This is about the baked goods brand. For the potato chip brand, see Hostess Potato Chips

Hostess Potato Chips

Hostess Potato Chips was the leading potato chip brand in Canada for many years. They fended off any attempt to displace them from their commanding position, and retained their #1 position into the 1980s, even in the face of increased competition from US-based companies entering the Canadian market...

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Hostess is a brand

Brand

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...

 of Hostess Brands in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, known for its line of snack foods, such as Twinkie

Twinkie

The Twinkie is an American snack cake made and distributed by Hostess Brands. They are marketed as a "Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling".-History:...

s, CupCakes, Chocodile

Chocodile

Chocodiles are a confection created by the Hostess Brands company. The package describes the snack cake as a "chocolate coated sponge cake with creamy filling." The Chocodile is Twinkie shaped, but unlike the Twinkie which is sold in packages of 2 or 3 cakes, the Chocodile is sold individually...

s, Ding Dong

Ding Dong

A Ding Dong is a chocolate cake that is sold by Hostess Brands. It is round with a flat top and bottom, about three inches in diameter and a little more than an inch high, similar in shape to a hockey puck. A white creamy filling is injected into the center, and a thin coating of chocolate glaze...

s, Ho Hos, Suzy Q's

Suzy Q

Suzy Q's are a brand of snack cake developed by Hostess. The oblong sandwich of either banana-flavored or devil's food cake with white crème filling was invented in 1961 and named after the daughter of Continental Baking Company Vice President Cliff Isaacson. They are still sold in many stores...

, Sno Balls

Sno Balls

Sno Balls are cream-filled chocolate cakes, which are then covered with marshmallow frosting and coconut flakes. They are marketed by Hostess. Sno Balls are usually pink; however, they are also available in chocolate, lemon, white, green, blue and other colors, depending on the holiday...

, Zingers

Zingers

Zingers are an American snack cake sold under both Dolly Madison and Hostess, snack food brands owned by Interstate Bakeries Corporation.-Product line:Zingers are similar to Twinkies and come in devil's food, vanilla, and raspberry flavors....

, Donettes, Mini Muffins, Hostess Fruit Pies, Pudding Pies, and Doughnuts.

Hostess' signature CupCakes, with their distinctive seven vanilla "squiggles" swirling atop a layer of chocolate icing, are reputed by their maker to be the best-selling snack cake in history.

History

In 1925, the Taggart Bakery was selling a new brand of white bread

White bread

White bread is made from wheat flour from which the bran and the germ have been removed through a process known as milling. Milling gives white flour a longer shelf life by removing the bran which contains oil, allowing products made with it, like white bread, the ability to survive storage and...

 called Wonder Bread

Wonder Bread

Wonder Bread is the name of three North American brands of white bread: One produced by George Weston Bakeries in Canada, another by Hostess Brands in the United States, and the third by Grupo Bimbo in Mexico.- United States :...

. The Continental Baking Company

Continental Baking Company

The Continental Baking Company was one of the first bakeries to introduce fortified bread. It was the maker of the Twinkie and Wonder bread. Through a series of acquisitions and mergers it became Hostess Brands.-History:...

 purchased Taggart and began selling Wonder Bread nationwide, and invented Hostess Cakes as an additional brand to increase the company's popularity with retail vendors.

Interstate Bakeries Corporation

Interstate Bakeries Corporation

Hostess Brands, Inc. is the largest wholesale baker and distributor of fresh bakery products in the United States, and is the owner of the Hostess, Wonder Bread, Nature's Pride, Dolly Madison, Butternut Breads, and Drake's brands. For many years it was based at 12 East Armour Boulevard, Kansas...

 purchased the Continental Baking Company

Continental Baking Company

The Continental Baking Company was one of the first bakeries to introduce fortified bread. It was the maker of the Twinkie and Wonder bread. Through a series of acquisitions and mergers it became Hostess Brands.-History:...

 in 1995.

In Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Vachon

Vachon Inc.

Vachon, Inc. is a Canadian maker of popular snack pastries, owned by Saputo, Inc.Vachon was founded by Joseph-Arcade and Rose-Anna Vachon Giroux in 1923 when the couple left his home village of Saint-Patrice-de-Beaurivage to develop a bakery in Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce in Quebec.Brands include:*May...

, owned by Saputo

Saputo Incorporated

Saputo Inc. is a Montreal-based Canadian dairy company. Founded as a cheese store in 1954 by Italian immigrant Giuseppe Saputo, today Saputo’s business includes cheese, baked goods and milk production, and it is the world's twelfth largest dairy producing company...

 (and not affiliated with Interstate), owns the rights to the Hostess trademarks.

Comic book advertisements

From 1975 until 1982, Hostess ran an advertisement campaign in American comic books. These advertisements featured heroes from DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 and Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 like Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

, Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

, and Spider-Man

Spider-Man

Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

 in one-page adventures each resolved with Hostess products. For example, in the original ad, after being unable to subdue a mummy

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

, Batman pacifies him by giving the mummy Twinkies. Other ads would have the protagonist outwitting the antagonist with the pastries, such as the Hulk preparing to strangle a trio of revolutionaries, but a little boy says that is too violent and instead recommends giving them Hostess Fruit Pies, or Batman outwitting a gourmet villain who is kidnapping chefs by paying a ransom in Hostess Cupcakes instead of money, which causes the villains to voluntarily surrender. Subsequent ads included myriad characters from various publishing houses including Casper the Friendly Ghost

Casper the Friendly Ghost

Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. As his name indicates, he is a ghost, but is quite personable...

, Richie Rich

Richie Rich

Richard "Richie" Rich, Jr. is a fictional character that debuted in Harvey Comics' Little Dot #1, cover-dated September 1953. Dubbed "the poor little rich boy", Richie is the only child of fantastically wealthy parents and is the world's richest kid. He lives and works in an expensive mansion and...

, and various members of the Archie Comics

Archie Comics

Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

 gang as well as Gold Key

Gold Key Comics

Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...

 and Whitman comics licensed characters such as Tweety

Tweety

Tweety Bird is a fictional Yellow Canary in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons. The name "Tweety" is a play on words, as it originally meant "sweetie", along with "tweet" being a typical English onomatopoeia for the sounds of birds...

 and Sylvester

Sylvester (Looney Tunes)

Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr., Sylvester the Cat or simply Sylvester, is a fictional character, a three-time Academy Award-winning anthropomorphic Tuxedo cat in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies repertory, often chasing Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales, or Hippety Hopper...

 and The Road Runner. The Archie Comics character Josie appeared in over 25 ads, frequently as a back-cover to many issues in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These have been parodied in various comics such as Radioactive Man and Preacher

Preacher (comics)

Preacher is a comic book series created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, published by the American comic book label Vertigo , with painted covers by Glenn Fabry....

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