greenideas

It all started with a lively bar-room discussion of certain region-specific brands of snack foods (e.g. Tastykake, Drake's, Dolly Madison). Continuing along those lines, we raised the issue of the Ding Dong/King Don controversy.

In case anyone hasn't been introduced to this mystery, it goes a little something like this: See, the fine folks at the Hostess company marketed their chocolate-enrobed, cream-filled, hockey puck-shaped snackcakes under the name "King Dons" in the Southeastern US, but as the more widely known "Ding Dongs" everywhere else.

So, in what amounted to a bolt-from-heaven-sized stroke of luck, someone at the bar happened to have a couple of books handy which were essentially pictorial histories of American junk foods. Thumbing through one of them, we noticed a Ding Dong package with a picture on it of King Ding Dong, the once and future king of snackdom. We thought that this was a bona fide eureka moment, since it finally established a material connection between the two products.

A further wrinkle is added to the story when you consider that there was actually a third name for the same product, namely, "Big Wheels." Accordingly, Big Wheels had their own spokescake, Chief Big Wheel. The Chief adds the further possibility that there was some concern for political correctness in the constellation of names for this one delicious treat. The plot thickens...

...Or so we thought. When we excitedly took to the interweb this morning to get to the bottom of this once and for all, the answer we found was bitterly disappointing. Here is the rather boring genuine story, straight from the mouth of Twinkie the Kid himself.

When Hostess introduced Ding Dongs in 1967, the advertising campaign included a ringing bell: hence the name Ding Dongs. However, the eastern United States Hostess opted to package the cakes as King Dons to avoid confusion with a competitor's product. Hostess consolidated the King Don and Ding Dong name in 1987, packaging the cakes as Ding Dongs in all regions. Six months later, Hostess decided to go back to using the King Don name in the eastern U.S., again, to avoid confusion with a competing product. But, today the issue has been put to rest and only Ding Dongs are sold nationwide.

How lame is that? Where is the intrigue? When we started looking into this, we half expected to find a Mulder-sized web of deceit, replete with secret recipies, and evidence of collusion between Henry Kissinger and Fruitpie the Magician. Also, we figured that Reggie Jackson must have been involved somehow (he's on both boxes).

You know what, we're not satisfied with this. It's just too tidy.

This isn't over...