I Ate ‘Stranger Things’ Doritos

The fifth and final season of Netflix’s mega-hit Stranger Things will see the heroes of Hawkins, Indiana fend off a full-scale invasion from the supernatural forces of the Upside Down. Anyone who’s spent time in a grocery store recently will understand how they feel.

As Stranger Things exploded in popularity, the show began to licensed its name to countless products and tie-in foods. As the show’s farewell approached in the fall of 2025, those products seemed to multiply exponentially. I already sampled Stranger Things Chips Ahoy! cookies, with their chocolate exterior and blood red filling. General Mills is making Stranger Things Fruit by the Foot with a mystery flavor. Kellogg’s slapped the Stranger Things logo on Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops boxes with retro-style packaging. If you prefer savory foods, Totino’s now has Hellfire Club-branded Pizza Rolls. I just got a press release for Stranger Things Eggo Waffles. (They’re red and supposedly taste like strawberry.) This trend is more out of control than Vecna’s hunger for revenge against Eleven.

Naturally, there are Stranger Things chips as well. (Congratulations to me for finding a way to use the words “natural” and “Stranger Things chips” in a single cohesive sentence, something no one on Earth has ever done before.) The chips were created by the fine snack makers at Doritos. In addition to Stranger Things branded bags of typical flavors like Nacho Cheese, Doritos also released a limited-time bag of what they call “Doritos Collisions® Stranger Pizza x Cool Ranch.”

They’re even tying the product to Stranger Things Season 5 with a faux promotional “telethon” for Hawkins, complete with a working phone number. Call 1-855-4HAWKINS and you can hear pre-recorded messages from ’80s celebrities including David Hasselhoff and Paula Abdul.

READ MORE: A Brief History of Tie-In Foods

I just called the number myself and heard from ALF, the alien life form best known for his own ’80s sitcom and also his small but very powerful role in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Veronique, asking me to lend my support to the town (and to give Doritos permission to use any voicemails I left in their marketing efforts). I would think that ALF, who spent the ’80s trapped in the suburbs where he wasn’t allowed to eat cats, would sympathize with Vecna and support a takeover over small-town America. But I guess not.

In order to determine where my own allegiances lie, I will first need to eat these Doritos. That’s what I do anytime a new tie-in food gets introduced. Has my body been so thoroughly mutated by years of strange concoctions inspired by films and television series that I will decide to throw my lot in with the unholy forces of the Upside Down? Let’s find out.

Let’s Try Stranger Things Doritos

Doritos has a new Stranger Pizza x Cool Ranch flavor inspired by Stranger Things. Obviously, we tried it.

So there you have it. Stranger Things Doritos: Half a bag of an ordinary Doritos flavor mixed with half a bag of an unusual, superior Doritos flavor that is hard to taste in concert with the normal flavor, and tough to identify by sight, meaning you mostly just feel like you’re eating Cool Ranch Doritos that taste ever so slightly different than usual. I think I’ll call ALF back and tell him he should ask Doritos to sell a bag with just pizza chips. He’ll probably try to convince me they should be cat-flavored instead.