How Facebook Helped Revive Planters Cheez Balls

Never underestimate the voice of the people! Nearly twelve years after being discontinued in 2006, Planter's Cheez Balls finally found their way back into the snack aisle in 2018. (Though Planter's doesn't get the credit for this one.) According to a piece at the time by Business Insider, it was the fans who spoke up and made it happen. For more than a decade, Cheez Balls devotees with a lot of time on their hands had been petitioning makers through Facebook groups to bring back the beloved snack until Planter's finally heeded the call. But what was it about Cheez Balls that inspired so many to practically beg for their triumphant return?

While there's been an incredible amount of nostalgia for foods of yesteryear as of late, Bustle even goes as far as pointing out how some online petitioners made a case that the lack of those oh so orange bites provided a possible connection to all the evil in the world. Go figure.

While there have been plenty of other brands making cheese-flavored puffs over the years (Taste Of Home taste tested a few of them), Planter's Cheez Balls just seemed to find a way into people's hearts where others couldn't. According to Eater, one of the individuals who started a Change.org petition in 2014 speaks fondly of her memories eating a whole can under a coffee table. Chalk it up to one more example of childhood nostalgia run amuck.

Because of this phenomenon, Cheez Balls aren't the only '80s- or '90s-era snack that have recently found their way back into production. Dunkaroos, the cute individual packages of cookies and frosting, were originally discontinued in 2012 only to find their way back onto store shelves in 2020, as Delish notes. And there's been plenty of other foods saved from total extinction over the years, too, thanks to bizarre hype events. There was the time the movie E.T. re-popularized Reese's Pieces or more recently when hipster bike messengers made Pabst Blue Ribbon cool again. So we gotta wonder, with Cheez Balls finding their way back and Dunkaroos living to see another day, when can we get our fingers back on some Butterfinger BBs?