Hostess Ads
Fruit Pie the Magician King Ding Dong

From 1975 to 1981, Hostess Snack Cakes ran an advertising campaign that featured comic book characters. These ads are infamously remembered for the silly situations. Crime fighters often tossed Hostess treats to criminals in order to subdue them. The ads ran in DC, Marvel, Harvey, Archie, and Gold Key comics. Strangely, Charlton did not participate in the campaign. Also of note is that many Gold Key Hostess ads featured characters from Harvey and Marvel including ones that never appeared in their own publishers' comics.

The ads were published across the entire line of comics for each company. New ads were introduced initially on a bi-monthly basis, but by 1976 there were multiple strips each month. The lead feature of the comic did not appear in that comic's ad. For example: If a Superman strip was scheduled, an alternate strip appeared in the Superman family titles. In later years old ads were reprinted in place of new ones.

The list below contains all 352 known ads from DC, Marvel, Harvey, Archie, and Gold Key. Click the ad title to view it. Sort the list by Feature, Publisher, or Release Date by clicking the column headers.

4/12/2023: Added the last two missing ads. All 352 ads are now shown below.

Enjoy the ads and remember: You get a big delight in every bite of Hostess Snack Cakes.


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