The braided variety of Marathon is what I'm remembering.  1981 discontinuance sounds about right.  Summit bars disappeared a bit later. 


Similar to the UK Curly Wurly

http://www.sweetnapa.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/CIMG8565.thumbnail.JPG

It really did exist - the commercial ran ad nauseum when I was a kid.  I've been trying to find it on YouTube, etc.  It featured a very young Daryl Hannah.  




Here it is

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/5126/

No, the commercial link that is posted here is not the one Paula is referring to. The one she is referring to has an older woman who says something like, "Around half past two when hunger is pokin' atcha pokin' atcha, I reach for a snickers." It was such an annoying commercial! I seem to recall she was sitting outdoors and had kind of a folksy drawl. The one with the girl in the stable came out shortly after, probably because so many people were turned off by the pokin atcha lady that they stopped buying snickers. I've looked for that commercial everywhere but can't find it.

I need help here!  I recall that Paula Poundstone used to do a skit about the Snickers commerical that had a woman talking about when your appetite is "pokin' at ya, pokin' at ya".  Was this a real commercial or did Paula Poundstone just make it up for a skit?  I claim that it's a real commercial, becuase I think I remember a woman who had just finished riding her horse, but none of my friends believes me.


The original Paula Poundstone Snickers Ad Joke dates back to one of her shows in 1990, and refers to (quoting from the tape) "the old Snickers commercial, where the woman's brushing the horse, and the guy interrupts her to ask her what time of day she enjoys a Snickers bar? (laughter) And she - she says 'well, along about noon when your appetite's, uh, pokin' at ya, pokin' at ya'?  Someone wrote that down on a piece of paper.  Typed it up!  Probably a couple of times!  There was probably a first draft!  We probably got the very best possible version of that..."

OK, so we've got the real commercial (one of which mentions the same "two or three hours after dinner", lining up with "about three hours after lunch" marketing message from the girl-in-the-stable) - from docmeade, Kryllith, and bobH.

I found a few time-of-day-stamped Snickers commercials that were probably from the series:

It's 10:59, and reporter Eric Best has worked up a hunger:
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It's 3:59 - dance class has you feeling really hungry:
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It's 8:38 - the kids to go bed and Mom goes to work:
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All three of those commercials are from 1988.  If there's a 1988 commercial set at either 2:30 in the afternoon (as the original poster remembered) or "around noon" (as Paula Poundstone described it, with the difference that the commercial with the girl-with-the-horse is "about three hours after lunch" and doesn't have a narrator interrupting her), one, I think we'll have a winner here. 

Paula may have mixed her impression of "annoying narrator dude" with "girl brushing a horse" and mixed the two ideas into her routine in 1990.  As depressing as it appears, 17-24 years later (from the earliest possible commercial to the question that spawned this thread), we may still not yet have "the very best possible version of that..."