February 21, 2011
Remember those Hostess Flash Cakes? Shannon writes in:
Just thought I would share with you, we were in our local store and found Flash Cakes awhile back (we haven’t found them since though), and loved the whole idea. My boyfriend, Joe, is an Indy wrestler for RCW (a few others as well) and goes by the name Flash Fury. When we found the cakes on the shelf, he grabbed up a box up did a little pose with them for a picture, our friends at the wrestling shows love the picture. We are hoping to find more Flash cakes to take with us to the shows. We love them!
Great story, Shannon! Thanks for sharing!
October 3, 2010
Some linkblogging for the weekend.
September 17, 2010
Rickey Purdin’s discovery of Green Lantern GLO-Balls in the supermarket has been making the rounds of comics blogs this week, but he spotted another super-hero-themed snack at the same time: Flash Cakes.
OK, so the name doesn’t amuse the inner twelve-year-old. But it does call to mind those 1970s Hostess ads in which super-heroes, the Flash included, defeated villains with the power of Twinkies. Usually they were low-rent villains like the Bureauc-Rat, Destroyer, Medusa and Dr. Sorcery, but occasionally real villains like Mirror Master or the Penguin.
They’re also surprisingly close to convincing me to buy Hostess cupcakes for the first time in a decade, and I’m married to someone who can make considerably better cupcakes in her sleep. (Of course, she’d probably draw the Flash symbol on the top, rather than simply toss yellow sprinkles onto the red frosting.) Update: She did!
Oh, for the record:
June 19, 2010
Some funny links from the last week or so two…
Geoff Johns and Matt Fraction joke about a Green Lantern/Iron Man crossover.
Ah, super-heroes and dead parents! The cliche is so established that it’s been spoofed, as Comics Should Be Good spotlights Kill All Parents in their Year of Cool Comics.
Comics Oughta Be Fun mashes up those Hostess cupcake ads with Gwen Stacy death to reveal…what really happened the night of June 16, 1973.
gottabecarl draws the Futurama cast as the X-Men via IO9 and Ryan the Iowan.
The National Park Service really is having problems with a movie about “Robots from Space” — Transformers 3.
And totally off-topic, but I thought it was funny: a local city is really concerned that you understand that the dead grass is intentional and not a sign of *gasp!* poor maintenance.
April 17, 2010
This frivolous complaints about Blackest Night thread is a fun read. My favorite is on page 4, with these two comments.
Greg Owens:
Nekron was not defeated by the use of delicious Hostess Fruit Pies. Complete and utter failure on DC’s part.
ADGood:
Not just fruit pies, but a fruit pie corps. Seven different-colored pies to represent the flavor spectrum.
I can just imagine DC trying to work the low-rent villains and nonsensical plots from those Hostess ads that were all over late 1970s/early 1980s comics into modern continuity…only to make them all darker and edgier.
August 2, 2009
Geoff Johns reassures fans of Wally West that “Wally’s not only going to be fine, he’s going to kick ass.”
The third installment of Views from the Speed Force is up. The spinoff from the Views from the Longbox podcast has been focusing on each issue of Flash: Rebirth, and this one tackles issue #3.
Fanboy Wife contemplates the Flash, alternate meanings of the name, the value of hard water and just what super-speed is good for.
Blog@Newsarama considers what might go into a second volume of Wednesday Comics.
Tomheroes has a collection of super-hero Hostess ads from the 1970s. I’ve mentioned these before, and profiled the lame villains who appeared in the Flash installments. This page doesn’t have the snarky commentary of Seanbaby’s Hostess Page, but some of the scans are somewhat higher quality.
The Weekly Crisis is giving away 4 trade paperbacks and hardcovers in a contest to celebrate two years online.
Over at K-Squared Ramblings I’ve written up the Flash Forward panel at Comic-Con. This show looks like it’s going to be awesome! Also: the Lost panel was full of win. I missed it, but my wife posted a detailed write-up.
March 28, 2009
Crimson Lightning has posted the best of live-action Flash, featuring his favorite 3 episodes (and an honorable mention) from the 1990 Flash TV series.
The Aquaman Shrine has Flash vs. the Hostess Ads by Fred Hembeck. (There were, to the best of my knowledge, four Hostess ads with the Flash during the late 1970s/early 1980s.)
IO9 wonders, with the Flash reborn, who’s next?
The Heritage Auctions blog talks about Showcase #4 (Barry Allen’s first appearance) and its significance as the start of the Silver Age. The highest-grade copy known to exist (CGC 9.6) is going on auction in May.
Samurai Noir’s Toy Box 2 has pictures of vintage Flash and Aquaman board games.
PrettyFakes contrasts creator-driven vs. crossover-driven storytelling in the context of Iron Man, with references to the Messner-Loebs and Waid runs on Wally West’s Flash series.
The Worlogog talks about weekly comics in general and Wednesday Comics in particular.
The comic strip Epic Tales of the Mundane tackles a trade-waiter’s dilemma when faced with Flash: Rebirth.
Silver Age Comics has a run-down of DC Annuals in the Silver Age.
Blam talks about comics in the 1990s, including Mark Waid’s runs on Flash and Impulse.
The Pulse interviews former Flash artist Freddie Williams II on Final Crisis Aftermath: Run (which, for the record, is not about a speedster, but about the Human Flame).
September 4, 2008
In this battle sequence from Flash v.1 #277 (September 1979), the Flash finds a way to stop the Mirror Master using nothing but a storeroom full of chocolate bars. And no, it’s not a Hostess ad, though it’s around the time those were appearing.
The image appears after the cut: Read the rest of this entry »
August 19, 2008
If you read DC or Marvel comics during the late 1970s or early 1980s, or if you’ve read back issues from that era, chances are that you’ve seen the super-hero ads for Hostess cupcakes, Twinkies, etc. These were done as 1-page stories in which a low-rent villain would appear as a menace. Then a super-hero would arrive, and somehow use snack cakes to defeat the villain.
Yep.
There were at least four ads featuring the Flash:
These are all scanned and hosted by Seanbaby, who has a full set of these Hostess ads. (Watch out for NSFW language in the commentary.)
You know, now that I think about it, the subtext of the Flash helping The Destroyer fight off his depression by eating junk food is disturbingly reminiscent of the Golden Age Flash providing “happiness pills” to the Worry Wart.
Sadly, the Destroyer didn’t share the Flash’s hyper-accelerated metabolism.
Speaking of NSFW commentary and disturbing implications, there’s also Super Stupor’s take on the campaign.
(Inspired by a recent post at Mike’s Progressive Ruin.)
