Whatchamacallit is a

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

candy bar A candy bar is a type of candy that is in the shape of a bar. The most common type of candy bar is the chocolate bar, including both bars made of solid chocolate and combination candy bars, which are candy bars that combine chocolate with othe ...

marketed in the United States by

The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...

History

Whatchamacallit bars were first introduced in 1978. The name was devised by Patricia Volk, the writer of ''STUFFED: Adventures of a Restaurant Family'', when she was the associate creative director at Doyle Dane & Bernbach, and was in charge of new brands on the Hershey account. From 1978 to 1987, Whatchamacallit consisted of a bar of

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small and ...

-flavored crisp that utilized peanut butter as the flavoring agent, coated in a thin layer of chocolate. 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 chocolate coating. Hershey's Whatchamacallit is found in recipes for various food items, including pies, cookies, cheesecakes, and

cupcake A cupcake (also British English: fairy cake; Hiberno-English: bun) is a small cake designed to serve one person, which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminum cup. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations such as frui ...

s. The advertising for the Whatchamacallit peaked in the 1980s; after this period Hershey Company ran noticeably fewer advertisements for this product. However, despite the lack of attention the company gives it compared to its other products, the Whatchamacallit is still in production as of 2022. In Canada, an identical candy bar 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.

Ingredient changes

In 2008 the Hershey Company began to change the ingredients for some of its products, replacing the relatively expensive

cocoa butter Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter has a cocoa flavor and aroma. Its mel ...

with cheaper oil substitutes. Such cost-cutting was done to reduce production costs and avoid price increases for its products. 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 The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

food labeling The packaging and labeling of food is subject to regulation in most regions/jurisdictions, both to prevent false advertising and to promote food safety. Regulations by type Multi-faceted * Codex Alimentarius (international voluntary standard) ...

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''.

Thingamajig

In 2009 Hershey's introduced Thingamajig, featuring chocolate, cocoa

crisps A potato chip (North American English; often just chip) or crisp (British and Irish English) is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep frying, deep fried, baking, baked, or air frying, air fried until crunchy. They are commonly serve ...

, and peanut butter inside. It was reintroduced in late 2011 on a supposedly permanent basis. However, as of 2012, according to

Hershey's Chocolate World Hershey's Chocolate World is the name of five visitor centers that started in Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States. Open year-round, Hershey's Chocolate World offers marketplace shops and restaurants, specializing in Hershey's chocolate products. ...

in Pennsylvania, the Thingamajig candy bar is no longer being produced.

Whozeewhatzit

In 2021 Hershey's unveiled the Whozeewhatzit bar featuring the chocolate, cocoa crisps, crisped rice, and peanut butter ingredients of the Thingamajig bar from 2009. Hershey's held a naming contest for the new bar, with a $5,000 prize for the most creative name, along with a year's supply of the confection. After more than 43,000 entries the Whatchamacallit brand declared the name Whozeewhatzit the winning entry. The Whozeewhatzit wrapper identifies the contest winner: Lisa M. from

Framingham Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popul ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

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