Hostess with the Mostest?

I've been enjoying Waffle Whiffer's recent blog and Flickr posts about Hostess Cakes and their delightful mascots, particularly Fruit Pie the Magician. (If you haven't seen them, go there now!)While I remember Twinkie the Kid growing up, I have to admit that I don't have any memories of Fruit Pie the Magician. I got to wondering about this, and I think I know why. Growing up outside of Philadelphia, the snack cake market was (and is) dominated by Philadelphia-based Tastykake. While we occasionally ate Twinkies or Drake's Cakes' Devil Dogs or Yodels, mostly we ate Tastykake's Krimpets, Kandy Kakes, and their fruit pies (pineapple cheese is the best!).

I have a few Tastykake items that came from my grandfather's grocery store including this great 2-sided hang tag:


And this ruler:


Tastykake has a great font and a catchy jingle ("Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tastykake..."), but it is severely lacking in the mascot department - at least until now. Browsing the Tastykake website, I found that they seem to have a new mascot, Kirbee Krimpet!

Here's a plush Kirbee:

And here's Kirbee on a tin (full of Krimpets, naturally):

Kirbee seems to be Butterscotch Krimpet, not a Jelly Krimpet, which I generally prefer, but I don't mind. A YouTube search turned up a recent commercial featuring Kirbee and the Phillies Phanatic:

Courtesy of CircleOneMarketing1 on YouTube

Kirbee hasn't made his way onto the packaging yet, but who knows?