#1035 Screaming Poppycocks

Yesterday I wrote a piece that mentioned the snack food Screaming Yellow Zonkers. I asked if they still make Screaming Yellow Zonkers, and so afterwards I went researching to find out.
No they don’t. They were swallowed up by the food mega-giant Con-Agra and discontinued in 2007.
Zonkers have been zonked. Still, I was absolutely amazed that they had made it to 2007.
I found out other things too. My source Wikipedia article, in its wiki fashion, cross-referenced all kinds of other popcorn snack food that bore a resemblance to Screaming Yellow Zonkers. SYZ’s, by the way, were created to fill the niche of candy-coated corn lovers who didn’t like crackerjack peanuts mixed in.
The names for the other jacksnacks are interesting to folks who study word origins and revealing about our culture. They are Cracker Jack, Fiddle Faddle, Crunch and Munch, Poppycock and an obscure item called Yummy Doodlez.
Surprisingly, Yummy Doodlez had nothing to do with macaroni. Although it is postulated that Yummy Doodle was Yankee Doodle’s hunky younger brother who went on to join the Chippendales.
Screaming Yellow Zonkers owed its crazy name and marketing to the drug-infused zeitgeist of the Sixties. Crunch and Munch sounds like it had a similar origin. Whenever the word “munch” is in a food you have to think it’s got marijuana inspiring it somewhere.
Fiddle Faddle sounds like some kind of inconsequential food. Ah, it’s just some fiddle faddle. In fact, it’s low-end generic feel may have something to do with Con-Agra placing it in discount and drug stores.
Interestingly, most of the brands listed are owned by Con Agra, with the exception of Cracker Jack, which is the premium version of popcorny snacks.
But one of them has a very interesting name. Poppycock. Again, a name that sounds dismissive. Oh that’s fiddle faddle. Oh that’s poppycock.
It’s like the opposite of Cracker Jack. That was a crackerjack performance. Oh, that performance was poppycock.
Bad enough, but what’s worse is the term poppycock is actually an anglicized version of the Dutch "pappekak" which means, literally, “soft dung” or “diarrhea.”
I’m guessing it’s not the favorite snack food of people who study word origins...
America, ya gotta love it.