Twinkie Twinkie little snack,
How I want some more to pack
In my lunch above the stack
Of other stuff that seems to lack
The gushy goodness in your smushy middle.
With this ditty I invite you into Twinkie city.
This is where golden crepe is draped, banana-yellow candles are lit and we celebrate the 70th birthday of that venerable brown-bag goo-ru, the creme de la cream-filled treats, the one thing you'd take with you on a dessert island.
"America's favorite snack food, the Twinkie," as a press release says from Interstate Brands Corp., the Kansas City headquarters of Twinkiedom.
Which may be hedging slightly if you only go by numbers. Hostess cupcake is a smidge ahead of Twinkie in longevity and consumption.
"We sell just over 500 million of both," said Mark Dirkes, senior vice-president of marketing, by phone from KC.
But the real point is Twinkie's singular position as the golden nugget of after-dinner royalty — the only gilded spongecake oozing a slurpworthy center.
"Others may make a snack cake. There is only one Twinkie," Dirkes said.
And only one nation, indivisible, with liberty and pastries for all, that can sink its chompers in them.
"We do not belong to the world. We belong to the U.S. We get e-mails from all over asking us where you can get Twinkies," Dirkes said.
"The Twinkie is too good to share."
Eat your heart out, world.
But then the Twinkie always has been a special yummy in American tummies, ever since Jimmy Dewar, manager of the Continental Baking Co. in Chicago, created the first one in 1930 and christened it after seeing a St. Louis billboard advertising Twinkle Toe Shoes.
"The best darn-tootin' idea I ever had," Dewar said.
Who'd argue with that — or Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob, who excitedly talked Twinkie to their Saturday morning TV Peanut Galleries?
No less a hero than the Man of Steel had a soft spot for Twinkies. Superman celebrated his 50th birthday with a Twinkie cake.
When World War II brought a banana shortage, Americans supported our doughboys with the usual keen Yankee knowhow, replacing the banana-cream filling with the snowy goop that endures today.
When the Minnesota Twins were down-and-out, what did local fans call them? The Twinkies — inspiring them to a 1987 worst-to-first World Series run, led by Kirby Puckett who, come to think of it, was shaped like he'd eaten his share of the team's namesakes.
And speaking of the Twin Cities, what self-respecting American icon would be without a scandal? Minneapolis was home to Twinkiegate, in which a city councilman allegedly offered Twinkies to elderly voters to get them to the polls.
Maybe the dirty-dealing politico plied them with tales of Lewis Browning. Known as the undisputed Twinkie King, the Shelbyville, Ind., milkman, discovered Twinkies in 1941 and began eating one a day. In 1997, he smashed the coveted 20,000 Twinkie barrier and went on to wolf his 20,440th.
"Lewis is 87 and alive and well and eating Twinkies today," Dirkes said.
Such devotion is what drove throngs to the Chicago Navy Pier last week to dig into a 25-foot high cake of 20,000 Twinkies.
It is the same sentiment that created a Twinkie panic the week before. When the Wayne, N.J., Interstate bakery closed eight days with a work stoppage, Boston Globe headlines blared the Twinkie shortage gripping the East.
The New York Times, responding to the crisis, printed a Twinkie recipe. Next day, they made Twinkies on the Today Show.
No wonder the Twinkie was included in a millennium time capsule, representing "an object of enduring American symbolism."
No wonder when a baboon escaped from an Ohio zoo in 1976, one thing could lure him back into his cage.
Don't feel bad about your Twinkie jones, Clyde. Half a billion fellow primates fall every year for the same sweet song.
Please send e-mail to gtwyman@desnews.com; faxes to 801-237-2121.