Tag Archives: Ghostbusters

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkies and White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkies Limited Edition Ghostbusters

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkies and White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkies Limited Edition Ghostbusters BoxHere we go, folks – not one, but TWO different Ghostbusters-themed Twinkies! It’s not what the world asked for, but it’s definitely what the world needs.

It feels like this is a thing that should have happened back in 1984, when the first Ghostbusters movie came out. The reason? This.

In case you can’t click that or you’ve never seen the original movie because you lived in a cave or you’re under 30 (and still living in a cave), Egon (the scientist nerd) uses a Twinkie as an analogy to let the rest of the Ghostbusters know how fucked they were by the amount of PKE (psychokinetic energy, DUH) in the city. He says that it would be like if the Twinkie he was holding was 35 feet long and 600 pounds.

To which Winston says “that’s a big Twinkie”, which I’m sure was repeated about 6,000 times around the water cooler the week after the movie came out, because nobody laughs harder than when your “joke” consists of regurgitating a line from a movie you just saw.

If the Internet had widely existed in 1984, I can’t believe Hostess wouldn’t have teamed up with the movie to get these Twinkies out there. But alas, 1984 was a simpler time. A time less crammed with weird promotional products.

It’s not like those things didn’t exist before the ol’ web – take your brain on a quick nostalgia trip and I’m sure you’ll remember Nintendo-themed cereal and the infamous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vanilla Puddin’ Pies – but back then, bizarre food was aimed at kids. Now it’s aimed at all of us.

And I love it, of course.

Key Lime Slime

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters

This had to be the easiest marketing meeting ever for Hostess. “When people think of Ghostbusters, they think of slime…what flavor rhymes with slime…C’MON PEOPLE, PUT YOUR THINKING CAPS ON!”

I love that you can see the green filling glowing ghoulishly through the Twinkie sponge cake. It’s like a subtle warning sign saying, “don’t open this ghost trap!”

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters Filling

In a fun twist, the Key Lime filling inside the Twinkie looks more neon and more like slime than the filling pictured on the package. The package looks sort of like the Twinkie is extruding Play-Doh; the real thing looks like a malevolent force crawling out of the snack cake.

The lime flavor of the cream is actually pretty mild, which was a nice surprise. It didn’t taste like a lime Skittle (RIP) was morphed into cream filling. That would have been jarring. It doesn’t taste exactly like a key lime pie, but there was a nice balance of lime and creamy vanilla.

I didn’t think I’d like Key Lime Slime Twinkies at all, minus the fact that they were slime-themed Twinkies. But the fact that they kept the lime toned down and mixed it with creamier flavors made it pleasantly snackable.

White Fudge Marshmallow

Hostess White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters

Here we have Amorphous White Blob, an out-of-focus picture of something that could be anything.

Sadly, this is a perfectly fine picture, but the amorphous part stands. White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie isn’t winning any beauty pageants. But isn’t it what’s on the inside that counts?

This Ghostbusters Twinkie has a somewhat less straightforward description than Key Lime Slime: “White Fudge Covered Sponge Cake with Marshmallow Topping and Creamy Filling”. But wait, why isn’t the filling marshmallow-flavored? How is it topped with marshmallow but also covered with white fudge?

Hostess White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters Filling

Sure, the inside of White Fudge Marshmallow looks less threatening than Key Lime Slime, but there are surprises hidden in these white layers. If you look closely on top of the sponge cake, that’s not just an extra-thick layer of fudge – in between the white chocolate and the cake, there’s actually a layer of marshmallow!

Yes, that’s where the marshmallow is hiding. It’s like a super-thin Peep, or maybe a coconut-less Snoball (I don’t like coconut so I haven’t had one of those in ages).

This is a pretty inventive use of marshmallow, but that doesn’t mean it was good. It completely lacked the flavor of marshmallow, instead serving as a chewy, stretchy layer that threatened to tear apart the Twinkie from its white fudge covering, which was quickly melting between my fingers, creating a sticky mess.

Speaking of that white fudge, it completely dominated all the rest of the Twinkie flavors with it’s intense sweetness. If you enjoy the taste of regular Twinkie filling, you’ll never taste it here – it’s just sweet white fudge all the way down. Again, couldn’t they have made the filling marshmallow-flavored?

To me, the White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie had a weird texture and was a sugar overload, but points for creativity and for giving the Stay Puft Marshmallow man a substantial amount of real estate on the front of the box.

I’m so happy that there are not one, but two limited edition Ghostbusters Twinkies. Key Lime Slime was a slam dunk idea with a surprisingly decent taste, but White Fudge Marshmallow was a step outside the box – plus it was a perfect homage to our friend Stay Puft. Flawed in flavor, but I could feel the heart was there. My hat’s off to you, Hostess.

