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New Article: The Mystery of Hostess Choco-Diles!

Hope you're hungry -- here's a tribute to Hostess Choco-Diles! The snack cakes have taken on a cult following over the years, mainly because they've become so hard to find. If you live in a city that sells Choco-Diles, don't take it for granted. You're part of an elite minority. Promoted with the help of "Chauncey Choco-Dile," the chocolate-covered Twinkies are a sadly obscured corner of junk food history. Review includes everything from a trip to the Hostess Bakery to old commercials starring "Captain Cupcake."

Posted by Matt on 01/09/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 262 comments

My friend and hero Mike!!!
I found the elusive species of Choco-Diles, just a block away from the college where I reside!
Here in Claremont, California, there is a 5 college conglomerate that takes up blocks and blocks, and nearby is a shopping part of town called "The Village". Here, in this small town not 30 miles from LAX airport, is a small Asian market that sells, among other things, Choco-Diles for a mere 35 cents each. I can get them anytime, and they’re great when not expired and rotten! When I get my camera working again I can send a pic of the store and its regularly stocked Choco Dile display!!!

Chestnuts roasted by Manalone923 @ 04/15/2004 8:25 PM

I live in Northern Oregon and I work at one of the Wonder Hostess Bakery Outlet Stores! We had a ton or chocodiles come through off the routes recently and people were going for them like crazy! I will say I don’t really like snack cakes after being around them all day but damn those are GOOD! Cool website!!

Chestnuts roasted by katluvver @ 05/06/2004 2:18 AM

I lived in New Jersey in the eighties. I loved chocodiles. I moved and didn’t have one until the store down the street from me started selling them. That was 1998. Ten years and I still looked. Now I moved again and can’t find any, this sucks. Everytime I go into a store I check out the hostess shelf. I’ll wait as long as it takes until I’m shoving a chocodile in my face again, and it will be wonderful

Chestnuts roasted by cman @ 05/21/2004 2:06 PM

I saw Chocodiles the other day at the Walmart at the Baldwin Hills plaza in Los Angeles, CA

Chestnuts roasted by Jack @ 05/21/2004 6:07 PM

You are InSaNe. Truly.

Chestnuts roasted by customer 1 @ 05/23/2004 12:45 PM

I love Chocodiles and I too have been searching for them. I now live on the East Coast and it is impossible to find them. Thank you so much for the story and the hope. My cousin was supposed to bring me some from home but she ate them on the airplane ride. I want a Chocodile sooooo bad!!!!
AAAAHHHHHH

Chestnuts roasted by Katherine from East LA @ 05/26/2004 4:45 PM

Ah well, it is better to have loved and lost than to have eaten an out of date twinkie dipped in chocolat.

Chestnuts roasted by Guy Incognito @ 05/28/2004 7:42 AM

Right on Jay Amabile!
Screw that Hip Hop Garbage! We gotta try to keep our rock ALIVE! Screw Billboard top 100! Screw Motown! Who the hell did those guys (The Bomb) think they were with their hot chicks and their BIGGY Smalls, Jay Z and R. Kelly junk? LNOE (Last Night On Earth) are the guys who really are keeping it real with the long hair and the ripped jeans. The Cowboy Hat was Awesome! North Jersey RULES! Long live the South! The Aquarian, RollingRock, AmeriasBest, ZuteWorld, WKNJ & Jay Amabile is all we need! White people are only 72% of the united States but with Jay Amabile on our side I feel like we are 90%. The BOMB and all those chicks can pack up and get out of North Jersey! We don’t need em. Hip Hop, Reggae and R&B should be illegal. We need to use Jay and his affiliates to put all that Jungle Music down and Stomp it out!

Later, Straight Edge Daniel (S.E.D)

Ps. All my boys will buy Rolling Rock now!!! JAY AMABILE

http://www.wdhafm.com/airforce/jayamabile/

Chestnuts roasted by S.E.D. @ 05/31/2004 5:31 PM

Looking for cherry Pine Brother’s Cough Drops? Try Red Current Grether’s Pastilles. I bought them at Trader Joe’s and they are the closest thing to Pine Brothers that I’ve found. They are a damn good replacement.

As with Pine Brothers, these also don’t stop you from coughing, but they don’t pretend to be cough drops either.

Chestnuts roasted by the ghost of Pine Brothers cough drops @ 06/02/2004 5:45 PM

i have to say, i loved those things! and i have often wondered (and argued with my husband) about them. im glad i now have proof they existed. in face, you could send me a few …. :o )

Chestnuts roasted by kira bloodrose @ 06/23/2004 3:32 PM

can i buy one from you? even if the expiration date is a bit off…theyre probable still edible!!!! >.<;;

Chestnuts roasted by yvette @ 07/07/2004 10:14 PM

Hmm, I’ve eaten those before. They sell them all the time at this gas station in town. Then again, I live in a town time forgot. They taste okay though. ^_^ Sorry such an incident happend to you!

Chestnuts roasted by Rachel @ 07/13/2004 11:16 PM

Just read your article on chocodiles the other day. I am from central Illinois and I was in Wal-Mart. I looked where the hostess products were sold and low and behold there were several boxes of chocodiles. From reading other comments, Chocodiles must be a midwest thing only. Who would have thought?

