Fried Twinkies? I'll admit, at first, I thought it was a joke. A year ago, I stumbled across a newsgroup post about a carnival kiosk that was battering and deep-frying Hostess Twinkies. Knowing full well how amusement parks push the likes of funnel cakes and fried cheese on a stick, I had my doubts. What did the Twinkie ever do to deserve this?

The technique traces its origins to a fish-and-chips shop in Brooklyn (according to a great article with an amazing description of the liquefied filling impregnating the sponge cake in the frying process). Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that this was the handiwork of a Brit in America. That's the innovative spirit that flows in our collective plumbing.

No, what surprises me is that I had my doubts. History proves that taking chances -- even if it involves little more than flinging a snack cake into a fry vat -- can pay handsomely.

You're gonna do what?
World-beater eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY)? That started with a man setting up an online trading exchange so his wife could swap Pez dispensers. Today, eBay has 60 million registered users and connects buyers and sellers on roughly $20 billion worth of transactions a year. Was eBay a brilliant call? A Pez dispenser can only nod yes.

It's easy to see the beauty of Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) -- now that it's profitable and has more than a million paying subscribers. It didn't seem such a lock when it was just the brainchild of someone tired of being hit by huge late fees when he forgot to return his copy of Apollo XIII to Blockbuster (NYSE:BBI). The stock sells at five times its October lows. Clearly those late fees were money well spent.

Never short a deep-fried zucchini stick -- or a turkey, for that matter.

We know that a resourceful secretary invented Liquid Paper, and that 3M's (NYSE:MMM) Post-It Notes were mere by-products of an adhesive experiment gone wrong. Great ideas aren't concocted. They're vindicated.

When Fred Smith presented his vision for FedEx (NYSE:FDX) as a project at Yale, his professor slapped it with a "C." History shows that there was nothing average about Smith's hub-and-spoke approach to speedy parcel delivery. His 15-million-share stake in the company is worth a cool billion today.

Last laughs rule
As we celebrate the Fool's 10th Anniversary, I am honored to have been a Fool through eight of those years. Maybe our story doesn't have the serendipitous flair of these other corporate gems, but we most certainly were underdogs back then, preaching an unpopular message within the financial services community.

We were too young and too naïve, we were told, to be educating and empowering the individual investor. We're older now. We proved we weren't so naïve after all. And, heck, we're not beyond impregnating the occasional sponge cake in a world still battered with the flour of fiscal ignorance.

So, yes, I've had a fried Twinkie. It was back in March at Miami's Fair Expo. There it was, along with fellow artery-tightening foodstuffs like fried Snickers and Milky Ways. Was it good? It worked for me. It was a nod to the Chip Shop's Christopher Sell for taking a chance on creating what is quickly becoming a state-fair staple.

Dream on
Somewhere out there someone's wedging a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup into a Krispy Kreme (NYSE:KKD) jelly doughnut while culinary snobs scoff. Somewhere out there someone's got a lame-brained idea that is so horrendous that it will take the country by storm.

Innovation, while not overrated, is perhaps misunderstood. How many millions of Blockbuster customers walked away smarting after doling out late fees without crystallizing a subscriber-based mail delivery model? What does it take to get a "B" at Yale? I wish I knew. If I had all of the answers, I wouldn't be eating that fried Twinkie so much as dreaming up the next one.

Dreamers, innovators, and freethinkers take note: The cream filling in your head is starting to liquefy. Make that a recipe for greatness.

Rick Aristotle Munarriz has an ally in David Gardner, who has made Netflix, FedEx, and eBay top picks inMotley Fool Stock Advisor.

Rick also knows better than to laugh at a deep-fried Twinkie, even when celebrating The Motley Fool's 10th Anniversary. He mentioned a few publicly traded companies in this article and owns Netflix. Rick's other stock holdings can be viewed online, as can the Fool's disclosure policy.