Cheez Doodles are a cheese-flavored cheese puff produced by Wise Foods. Originally developed and manufactured by King Kone Corp. of the Bronx, it became the prevalent cheese puff snack on the East Coast.
Contents
Description
Cheez Doodles are a cheese-flavored cheese puff—similar to Frito-Lay's Cheetos—produced by Wise Foods.
History
The snack debuted several years after Frito-Lay's snack in the 1950s. Originally developed and manufactured by King Kone Corp. of the Bronx (owned and operated by Morrie Yohai), it became the prevalent cheese puff snack on the East Coast. In the mid-1960s, the company (now known as Old London Foods) was acquired by Borden and assigned to the Wise potato chip division. In 1994, KKR & Co. acquired Borden; in 2000, Palladium Equity Partners purchased Wise Foods. Today, Wise Foods is owned by Arca Continental, S.A.B. de C.V., the second largest Coca-Cola bottler in Central and South America. Cheez Doodles remain one of the strongest brands marketed by Wise.
Varieties
Like Cheetos, Cheez Doodles are produced in many varieties. Currently available and past varieties include:
Popular culture
The snacks have recently entered pop culture as the preferred snack of ESPN NBA analyst Stephen A. Smith, and are the favorite food of Lincoln Peirce's comic character Big Nate.
Cheez Doodles were also featured in two episodes of the HBO series How to Make It in America's first season.
They are referred to in the 1991 video game Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, as the food given to the pet lizard of the Scabb Island hotel keeper. Lead character Guybrush remarks "Cheez Doodles, one of my favorites" when you observe them and pick some up.
Cheez Doodles were briefly featured in the Grojband episode "Inn Err Face."
They also play a prominent role in George R. R. Martin’s 1987 story "The Pear-Shaped Man" (published in Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective).
In 2012, a Youtube video went viral featuring Aleksander Gamme, a Norwegian explorer who, while skiing to the pole, found a bag of Cheez doodles he had buried in the snow and forgotten about, becoming notable for the excitement he displayed after finding them.
Cheez Doodles also appeared in some Big Nate books as Nate's favorite snack.