Not even Superman can save the Twinkie.
Earlier this week, it was announced that for the second time in the last 10 years, the snack cake kingdom of Hostess was filing for bankruptcy protection. Best known as the makers of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, Hostess is dealing with the sad reality that times, they are a-changin’. Parents these days don’t want to send their kids to school with a baked snack cake as a treat anymore. Lunch is all about healthy snacks now, and with that the legacy of the golden brown snack cake filled with pure sugar joy is taking one step closer to its end.
You may have come here to to praise Twinkies, but I came here to bury them. For they are the most overrated snack food of this or any generation.
As a child of the 80s and 90s, I’m all too familiar with the parental convenience of the Lunchables and snack cake brown bag. But for the sake of revisionist coolness history, let’s pretend I had a Thundercats lunchbox. Hot damn, I always wanted one of those.
I still want this.
I was fortunate, though, because my mom had a rule – snack cakes only on Fridays. But some of my friends got them every day, and I vividly remember the New York Stock Exchange type atmosphere in my cafeterias, as kids went crazy trying to trade their snack cakes among each other. And if snack cakes were a type of lunch room currency, the Twinkie was probably the nickel, with apple sauce being the penny, and hoo boy did I have a lot of pennies.
All of this sudden Twinkie love and the farcical cries of “Save Twinkie the Kid!” are the results of memories clouded by convenient pop culture nostalgia. Because unless you’re Peter Griffin in a nuclear wasteland or Sgt. Al Powell’s pregnant wife, you don’t really give a crap about Twinkies. To most people they’re just novelties in the snack cake world, in the same way that people say Coke when they’re talking about soda.
What? They're for his wife. She's pregnant.
We’re overhyping this remembrance of Twinkies, and it’s not fair now like it wasn’t fair back then – by the way, you should totally picture me shaking my fist on a giant stage at this point. The real victims here are the other snack cakes and treats that were always overshadowed by the convenient reputation of the Twinkie. If I had to make a Top 10 list of the best snack foods, Twinkies wouldn’t even crack it. I don’t even think they’d crack my Top 20, because they’re not even the best Hostess snack cake.
Ding Dongs, Zingers, Suzy Q’s, Sno Balls are all > Twinkies.
As for the competition, I mean, if you’re going to shove sugar down your pie hole, then Lil Debbie and Drake’s are the proverbial BOMB compared to Hostess. Have you ever had a Drake’s Coffee Cake? “Seinfeld” wasn’t lying.
So I’m going to open up this latest installment of the UPROXX discussion to our fine commenters and nostalgic foodies to help us determine which of all the delicious snack cakes is the true king. Perhaps it is the Twinkie. But I know the true snack cake king is…
Star Crunch, FTW. Prove me wrong, people. I dare you.
(Thundercats lunchbox via Flickr.)
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I love a good star crunch as much as the next guy, but I’m Team Honey Bun all the way.
#teamhoneybun
Honey Bun? Really? Like Winnie the Pooh j*zzed on a day old roll if you ask me.
Perhaps you’d like honey buns more if they came with shirtless dudes on the packaging, Maske?
(Inside joke)
Swiss Cake Rolls never get their due.
Love those! Totally underrated.
Also, GUSHERS > Fruit Roll-Ups!
No doubt about this one. Fruit roll ups are only good for wrapping a bunch of gushers together and eating a fun-fruit burrito.
Gushers are the best when all the individual pieces are stuck together and you can eat the packet in one bite.
Most definitely
I’ve been saying for years they need to triple the size of gushers packets. I’m not a kid anymore. I need some adult sized gushers, dammit!
Damnit, Monkeys, I’m gonna be thinking about that fun-fruit burrito all day now. That’s genius!
Zebra Cakes and their Christmas tree holiday variant.
“Cupcake! Get Twinkie the Kid and Fruit Pie the Magician!” – Ben Murphy
Fuckin’ those pizza/pretzel Combos!
Butterscotch Krimpets. The only way they could be less healthy is if you froze them, put them in a pillow case, and beat me to death.
YES.
Golden Hostess cupcakes (with chocolate frosting on top) after being in the freezer for a few hours.
Done.
Oooohhh, Star Crunches ARE delicious. Good call.
Also wildly underrated: Haribo’s gummi root beer. NOT the barrels. The bottles:
[www.candywarehouse.com]
Those are Cola bottles. They are awesome! If they had actually been root beer flavored I would have quit my job to travel the world and buy each and every one that Haribo had made. Then I would have locked myself in my basement and eaten them all as fast as humanly possible.
