The Case of the Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Death Filling

Hostess is going out of business, declaring bankruptcy after a prolonged bakers strike. I guess that's one way to put it. Another, and far more accurate way is to say they're declaring defeat after a prolonged siege by The Unbelievables. You're welcome, free world.

Let me explain. 

First off, we're all aware that Twinkies, the signature product of Hostess, are famous for two things: 1) Having a nearly indefinite shelf life and 2) Being highly explosive. Do those things sound like typical characteristics of traditional baked goods? Of course not. That's because since the mid-1970s, Hostess's baked treats operation has served as a front for one of the world's most insidious and treacherous munitions dealers. Name a terrorist action in the last 40 years and there's a Hostess product attached to some sort of weapon that was involved in it.

• Kingsmill Massacre? Suzy Q's
• Hijacking of Air France flight 139? Ho Ho's
• The airport attack in Esenboga? Donettes

There are more, of course. Many, many more.

We discovered this fact when we came across a fiendishly clever code embedded in the baseball cards printed on the bottom of boxes containing Hostess products, like this: 

Harmless, no? NO! Not if you could form the words "THESE EXPLODE" from the words on the baseball cards, in which case you had yourself a box of bombs. And not the sugar kind.

These were shipped off to Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq. Basically, anywhere you could find unrest, turmoil, strife and discord. Boxes that didn't contain the code were sent to supermarkets and convenience stores. After a while, subtlety was ignored and they stopped trying to hide the code altogether.

So how did The Unbelievables figure this out when no other agency on earth did? Well, we are The Unbelievables. Plus, we follow baseball and know that the Cincinnati Reds have never had a shortstop named Explodio Morales. Also, top-notch PR on behalf of the Hostess corporation. Needless to say, we knew we had to step in and take them down. What followed was a mission that lasted well over 30 years, undoubtedly one of our most extensive, and it led us to the nefarious villainess behind the whole operation, The Hostess: her parties are as likely to kill as to thrill.

I'll let Jeff and Michael fill you in on the ins and outs of the case and how we were eventually able to tighten the noose. I just wanted you to know that this talk of bankruptcy is nonsense; like I said, The Hostess is incredibly savvy when it comes to public relations ... in addition to throwing a simply spectacular spring gala.

Meanwhile, I'm going to take a moment to celebrate this occassion with a Twinkie, secure in the knowledge that for the first time in decades, I don't have to worry about biting into it and scattering the contents of my head over a six-block radius.

Then I'm going to review our case file on Little Debbie. What a piece of work she is.