The idea behind Doritos Roulette is roughly the same idea as putting one bullet in the chamber of a revolver, spinning it, putting the barrel in your mouth and pulling the trigger.
Before we get into it, I’d like to welcome viewers back to the Snacktaku video review. I’ve been on hiatus for a bit in order to grow an appropriately scraggly beard, as mandated by the U.S. Snackology Standards Board. Note that the beard in this video is much more silvery (we’ll accept silvery) and unkempt as the one in my recent Toy Time video. One may jump to the conclusion that upon seeing this video, filmed first chronologically, that I was horrified and ashamed.
So anyway, Doritos Roulette.
Launched in Canada last year and now available in North America, Doritos Roulette is Frito-Lay’s idea of a sick joke. What they’ve done is filled a bag mostly with the same delicious Nacho Cheese Doritos that used to sing us to sleep as children, and then sprinkled in the stuff of nightmares.
“There’s a HOT CHIP in every handful!” the back of the bag gleefully tells us. That bag is an asshole. Notice how Frito-Lay placed a roulette wheel on the from of it? That’s because standards and practices wouldn’t let them emblazon it with a smoking gun and outstretched hand stained with powdery orange blood substitute.
My reactions are in the video, but for those of you frightened by the beard or the very real possibility of seeing bits of chip on my tongue, here’s the gist: imagine a package of Oreos in which most of them are filled with delicious creme filling, but a couple are packed with rat. Would you buy that package, or move your hand a half foot to the right and buy the package with no rat at all.
Doritos Roulette is presented as a fun thing, sort of a game you can play with your friends, in the same vein as buying a bunch of jelly doughnuts and filling them with pickle relish. The thing is the trick is telegraphed on the bag. You could empty the bag into a bowl, but then you risk traumatizing someone to the point where they’ll never trust a bowl of flavored corn chips again, you monster.
Ultimately the choice is up to you. Do you buy a bag of snacks containing things you definitely do not want in your mouth, or do you stick with the same old boring, intestine-friendly snack chips you’re used to?
For me the choice is clear—give the rest of the bag to my insane wife, whose innards are apparently made of asbestos. “I wish I could buy a whole bag of the hot ones,” she said, before donning her leather outfit and descending into Hell for a day of soul skinning.
Snacktaku is Kotaku’s take on the wild and wonderful world of eating things, but not eating meals. Eating meals is for those with too much time on their hands.
To contact the author of this post, write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @bunnyspatial.