Gotham City has been through its fair share of disasters. Just most recently, it’s been terraformed by Poison Ivy before being frozen by Mr. Freeze and Batman. Gotham’s been exposed to fear toxins and its fair share of gang wars and police states. There’s also the numerous far-fetched unusual plots dreamed up by the Joker.
Still, there’s been nothing quite like the time Gotham City was Twinkieless. While modern readers may not think to themselves while reading a comic set in Gotham about whether there’s Hostess sweets on the shelves, the treats were often essential for Marvel and DC superheroes to defeat their foes.
It didn’t matter whether the hero was offering up Hostess Twinkies, Cup Cakes, or Fruit Pies — the villain of the ad couldn’t resist. The Cup Cakes were too dark and valuable. The Twinkies were too sweet and creamy. The Fruit Pies could make even the most hardened criminal side with Batman, all for another taste of the dessert.
In the summer of 1976, DC Comics published “Batman and the Twinkieless Gotham City”. Rendered in an aesthetic reminiscent of the Adam West Batman television series, the advertisement followed the Penguin’s latest nefarious plot to rule Gotham City. By hypnotizing the Twinkie delivery men, the Penguin managed to capture the entire supply of Twinkies, a feat so impressive that it warranted a phone call from Commissioner Gordon to Batman.
Robin can’t think of who would be “so foul to do such a dastardly trick”, but Batman immediately knows that it’s got to be the Penguin. In typical Batman fashion, he’s able to put a stop to Penguin’s plot, demanding that Penguin release the delivery workers and reminding him that if his plot were to succeed, there wouldn’t even be Twinkies in prison. Penguin relents, wanting Batman to let go of him and agrees to his terms. The last panel includes not only Penguin’s defeat but also an oversized rendering of a Twinkies package. The last words are not from the Penguin, but rather the narrator. The comic itself is telling the reader — “You get a bite of delight in every bite of Hostess Twinkies”.
While “Batman and the Twinkieless Gotham City” is memorable for its ridiculousness, it wasn’t the only Hostess Ad that Batman starred in. He’d go on to feature in a variety of ads from “Catman on the Prowl” to “Batman v.s. The League of Assassins”.
Many of the ads featured the animal accomplices of the villains getting sidetracked by these treats. In “Catman on the Prowl”, Robin gives the Catman’s cats hostess cupcakes, appealing to their love of darkness. In “Batman & Robin: Birds of a Feather”, the Pigeon Person wanted to steal all of America’s statues — believing that an America without its statues was an America without a past — but her plot was foiled when her assisting birds betrayed her in favor of treats. The ad changes the familiar idiom “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” in favor of “a hostess cup cake in the beak is worth any two statues in the street”.
Some of the stopped villains are easier to believe than others. Catman was often the butt of the joke until he was reinvented by Gail Simone in the 2000s, so it isn’t hard to believe that he’d be easily foiled by such a plot in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s more of a suspension of disbelief though to believe that the mighty League of Assassins would be as easily defeated. By Batman’s own admission, the League of Assassins “developed the martial arts into a deadly science” and “their hands are deadly weapons”, but supposedly they’re able to be defeated by hostess twinkies. At least, its unnamed leaguers as opposed to the formidable Ra’s al Ghul. Now that would be laughable.
While Catman, the Penguin, and even the League of Assassins fixated on Hostess sweets, there was one iconic Batman villain immune to the treats — the Joker. The Joker spun out into his own advertisements for Hostess, titled “The Joker as the Cornered Clown” and “Clowning Around”. In “The Joker as the Cornered Clown”, the Joker is surrounded by cops, and tries distracting them with Hostess treats. He even temporarily succeeds given the officers’ love for the sweets before they wise up.
They, then, ask why Joker would give such deliciousness away. The Joker admits then that he can’t stand the food, which the cops argue makes him truly crazy. Forget the Joker being an embodiment of evil. No, his real insanity is not liking Hostess pies. A similar situation happens at the circus when the Joker is in disguise, but then gets found out when he turns down the treat he’s offered.
We want to hear from you in the comments — which Hostess ad is the hardest to believe?