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkies and White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkies Limited Edition Ghostbusters

  • Score(Key Lime Slime): 3.5 out of 5 obviously-absent Slimers
  • Score (White Fudge Marshmallow): 2 out of 5 hooray-inducing present Stay Puft Marshmallow Men
  • Price: $2.50 (each)
  • Size: 10 Twinkies (Key Lime Slime); 9 Twinkies (White Fudge Marshmallow)
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirk: Honestly, nothing. It’s all just sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. At the end of the day, they are still Twinkies.

Hi-C Ecto Cooler (2016)

Hi-C Ecto Cooler 2016 CanI was too young to see the first Ghostbusters when it came out, but once I was able watch the movie without running out of the room screaming as soon as the Library Ghost showed up, I was a fan. Not a crazed die-hard fan, but a fan nonetheless. How could I not be when it had a giant marshmallow monster?

I never did get any of the toys, minus some stickers and maybe a Slimer eraser top or a tub of slime. There was so much slime in my childhood. Anyway, I guess it was considered more of a boy thing. I was perfectly content having my Barbies fight ghosts and vampires instead of nabbing a tiny Dan Aykroyd to do so.

But Ecto Cooler was something that everyone had access to. There’s no gender-specific aisles at the grocery store, and Slimer was mine for the taking in the form of a Hi-C juice box. It was like taking a friend with me to school. The only friend I ever had at lunch.

*sob*

But if you’re younger than I am, which is looking more and more like a probability as I continue to stare mortality in the eye, you probably don’t give a shit about any of this. Blah blah blah 80s nostalgia, blah blah there’s no Slimer on the can.

Oh yeah, that’s a real thing that real people are upset about. “Thanks for the Ecto Cooler but WHERE’S SLIMER???” Y’all need to calm the hell down. Besides, these cans do something that I’m sure your 1980s-loving self will surely appreciate:

Hi-C Ecto Cooler 2016 Color Changing Can

COLOR-CHANGING CANS WOOOOO! Hypercolor t-shirts! The Great Bluedini! Are you satisfied yet, adult-children? If not, there’s slime dripping down from the top of the can. TAKE IT.

All of the yellow on the can changes to green – even the little accent lines on the slime. Not huge, I know, but trust me – 9-year-old you would freak out at this concept. Never mind that it’s the same technology Coors uses to let you know their beer has cooled down sufficiently enough that you won’t notice how shitty it is.

We are being blessed with all these snack foods (don’t get me started on the Twinkies – because I will later) because of the new Ghostbusters movie. Have you heard of it? It’s a little indie flick. Also, it has girls in it instead of boys! You can call that stupid if you want, and the Internet has, but if it had been an all-girl squad back when I was younger, I sure as hell would have had all the toys.

Oh, here I go with the nostalgia again. Let’s get to the drink itself.

Hi-C Ecto Cooler 2016

What a beautiful, neon, ectoplasmic shade of green. If your parents are unwilling to buy you a tub of slime, you can always pour this over your toys and pretend they’re being slimed on your parents’ carpet. I’m pretty sure the staining effect will be similarly disastrous. (Seriously, parents, what did you think was going to happen when you bought your child a tub of slime?)

I gotta square up with ya: I don’t really remember what Ecto Cooler tasted like. I mean, when this Hi-C first hit my tongue, it went, “Hey that tastes familiar from my childhood,” but my tongue could be totally lying. But why wouldn’t the recipe be the same? Ecto Cooler lost Slimer and became Shoutin’ Orange Tangergreen and then Crazy Citrus Cooler, which was finally discontinued in 2007. It’s not like they lost the ingredients list.

So what does Ecto Cooler taste like to me today? Well, like many things that originate from a juice box, insanely sweet, with a little tart citrus kick and a lot of artificial tangerine, which is really just more like orange.

It tastes like a shitty kids’ drink. And it’s neon green. I shouldn’t be drinking this. But I am, and I’m loving it, even as I realize how crappy it tastes.

It was a little weird drinking the juice out of a can, because I associate cans with soda, so I had to re-adjust my palate to nullify the expectation of carbonation. I feel like these belong in their original format, the juice box. Which, lucky for us and kids alike, are also available! Just not anywhere I could find. But I’ll take my color-changing can over a juice box anyways. It makes me look so much more mature.

Summing up all this rambling, Hi-C Ecto Cooler is a gimmicky return of a drink that us old people think is the greatest thing in the goddamn world, but it’s really just a very sugary orange drink with no nutritional value. But it does come in a very cool can and a heavy dose of nostalgia. If that’s a flavor that’s up your alley, then go for it. Happy hunting!

Hi-C Ecto Cooler (2016)

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 slime carpet stains
  • Price: $7.75 (for a case of 12)
  • Size: 11.5 oz. can
  • Purchased at: amazon.com (Prime Pantry)
  • Nutritional Quirk: No surprise, a whopping 41 grams of sugar in one can. (For comparison, a 12 oz. can of Coke has 39 grams.) I take it back about lacking any nutritional value, though: it does have 100% of your daily recommended value of Vitamin C!