Cheetos

Cheetos were invented in 1948 by Charles Elmer Doolin, the creator of Fritos, who cooked early test batches in the Frito Company's research-and-development kitchen in Dallas. The cheese-dusted crunch was successful enough to help push Doolin's company and Herman Lay's into their 1961 merger as Frito-Lay — which itself merged with Pepsi-Cola in 1965 to form PepsiCo. For 23 years the crunchy original was the brand's only product; Cheetos Puffs arrived in 1971, the same year as the brand's first mascot, the animated Cheetos Mouse.

The mascot that mattered came later. Chester Cheetah first appeared in TV commercials in 1986 — a smooth-talking cartoon cat in sunglasses and sneakers — and fronted the brand through 1997 under the twin slogans "The cheese that goes crunch!" and "It ain't easy bein' cheesy." For 90s kids, Chester simply was Cheetos: the ads, the bag, the attitude, and the forensic evidence the snack left on every fingertip and school desk.

The era's biggest product story was Flamin' Hot Cheetos — developed beginning in 1989 by a headquarters team led by Lynne Greenfeld, test-marketed in the summer of 1990, and rolled out nationwide in early 1992. The beloved legend that a plant janitor named Richard Montañez invented them was challenged by a 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation: Frito-Lay's records show no involvement by him in the test market, though he really did pitch later Flamin' Hot line extensions. Either way, the line turned a kids' snack into a lunchroom dare with a culture all its own.

By 2010 Cheetos was an empire, with roughly $4 billion in worldwide annual sales — the 11th-largest brand in PepsiCo's portfolio. Chester has been redesigned plenty since, but the 90s version remains the one burned into memory, along with the orange fingerprints on everything you touched.