The Return of Hostess Chocodiles!

When Hostess initially went out of business in 2012, I saw the end of one of my favorite sweet snacks that I'd pick up on every supermarket trip: the Chocodile. Chocodiles are chocolate covered Twinkies and they're pretty much the greatest mass-produced sweet treat in the world and possibly the universe.

Hostess returned shortly thereafter when they were bought over by a Mexican conglomerate, but Chocodiles seemed absent from that revived lineup. Years went by and I never so much as laid eyes upon a single Chocodile...until recently at my local Ralphs when I found THIS box on the clearance rack:

WHERE THE HELL HAVE THESE THINGS BEEN???

My first thought was they had these sitting in back from the original Hostess crash four years ago, but that wouldn't make much sense. Plus, the "best by" date wouldn't be 2016. And no, Twinkies do not have apocalyptic expiration dates. In fact, their best by dates are typically only a month or so after their original shelf placement. Don't believe everything you hear; it's all lies. Especially on this blog hahaha.

Anyway...

Huh...Chocodiles kinda look like Nutella-coated turds...

...but I promise they're not. 

Glad to see these back.

Star Wars Micro Machines

My boss had a birthday recently. He's not a fan of anything flashy but we wanted to present him with something cool and, since he's a huge fan, something Star Wars themed. It may have taken too long to get custom Star Wars pastries made in the short amount of time we had so I thought hey...let's just get the cupcakes and then top them ourselves with...STAR WARS MICRO MACHINES!!!

With all the frosting here they're clearly reenacting the Battle of Hoth

So I grew up in the 90s during the boom of the wildly popular Galoob line of Star Wars Micro Machines. From 1994 to about 1998, Galoob produced a plethora of Star Wars toys including playsets, ships, and action figures, but few matched up to the awesomeness of Micro Machines. 

Virtually every ship seen in the original trilogy, and to an extent the special edition releases of the late 90s, had its own Micro Machine. Even frickin' Dash Rendar's Outlander, which appears as a tiny speck in the re-release of Episode IV, received its own Mini-Me. Business was booming...until it wasn't. Eventually Galoob overextended itself, producing different variations of toys that were already on the market. Sales tanked and they were bought over by Hasbro, who maintained the Star Wars Micro Machines brand for a few years but discontinued it following the lackluster release of The Phantom Menace line. 

Over the years they gained kind of a cult following and certain pieces sell moderately well on eBay. I should know - I started buying certain figures earlier in the year to complete the collection that I started all those years ago - toys from my childhood that I kept. 

With the relaunch of the Star Wars franchise, Hasbro decided to revive the Micro Machines line and they've invaded stores nationwide. I bought these cupcake bad boys at Target for about 10 bucks total. Considering that 3 ships in the 90s went for about $7, I'd say $10 for 7 ships and two figures is a pretty good deal. Are they the same quality? Absolutely not. These ships feel flimsy and are obviously made with different material. Some also sport slightly different designs and colors from the Galoob lines which makes certain ships look like cheap knockoffs that may have been produced to fool people in the 90s. But, hey, they're back and that's good enough for me.