Okay, just when I thought I had seen it all, I was minding my own business, walking down the isle in the store and I saw it. The most grotesque example of overzealous marketing tactics I have ever seen. Hostess has now come out with a god-damned purple cupcake.

Look, I’m not the most health conscious person in the world, and when I saw the offending cakes I was approaching the frozen food section at the time. But, come on, they took an overly unhealthy snack and they just went fucking insane! What the hell is made of purple that resides in nature besides the plum anyway? You can bet your ass this doesn’t taste anything like plum. I’m betting a buck this is made explicitly from cancer biopsies harvested directly from lab rats who were fed nothing but NutraSweet.

Previous to the obscene color at least it had a resemblance to what it really was. The black icing on top reminded you that you were eating cocoa derived cancer infused sugar blended products and the white stuff in the center made it painfully clear that you were eating animal extract. Not just any part of the animal, mind you, but the flabbiest part of grade F meat you’ve ever seen. But you could deal with that, because, you’re eating a Hostess Cupcake, after all, and you signed up for the early diabetes. Now, what the hell?!

There is no part of a cow (mixed with sugar or not) that I want any part of if it’s purple. But seriously, take a look at the packaging on this and you’ll see why my eyes were suddenly unable to think about anything other than the packaging. Sorry for the crappy photo, I only had my shitty phone-camera with me at the time.

Click to enlarge

It’s a god damned purple cupcake! Can you believe that?! How is that possible? The really scary thing is that there is some product manager somewhere who came up with this idea. What I want to know is what his thought process was. “Wonka Cakes, hmm? What color can I make the lard? Hmmm…. Blue? No…. Red? No…. Hmm… 30 minutes until 5. Maybe that cute girl from the gym will be there again tonight. She’s usually only there until 5:30. Okay okay… Concentrate, Todd, you just gotta pick something. Whatever. Fuck it. Purple.”

Then no doubt someone with half a brain at Hostess said, “But, Todd, purple has nothing to do with the movie. Look, his jacket is red and his hat is black.” Then I’m sure an engaging conversation ensued where Todd defended his job by spouting senseless market surveys taken with children between the ages of 5 and 10 who are all so overweight that they would eat the sofa if it were covered in purple icing. All of whom checked the box saying that they too would ask their parents to buy them purple cupcakes, upon being promised that they’d get a life-time supply of Ho-Hos for taking the survey.

Then at some point in the following weeks as they were working on the marketing, the worlds laziest product manager, Todd, who was missing fight night on ESPN at the time spouts some verbal diarrhea, “Look, just say it’s Purplicious. No one gives a fuck about marketing anyway.” So now, in an obvious rip-off of some long forgotton cereal campaign (Frankenberry), we are now stuck with Purplicious. Yes, you heard it here first. Purplicious.

Chocolicious sorta makes sense - chocolate deliciousness. What does purple taste like anyway? But then in some amazing packaging faupax they fucked up and put “Chocolicious” right on the box. I thought it was Purplicious! What happened? Which is it? Is it Chocolicious or Purplicious? Or is it some crazy hybrid of both, like Chocopurlicious or Purplichocolalicious? Wow. Just Wow. Way to go guys.

So where does that leave us? Now you can enjoy the world’s most ridiculously unhealthy snack that has now been made to resemble Satan’s jism, just long enough to feel your heart explode.

Okay, so just when I’ve calmed down enough to stop my newly adopted Hostess induced Tourette’s syndrome I stumbled on the bread isle. First I see the bleached, white, zero nutritional value bread. Harkening back to the Purpchocolicious Hostess Cupcakes I was feeling like I needed a nutritional shot in the arm. So then I walk a little ways and happen upon the sensibly named Oatnut bread. Not bad. Then I spot the whole wheat bread which I am assuming is healthier because it has a more ominous black color. Then just next to it comes the multi-grain, which I am sure has gone too far, but alas I proceed further. Then comes the 7 grain. What the fuck? SEVEN grains? I’m not even sure I want one grain, unless it is fermented and in a pint glass. What is your body supposed to do with all of that?! Then my Tourette’s come back when I see the unholy 12 grain bread!

I do not need a bread induced colonoscopy! What’s next? The “Every plant matter we could find compressed into a space so dense it causes a black hole” bread? I’m sure you god-damned hippies will be thrilled just long enough to hear your stomach being ripped apart by the raw fiber. Just eat a fucking oak tree if you are having that many problems getting your daily fiber intake. I’m sure it would taste better anyway.

Why can’t these companies just pick something in the middle? It’s doesn’t always have to be purple or have 12 grains in it. Somehow, at this point, I managed to make it out of the store suffering only minor brain damage.

Updated 09/26/2005: One of our biggest fans updated us on the newest accomplishment of human engineering. Yes, folks, just when you thought it was safe for your colon to walk down the street, they hit you with the 15 grain bread:

They are just making up grains now. There is no way that many grains are edible. “Wonka-grain” “Pesticide-grain” “McGriddle-grain.” I love the text on there, “Hearty Texture.” Boy, there’s a winner if I’ve ever heard it.

-RSnake

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