Whatchamacallit (candy)

The candy out of its wrapping

Whatchamacallit is a candy bar marketed in the United States by The Hershey Company. This candy bar was first introduced in 1978. The "Whatchamacallit" name was devised by Harrison F. Limpert while doing advertising for Hershey.^[1] From 1987 to 2008, Whatchamacallit has included peanut-flavored crisp that utilizes peanut butter as the flavoring agent, with a layer of caramel and a layer of milk chocolate coating. In the late 1980s, a commercial was created in a New Wave style referring to the bar in various ways to say "whatchamacallit", including names that had been made up, such as "wowzamadoo."^{[citation needed]} Hershey's Whatchamacallit is found in recipes for various food items, including pies, cookies, cheesecakes, and cupcakes.

In Canada, an identical candy bar^{[citation needed]} is marketed by Hershey's as Special Crisp, but does not have the wide distribution in Canada that the Whatchamacallit has in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Ingredient changes to reduce production costs

The Thingamajig, a rice crisp and peanut butter candy bar that is similar to the Whatchamacallit

In 2008, the Hershey Company began to change the ingredients for some of its products, replacing the relatively expensive cocoa butter with cheaper oil substitutes. Such cost cutting was done to avoid price increases for the affected products.^[2]

Hershey's changed the description of the product and altered the packaging slightly along with the ingredients. Though the new formula still contains chocolate, according to United States Food and Drug Administration food labeling laws, products that do not contain cocoa butter cannot legally be described as milk chocolate. Instead, such products are often referred to as chocolate candy.^[3]

Other products that no longer contain cocoa butter (and thus cannot, in the United States, be described as containing milk chocolate) include: Hershey's Kissables, Krackel, Milk Duds, and Mr. Goodbar.

Thingamajig

In 2009, Hershey's introduced Thingamajig, a limited edition version featuring chocolate, cocoa crisps, and peanut butter inside.^[4] It was reintroduced in late 2011 on a supposedly permanent basis. However, as of 2012, according to Hershey's Chocolate World in PA, the Thingamajig candy bar is no longer being produced.

References