

Happy Halloween 2009!

I hope everyone is having a nice Halloween. I've sure had my fill of candy and treats today.

Here are a few holiday themed items I thought I'd share today.

First is a special edition of Chips Ahoy! cookies from Nabisco. Cookie Guy, their mascot, is dressed up as a vampire bat! Orange morsels are mixed in with the chocolate to make an extra special treat.




Next is a fun Halloween sign from a Hostess outlet store. This is from a few years ago and features Fruit Pie The Magician and Twinkie the Kid showing off the holiday goodies. Thanks to my buddy Gregg for this!



Lastly, here's a surprise find at Dunkin' Donuts this year. It's a pretty groovy Halloween box. Best of all it was filled with those delicious Munchkins!

Saturday Commercial Break #18: Hostess Fruit Pies

This week's commercial break features our good friend Fruit Pie The Magician bringing some snacks to the kids at the Franklin School. Good wholesome fun with Hostess Cakes.

This commercial was uploaded to YouTube by divishion, and should date to the early 1980s.

I sure miss the old Hostess gang! Let's hope that Fruit Pie The Magician returns to his rightful place on the pie wrappers soon.

Raiders of The Lost Snacks

I've started a new photo group on Flickr, dedicated to snack food characters. It's called Raiders of The Lost Snacks.

I'm finding there are plenty of cool folks out there who love this kind of stuff too. Please join and contribute if you can.

If you don't know about Flickr, it's a Yahoo photo sharing site. You can get a free basic account which allows you to post up to 200 pictures, join groups and comment on other people's photos.

[ My other favorite group on Flickr is the Sugar Frosted Cereal Museum. ]

Snack away, cyber friends!

Note -- You may not be able to see all of the photos unless you've logged in to Flickr.


[ King Don, also known as King Ding Dong from Hostess Ding Dongs ]