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March

Cheese Doodle Day

Celebrate everything from finger-staining orange curls to the playful nostalgia of snack-time indulgence. Grab a bag and join the cheesy fun.

8 min read
Cheese doodles playing, celebrating and winning a video game.

Happy Cheese Doodle Day

If there’s one snack that has left its mark — quite literally — on the fingers of millions, it’s the humble cheese doodle.

Every year on 5th March, Cheese Doodle Day gives snack lovers the perfect excuse to crack open a bag, lean back, and crunch away without a shred of guilt.

Get your Orange Fingers Ready!

Whether you know them as cheese doodles, cheese puffs, or cheese curls, these puffed, powdered, aggressively orange snacks are a cultural icon in their own right.

Did you know that Americans alone munch through roughly 1 billion pounds of cheese puffs every year? That’s a staggering amount of orange dust.

Cheese Doodle Day sits at that wonderfully silly intersection of food, nostalgia, and pure snacking joy, and here at Kookydays.com, that’s precisely our kind of celebration.

Did you Know?

The distinctive orange dust that coats cheese doodles is actually dried cheese powder — a by-product of the cheese-making process.

So technically, you’re eating science. Delicious, finger-staining science.

The Origins of Cheese Doodle Day

Like many quirky food holidays, the precise origins of Cheese Doodle Day are a little hazy — much like the cheese dust that lingers in the air after you open a fresh bag.

The day has been observed informally in the United States for a number of years, with 5th March firmly established in food holiday calendars as the date to pay tribute to this beloved snack.

Where Did Cheese Doodle Day Come From?

The snack itself, however, has a much clearer origin story.

The first commercially produced cheese puff is widely credited to the Flakall Corporation of Beloit, Wisconsin, who accidentally discovered the process in the late 1930s.

Workers noticed that when moistened corn grits were fed through their flaking machine, the heat caused them to puff up into light, airy curls.

The company began selling a snack called “Korn Kurls” — and the rest, as they say, is crunchy history.

By the 1950s, several companies had jumped on the cheese puff bandwagon.

The most famous, Cheetos, was launched by the Frito Company in 1948 and went on to become arguably the world’s most recognised cheese puff brand.

You can read more about the history of the snack on Wikipedia’s entry for cheese puffs.

How to Celebrate Cheese Doodle Day

Celebrating Cheese Doodle Day doesn’t require much planning — just a bag of your favourite cheese doodles and a willingness to fully commit. Here are some ideas:

Ways to Mark Cheese Doodle Day in Style

  • Host a cheese doodle taste test.
    • Round up every brand you can find — Cheetos, Wotsits, Pom-Bears’ cheesy cousins, supermarket own-brands — and rank them blind. Spoiler: everyone will argue.
  • Try cheese doodle cooking.
    • Crush cheese puffs and use them as a coating for chicken, a topping for mac and cheese, or even a bizarre but brilliant pizza crust. (It works. Trust the process.)
  • Go gaming with snacks.
    • Cheese doodles and video games are a time-honoured pairing. Fire up your favourite game, grab a bowl, and embrace the full couch-potato experience — orange fingers and all.
  • Share the joy.
    • Bring a jumbo bag into the office, classroom, or family gathering. Watch how quickly they disappear. Cheese doodles are a universal language.
  • Post your orange fingers online.
    • The #CheeseDoodleDay tag is your friend. Show the world your commitment.

Simple Serving Suggestion

Elevate your cheese doodles by serving them alongside a chilled dip — cream cheese with chives works brilliantly, or try a sharp cheddar dip for maximum cheesy layering. Snack inception.

Types & Variations: The Wide World of Cheese Doodles

Not all cheese doodles are created equal. The broader family of cheese-flavoured puffed snacks comes in a surprising variety of shapes and textures:

Cheese Puffs, Curls, Balls & Beyond

Baked vs. Fried

  • Fried cheese puffs (like original Cheetos) are denser and crunchier, with a more intense flavour.
  • Baked cheese puffs tend to be lighter and airier — often marketed as a slightly healthier option (though we’re not counting calories today, thank you very much).

Shape Varieties

  • Cheese curls / cheese doodles — the classic elongated, irregular curl shape
  • Cheese balls — spherical, slightly denser, endlessly snackable
  • Cheese puffs — lighter, more cloud-like in texture
  • Cheese sticks — straight and uniform, excellent for dunking

Notable International Brands

  • Cheetos (USA) — the global giant of the cheese puff world
  • Wotsits (UK) — the British cheese puff icon, beloved since the 1970s
  • Cheesy Puffs / Sainsbury’s own-brand — a solid budget challenger
  • Cheese Doodles by Wise (USA/international) — one of the original American cheese doodle brands

Famous Examples, Key Figures & Notable Traditions

The Cheese Doodle Hall of Fame

Cheetos

Creator: Charles Doolin / the Frito Company, 1948

Cheetos is the world’s best-selling cheese-flavoured snack brand, owned today by Frito-Lay (a division of PepsiCo). The brand has spawned countless flavours and even its own mascot — Chester Cheetah — who has been the face of the brand since 1986. A true cultural institution.

Reference: Cheetos on Wikipedia

Chester Cheetah

Creator: Frito-Lay marketing team, 1986

Chester Cheetah — Cheetos’ cool, sunglasses-wearing mascot — became one of the most recognisable advertising characters of the late 20th century. His catchphrase “It ain’t easy bein’ cheesy” became genuinely iconic in American pop culture.