Chestnuts roasted by Alan @ 09/06/2004 6:35 PM

jjberrios73@hotmail.com

I am a dying man in need of a Choco-Dile…I need the address so I can write to them and have them send me my Choco-Dile, my last dying wish…

P.S. That’s all I ever wanted was just one Choco-Dile…Thanks for the address or well the inside number would be even better…

-Josh-

Chestnuts roasted by Joshua Berrios @ 09/12/2004 7:43 PM

The key is getting http://www.freshchocodiles.com">Fresh Chocodiles , then you don’t have to worry about them expiring before you get them.

Chestnuts roasted by chocodiles @ 09/23/2004 8:01 PM

called that Wonder Hostess Bakery Thrift…they closed down a couple of weeks ago.

Chestnuts roasted by Jim V. in Highland Lakes, NJ @ 10/04/2004 1:46 PM

You want the chocodiles? We got em for you! FRESHHHHH!

http://www.linuxgifts.com

Right now we have over a dozen boxes ready for purchase. We will continue
to sell chocodiles as long as we can get them, which here, in Arizona is
very easy currently.

What we don’t sell… we’ll eat!

Thanks,
Marcia Wilbur
Linuxgifts

Chestnuts roasted by Marcia Wilbur @ 10/09/2004 4:00 AM

I’m so glad someone else is so obsessed with these things. I have been telling my husbands for ages about them and look everywhere for them. He grew up close to me and had never heard of them. My mom never bought “goodies” and for some reason she had bought these years ago. I’ll never forgot how good they tasted! Whenever I visit my brothers out of town I always scan their grocery stores for them (I live in Michigan and some are on the East coast and some on the West) no luck though. i think I just found a website that you can order them from. Thanks again!!

Chestnuts roasted by Mary @ 09/04/2006 11:14 AM

Chocodiles are endangered? I never knew. I buy them all the time at my local general store.

Chestnuts roasted by Wrinkledlion X @ 11/14/2006 8:10 PM

Chocodiles are sold all over southern California. I am in El Paso and have my mother in law ship them to me from a Hostess Thrift Store from California for about $2.99 a box.

Chestnuts roasted by Ben @ 03/03/2007 9:07 PM

I had no idea Chocodiles are hard to find elsewhere. I live in southern Illinois, and they’re all over the place. You can go to Kroger or Wal-Mart and get a whole box, or just stop at a gas station and pick up one or two. I do seem to remember them being a little rare several years ago (maybe about 5?). They were my favorite snack cake when I was a kid, so them being suddenly gone was something I noticed. Then, as suddenly as they disappeared, they were back. I noticed them one day in the gas station my friend worked at, and when I threw a screaming fit about them being “finally back” he told me they’d always been there, at least as long as he’d been working there, which was about 2-3 years at the time. Sooo…they were around, then they left, leaving me confused about why they were gone, then they came back without telling me….mocking my love and desire for them for years before they announced themselves to me.

They don’t seem to taste as good as I’d remembered, though. I don’t know if they’ve changed or not. Most likely it’s just that my tastebuds are 28 instead of 8. I guess 20 years of aging plus about 10 years of smoking can distort the ol’ tastebuds, eh?

Chestnuts roasted by 80s kid @ 07/14/2007 12:16 AM

I bought my chocodiles from freshchocodiles.com, it took about a week and they were not smashed or anything and they were indeed fresh. Although the date they arrived was pretty close to the expiration date;it’s not like you can’t put them in the refrigerator. Also those things have so many chemicals in them, you could eat one a few weeks after it expiration date and it would taste fine. F.Y.I the new packages don’t spell chocodiles with a hyphen anymore and for those of you ignoramuses who haven’t a clue what a hyphen is; I’ll give you an example with hyphen(choco~diles), without hyphen(chocodiles).

Chestnuts roasted by Lila @ 01/16/2009 3:23 AM

I started a group on FaceBook for all Chocodile lovers. Do a search for “Chocodiles” and this group should come up:

Chocodiles! I LOVE CHOCODILES!

Chestnuts roasted by Troy @ 01/24/2009 7:30 AM

I have felt the same way for about 10 years. Wondering what happened with choco diles and why would they stop selling them. Twinkies are awful and they still make those!
Over the past years I have made deliveries near several Hostess bakeries and popped in to ask. Most did not know what they were and some said they stopped making them. Just last night I brought it up again to my wife. “I wish I could buy some choco diles! They must have made money with them, why would they stop making them!?” She said they must still make them and that she was going to google it to prove it to me. I beat her to it and found this website. WOW! I knew I could not have been the only one who loved these as a kid (especially with milk). But, I never expected this many people to be wondering about them so many years later.

Chestnuts roasted by Lou @ 08/06/2009 7:25 AM

The Hostess Thrift Shop on Village Parkway in Dublin, California has them for $3 a box. I buy two boxes a week. One for the home, the other for the coworkers. The ladies go nuts with health-guilt before diving into one.

Chestnuts roasted by Alex in Cali @ 08/18/2009 12:01 AM

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2004 at 3:48 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.