Germans think that root beer tastes like toothpaste, highly unlikely that they would make a candy out of it.
I don’t know if they ever made it outside of Canada, but Hawkins Cheezies haunt my dreams to this day
Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie, if we’re talking dessert snacks.
DELICIOUS.
Seconded. I’ve gotten sick eating those.
Insert witty yet not too assuming “cream pie” joke here.
Lance Oatmeal Cream Pie > Little Debbie’s
Gotta little more homestyle too it. I could eat my weight in either though.
Winner.
Ultimate Sega Genesis overnight party combo? Squeeze Pops and fucking Jolt! cola!
I used to tear through those powdery Kraft brand Dad’s Chocoloate Chip cookies. Got alot of hate because of it, but it made me feel like Godzilla, chompin’ through sheets of drywall
Oh, Nutty Bars beat everything. They made me the slovenly chunk of flabby manmeat I am today. My road to hell is paved with Nutty Bars bricks and Reese’s Pieces gravel (with peanut butter cookie dough used as mortar).
Can someone forward that to Susan Powter? I bet it would make her fucking head explode. Brutal honesty from husky men and full-figured women seems to raise her ire.
Nutty Bars FTMFW
Gotta go with Burnsy; Star Crunch uber alles.
Snickers ice cream bars, raspberry Zingers, and HIT cookies
Goddammit I’m craving a star crunch in the worst way now. I’m actually going to have to track some down later, aren’t I?
Star crunch has rice in it, so to me, it’s a little too good for you. I go for Drakes Cherry Pies. Two pies in each package which increases the amount of unhealthy pie dough covered with hardened sugar coating. The centers are filled with slightly cherry tasting gooey, sugary filling that has an occasional piece of cherry in it. No pretenses there.
I like your style, Ballsack.
Let’s be honest here. Those limited edition BBQ Doritos they made a few years back were way better than any of the regular flavors.
STOP FUCKING ME OVER AND BRING THEM BACK, FRITO-LAY!
IDK, those sweet & spicy ones they make are titz.
Regular Doritos or GTFO!!!
Here’s some more truth for your asses:
Hershey’s HUGS > Hershey’s KISSES
You ever had one of those Entenmann’s devil’s food cakes with the marshmallow icing? Man, I would kill my parents for one of those. FYI, my parents are already dead. Make of that what you will.
I’m sorry, but nothing with white chocolate beats pure milk chocolate.
had a star crunch in my lunchbox most days of elementary school. and honey buns are for poor white trash. “i have more taste in my penis.”
(Slumps away in shame)
cool ranch Doritos from the 80s + frozen bagel pizza, + entenmanns coffee cake with the jizz coating kept me alive as a pre-adolescent.
Pizzeria Pretzel Combos
Herr’s Peanut Butter-filled pretzels
Herr’s chocolate covered-peanut drizzled pretzels
Hostess ChocoBliss
This post brought to you in part by my clogged arteries.
Svenhard’s Butterhorns and Entenmann’s Raspberry Danish Twist.
I heartily endorse John Belushi’s energy food of choice, little chocolate donuts.
Yeah, a six pack of those would be good right now.
Runners up: Entenmann’s Cream Cheese Coffee Cakes, Hostess Lemon Pies, ChocoDiles, Ding Dongs, and good ol’ celery & peanut butter.
When I was a kid, my mom would always buy Snackwell’s low cal crap instead of the good stuff. I was horribly, horribly deprived.
And why has no one mentioned Thin Mints yet?!
HOLY FUCK THIN MINTS!!! YEEEEESSSSS!
Most under-rated snack food was so under-rated that you can’t even buy them in stores anymore (here on the east coast anyway). Hostess’ Powdered raspberry filled donuts. Ate ‘em all the time as a kid. Haven’t seen them in the stores since I was about 10-12 years old. Yeah they sell them online now, but I ain’t paying 36 dollars for 18 donuts.
I googled these. I found ONE picture which turned into ONE large erection.
Sharing the love
Hostess Donettes FTMFW!!! I’d have sex with my wife for a bag of these…
Hmm. Seems like the price isn’t as much as I thought originally. here ya go guys. Order away before Hostess never makes them again.
[freshchocodiles.com]
For Burnsy…
Goldfish no doubt, so fucking consistent
My brother wrote about this a few months ago. In depth and heavily researched…
[www.really-funny-emails.com]