WAYSNACK MACHINE: Doritos 3D’s

Waysnack Machine is a series that looks back at discontinued products.

You may think you’ve had Doritos 3D’s recently –- you know the ones; thick, triangular, kinda look like a tiny maze? They’re officially called Doritos Jacked 3D, and they’re not your grandma’s 3D Doritos. In this case, I am your grandma, because I am old, and I remember the original Doritos 3D’s.

Also, a quick Internet check seems to indicate that Doritos Jacked 3D have ceased to be on store shelves. So we have, yet again, been relegated to a 2D Dorito life.

But this post is about the OG Doritos 3D’s. Imagine, if you will, a literal 3D Dorito – like a puffed-up, fully-enclosed Bugle, but significantly thinner. These babies looked like they could actually float.

They only lasted from the late 90s to the early aughts, but I remember them quite well for several reasons. First off, the idea of a sort of popped, puffy Dorito sounds (and looks) cool, but there was a strange disconnect between putting something with such a large surface area in your mouth, and then crunching down and finding only…air. I’m surprised I never chipped a tooth chomping down too aggressively on Doritos 3D’s. They didn’t have as strong a Nacho Cheese flavoring as regular Doritos, which to me was quite disappointing.

Second, given their fragility, buying a bag of these was buying a bag of shattered dreams. And chips. Luckily, Doritos found a way around that by introducing a fun plastic canister for them to safely reside in. Actually, I have no idea if the canister was created for Doritos 3D’s, but it’s the only time I got one.

You could also use the cap as a little serving cup. Not a big deal now, but cool as heck when you’re a dumb kid. Plus, you could reuse the can to store things, and all those things would then smell like cheese dust! So many of my trinkets smelled like cheese dust.

By the way, Doritos 3D’s do still exist, in one place – Mexico. They seem to be always available for purchase on eBay if you think a shipped bag of popped chips is going to arrive intact.

Oh, and if all this isn’t enough, Doritos 3D’s got a commercial starring Ali Landry (who got her start in another Doritos commercial) and a young Sean Hayes, getting up to some chip-related hijinks in a laundromat. There’s no way Doritos 3D’s would have withstood the impact of hitting a dryer door. Just sayin’.

There are many “popped” products these days, but there’s nothing quite like Doritos 3D’s currently on shelves. I prefer the Doritos 3D’s of my memories, but those weird little pillows seem like something that could make a good comeback.