Reference: Chester Cheetah on Wikipedia

Wotsits

Creator: Golden Wonder, UK, 1970s

Wotsits are the quintessentially British cheese puff — lighter and less aggressively orange than their American counterparts, with a melt-in-the-mouth texture that has made them a lunchbox staple for generations. Now produced by Walkers (PepsiCo).

Reference: Wotsits on Wikipedia

Wise Cheese Doodles

Creator: Wise Foods, USA, 1930s–40s

Wise Foods is one of the earliest producers of cheese doodles in the United States, and is often credited with popularising the name “Cheese Doodles” as a product category. A regional American favourite with serious nostalgic pull.

Reference: Wise Foods

Cultural References

Films & TV

Cheese puffs and their cousins have made cameos across pop culture. In the animated series Stranger Things-adjacent snack culture of the 1980s, junk food like cheese doodles became synonymous with the era.

Dustin Henderson’s legendary snack habits in Stranger Things (2016–present) helped cement the cheese puff as a symbol of retro, nerdy cool.

Gaming Culture

Cheese doodles have become near-inseparable from gaming sessions — so much so that “gamer fuel” memes almost always feature a bowl of orange snacks alongside a controller.

The orange-fingered gamer is a full cultural archetype.

Pop Culture & Memes

The internet has had a long love affair with cheese puffs. The “orange fingers” meme format — used to describe getting caught doing something indulgent — has thousands of iterations online.

Chester Cheetah’s laid-back persona also spawned a wave of nostalgia-fuelled memes in the 2010s.

Literature & Language

“Cheese doodle” has entered informal everyday English as a descriptor for anything pleasurably silly or frivolous.

It’s the linguistic equivalent of the snack itself: light, fun, and impossible to take seriously — in the best possible way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Cheese Doodle Day?

Cheese Doodle Day is an unofficial food holiday. It’s a fun, lighthearted day dedicated to one of the world’s most popular snacks — the cheese doodle, also known as a cheese puff or cheese curl.

When is Cheese Doodle Day?

Cheese Doodle Day falls on 5th March every year.

Who invented cheese doodles?

The origin is slightly disputed.

Many sources credit Morrie Yohai of Old London Foods, who is said to have created the Cheez Doodle brand in the 1940s.

Others point to the Flakall Corporation of Wisconsin, who accidentally discovered the puffed corn process in the late 1930s.

What is the difference between cheese doodles and cheese puffs?

The terms are often used interchangeably, but there are subtle differences. Cheese doodles tend to refer to the crunchier, denser curl shape, while cheese puffs are typically lighter and airier in texture. Both are made from puffed cornmeal and coated in cheese-flavoured powder.

The most well-known brands worldwide include Cheetos (USA), Wotsits (UK), Wise Cheese Doodles (USA), and various supermarket own-brand versions. Cheetos remains the global market leader.

Are cheese doodles and Cheetos the same thing?

Not exactly. Cheetos is a specific brand of cheese-flavoured puffed snack made by Frito-Lay. “Cheese doodles” is a broader, more general term that covers all similar snacks across multiple brands.

Are cheese doodles suitable for vegetarians?

Most cheese doodle brands are suitable for vegetarians, as they are made from cornmeal and cheese powder.

However, ingredients vary by brand, so it’s always worth checking the packet — particularly for rennet used in the cheese flavouring.

The Cartoon Creation Process

The process used to create all cartoon artwork on KookyDays.com is 100% original and is drawn, inked and coloured digitally by hand, with love by Kevin Fish.

If you are interested in original artwork, contact Kevin.

The Cartoon in Three-Steps

Sketch

  • Hand draw the idea using a Canson One Art Book sketchbook to create a finished pencil drawing.

Ink

  • Hand trace the pencil drawing, using a traditional light box with pen ink into A4 paper, to create an original inked artwork.

Colour

  • Digitally hand colour the inked artwork, using Adobe Photoshop, a Wacom Intuos tablet and pen, and a technique called “flatting“, to create the final cartoon in full colour.

About the Pistachio Day Cartoon

Here’s Kevin’s thoughts on his ideas behind the final Cheese Doodle Day cartoon – how he tried to achieve this through the drawing, colour and visual references within it.

Kevin’s thoughts…

“As cheese doodles are often associated as a snack of choice for gaming, I liked the idea of focusing the central theme for the cartoon around this. It seemed like a fun way to portray this trope and include different cultural references to pay homage.

These included; a cheese stained game controller (controversially I used X Box, for no reason!), Chester the cheetah from the famous Cheetos brand, and a “cheesy” Cartman popping out of a packet of floating Puffs.

For the eagle-eyed… the rocket and diamond stars flying out are referenced from original South Park packet of Cheesy Poofs that he l-o-o-ur-ved eating!

Creating a gaming trophy using the cheese doodles and the number 5 was to further honour the endless hours gamers spend playing.

I was initially optimistic in adding more texture details to the cheese doodles, but given the time it would take (as I’m sticking publishing cartoons weekly, and not using AI to colour), I opted to keep it simpler. Adding the slight shadow to each doodle though still made it work to give them some volume.

I had also considered adding legs to the cheese doodle characters, as can be seen in the original drawing. However, often during inking (as in the case of this cartoon) I will make some subtle changes. I decided to remove their appendages as it played more into the idea of them floating about, and that cheese doodles really are light and fluffy!”

Kevin Fish – Cartoonist and creator of Kooky Days

References

Share your Cheese Doodle Day!

How are you celebrating March 5? Share your favourite cheese doodle photos and tag your celebration!

#cheesedoodleday
#kookydays
#cartoons

And if you enjoy fun and quirky holidays, explore more special days in February to keep the celebrations going all month long.