Is the Twinkie the new New Coke?

This whole affair of the possible shut-down of Hostess products (“No More Twinkies!?!!”) is starting to take on the stink of New Coke.

Twinkies in space, according to this '70's era TV spot



Those of us who were around in the mid-1980s recall how the Coca-Cola Co. said it was changing its formula for the carbonated soft drink – only to revert back to the old formula after the public outcry was so intense.

WE NOW GET it under the brand name of “Classic Coke,” which makes me wonder if it was just a marketing spiel meant to make us appreciate more fully a product many of us were taking for granted and assumed would always be with us.

Which is how I think of all those snack cakes manufactured by Hostess – including the Ho Ho, the Ding Ding, the Suzy Q and the one that’s getting all the attention these days.

The Twinkie!

Hostess Bakeries has had its share of financial problems in recent years, and has tried to put the burden of balancing the company back to financial solvency on the backs of its workers and the labor union that represents them.

OFFICIALLY, THE REASON that company officials said Friday they’re shutting down is because not enough of the company’s employees were willing to cross the picket-line in the nine-day old strike that the union members were engaged in.

Company officials want their employees to take significant pay cuts; so significant that some employees say they’d be better off collecting unemployment benefits instead.

They’re trying to get the people of America to think in terms of those evil labor unions (whom they want to believe are closet Communists,  probably being led by their imperialist leader, Barack Obama) being responsible for them to not be able to get a Twinkie in the future.

Which is behind the fact that stores across the country have been seeing a rush on Twinkies and other Hostess products. People are trying to stock up on the snack cakes so as to postpone that moment when they eat their “final” Twinkie ever!

THAT KIND OF sentiment strikes me as someone who takes their snack cakes far too seriously. Then again, I recall people signing petitions and getting all worked up over the idea that somebody had tampered with their Coca Cola.

Of course, nothing is really a done deal.

There already has been speculation about all the other companies that might pay Hostess Bakeries some money for the rights to use product names such as “Twinkie” or “Ding Dong” on their own products.

There’s also the fact that a judge issued an order recently that is the reason why bakery and union officials spent Tuesday in mediation – hoping that the two sides can come to an agreement that will enable the bakeries to remain open and the Twinkies to keep coming off the assembly line.

BUT THEY COULD not. No one was willing to make anything resembling concessions. Which is why attorneys are preparing for a liquidation hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

That is, if the two sides remain stubborn (and it truly is the hard-line attitude of the company that is trying to place all blame on the union that is causing this situation). Who knows? Perhaps some sense can prevail? How ridiculous will all those people who stockpiled snack cakes during the weekend feel if it turns out that Hostess will continue to make Twinkies?



Is the Penguin behind this latest fiendish Twinkie plot?



For their sake, I hope they have ample freezer space to store all those boxes they bought. Because those things do go stale after a few days if they’re left out in the open – no matter what tales you’ve been told about Twinkies being edibly invincible.

And not even the six-year-old in me would want to eat a stale Twinkie.

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No more Twinkies?!??

Is suburban Schiller Park about to lose its claim to fame – namely, being the location of the old Continental Baking Co. where a baker came up with a concoction meant to be an out-of-season replacement for Strawberry shortcake.

TWINKIES: 1930-2012?



In short, James Alexander Dewar came up with the concoction that we now think of as “the Twinkie.”

THE YELLOW CAKE stuffed with vanilla crème that got dumped into so many a child’s bagged lunch at school (including many of my own, except for those moments when my mother would pick up a box of Zingers instead).

Anyway, the Twinkie is in the news because of a labor dispute that has a company saying they’ll go so far as to shut down all their plants that make Twinkies, rather than give in to the outrageous demands being made by the union that represents the bakery workers.

Personally, I can’t remember the last time I ate a Twinkie (although the other night, I saw a re-run of “All in the Family” where Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character lamented the loss of a Twinkie when his lunchbox got crushed by a 1-ton crate of machine parts that fell atop it).

The Twinkie has just enough of an iconic status that the mere threat that we will never again be able to buy a box of the snack cakes could get people all worked up into a frazzle!

WILL WE HAVE Twinkie fans picketing the union halls where workers are saying they aren’t going to make any further concessions because they think it is the incompetence of corporate interests that have caused the company to have its financial struggles?

It makes me wonder if we’ll get a real-life version of that episode of “The Simpsons” where fans of a McDonald’s-like McRib sandwich lamented the last one ever made – and actually held an auction for the rights to own it!

Those are Twinkie stains!



Will we see a mad rush on supermarkets in coming days, as people try to snatch up every single Twinkie in sight so they can have a stockpile and postpone the inevitable (no more Twinkies?!?) for as long as they can?

And how will Chicago White Sox fans deride the ballclub from Minneapolis, Minn., if the phrase "Twinkies" no longer has any pop culture meaning?

YES, I'M GOING overboard with the melodrama here. Largely because I think the whole dispute is a nonsense one. Particularly when Hostess Brands, Inc., set the 4 p.m. deadline for concessions by the union – or else face the closures of the bakeries where Twinkies are made. Some workers caved in, but company officials were being coy about whether enough did to satisfy them.

People would lose their jobs right before Thanksgiving, and would be unemployed during the Christmas holiday season. At a time when the unemployment rate is steadily declining, they’d be willing to do their part to shoot it back up.

Of course, who’s to say how hard-and-fast the deadline was? Even public relations types hired by Hostess Brands to make their public pitch admit there might be some flexibility.

All I know is that as I write this commentary, we’re at “H-hour” with no word as to whether the company has the nerve to actually do away with the Twinkie because their workers (the members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International union) won’t return to work from the strike they went on last week to protest the 8 percent pay cuts they’re being asked to take – along with reductions in health insurance and pension benefits.

THIS LABOR DISPUTE is unique in that the Twinkie is being used as a political weapon.

But on the other hand, it is so typical of management/labor negotiations – in that management seems to want to believe it is entitled to make cuts, and that people ought to be grateful that anybody would want to hire them at any salary rate.

Creme-filling, and chocolate. What more do you want?

It triggered something in me to learn of one union member who told the Reuters wire service that he’d literally make more collecting unemployment insurance rather than taking the pay and benefits cut that the company is demanding of he and his colleagues.

Who’s willing to sacrifice the Twinkie? It might not be that much of a loss. Because personally when I was a kid, I always preferred the Suzy Q.

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