Hot take: Hostess has quietly become the most dependable snack company of the Halloween season. Sorry, everyone else! The proof is in the literal pudding:

THOSE BOXES, THO.

They look like cheap backdrops for public access horror hosts, and I mean that in the best way. What’s really endearing is that they’re so classically gothic. You almost never see that anymore.

Can I just say how impressed I’ve been with Hostess since the post-bankruptcy buyout? It’s just been one bizarre thing after another. It’s like they’ve finally embraced the fact that what they produce is basically “edible play food.”

Why play it safe when you’re already selling oblong sponges filled with vanilla spiderwebs? Might as well get funky.

Shown above aren’t all of Hostess’s Halloween offerings, either. There are actually several more, both of the “returning” and “new” varieties. I’m grouping these three together because they’re the only ones that come dressed like Dracula’s bedroom. I like to think of them as a team. Read More…

Posted by Matt on 09/19/16
Permalink | 58 Comments

After having a blast curating that first batch of ‘80s and ‘90s newspaper ads, I couldn’t wait for Round 2. So this is it. Enjoy the show.

Oreo Halloween Treats!
(Target, 1994)

Treat-sized packs of Oreos are still around, of course, but I have immense nostalgia for the specific version pictured here.

Back before the internet turned Halloween junk food into an annual battle to create the most buzz, special editions like this were way less common. Oreos with orange filling are barely worth Instagramming by 2016 standards, but back in the mid ‘90s, they were fresh and they were exciting and they made me wanna shoop.

Confession: During my freshman year in high school, I had nothing to do for Halloween. My solution was to sit at home watching my Child’s Play 2 tape, twice in a row, devouring these Oreo treat packs the whole way through. That was on a Monday, and on Tuesday, I only half-faked sick. Read More…

Posted by Matt on 09/16/16
Permalink | 92 Comments

Behold, some of 2016’s best Halloween junk food!

(Well, I don’t always mean “best.” Sometimes just “noteworthy.” I hope you can forgive me this trespass. “2016’s Most Noteworthy Halloween Junk Food” just sounded so clunky.)

This will be a multipart series, because my #1 goal each Halloween season is to eat everything and then spend November singing an a cappella version of Man in the Mirror whenever I take a shower.

Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Bag of Bones!

THESE ARE PERFECT. Joining the Bag of Bones family is this all-new Flamin’ Hot version, which replaces the original’s bone white cheddar with fiery red death.

I might like this version even more. I get that the white cheddar Cheetos let us create more classically appropriate skeletons, but that’s kinda my point. Skeletons are spooky, but they have nothing on fleshy remains. With these, I feel like I’m creating the first acts for Hellraiser movies. They look so evil!

Plus, white cheddar Cheetos are good in theory and even good in practice, but they’re not so good when you’re on the couch and you have all day and you just don’t give a fuck. If I’m going to plow through fifty ounces of Cheetos, I don’t want it to feel like work. I want to do it obliviously and deal with the fallout later. I feel like I could do that with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

GRADE: A+. Read More…

Posted by Matt on 09/15/16
Permalink | 139 Comments