Chester Cheetah Cartoon Cat

The Chester Cheetah cartoon cat was an advertising mascot for Cheetos snacks.   Picture above by yummiec00kies (new window) Cheetos are a brand of cheese curl made by a company called, Frito-Lay. They are a cheese-flavoured cornmeal snack. Cheetos was developed by Fritos creator Charles Elmer Doolin (1948) with a potato product called "Fritatos". (src: Wikipedia)

Chester Cheetah cartoon cat insisted that other cheese snacks, “ain’t nothin’ but fluff”. Other slogans he says or said frequently were/are, "It ain't easy bein' cheesy” (late 1980s and early 1990s) and,  “The cheese that goes crunch!” from the early 1990s to 1996. Then he used the slogan, “Dangerously cheesy!” He does all within his power to get his hands on a bag of these jummy snacks. The trouble is he failed a lot! In one commercial he chased a truck on a motorcycle and didn’t notice the manhole in his path. Here is that commercial from Brazil in Portuguese!

He is a very cool dude with black sunglasses, red trunks, white sneakers with an orange spot on the side. He is smooth talking and The Chester Cheetah cartoon cat first appeared in January 1989 (to promote Cheetos?) but he first appeared in television commercials generally in 1986 apparently. The second date needs to be checked, however.

Here are some example of Cheetos television adverts:

The product in the above video is one of many varieties of Cheetos. The person who posted the video above on YouTube says that this comes from the 2001-02 era when Bill Fulton wrote the music  for 3 half minute animated commercials. The commercials were created by David Feiss. The production company was Wild Brain in San Francisco. The advertising contract was with BBDO in New York.

Below is an excellent video on how to draw this cool cheetah:

Although I can’t vouch for authenticity but Joel Murray (one of Bill Murray's brothers) was apparently at one time  the voice of Chester Cheetah (for about 11 years). Some people think that Christopher Murney is the current voice of Chester Cheetah.

Finally a commercial for Cheetos Paws a product that was available in the USA 1991-1994.

From Chester Cheetah Cartoon Cat to Cartoon Cats

Main source: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Cartoon Animals

Photos published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License  -- this site is for charitable purposes in funding cat rescue except for the packet of Cheetos: Attribution 2.0 Generic