Doritos, Disneyland and the Super Bowl

by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

February 1, 2020

Did you know that Doritos were born in Disneyland?

There was a restaurant called Casa de Fritos in Frontierland until the 1980s. They used to include Fritos corn chips with every meal.

They also had a machine where you’d put in a coin and a robotic Frito the Kid would give a shout to have his unseen miner assistant, Klondike, send a bag of Fritos down a chute.

In the early 1960s, the restaurant used to have a lot of leftover tortillas. Instead of wasting them, their cooks turned them into something resembling the Mexican snack known as totopo. They would slice them into triangles, fry them, and add basic seasoning that tasted like Mexican chilaquiles.

In 1966, Frito Lay started selling these “Doritos” in stores, with the original logo on the bag modeled on the staggered squares and font of the original Disneyland entrance sign. (Both were later changed.)

Thanks largely to their annual Super Bowl commercials, Doritos are now the best-selling brand of tortilla chips in the United States.

Chris Lucas is the author of  Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.