Games - Pepsiman

	Games - Pepsiman

Pepsiman is the brainchild of Pepsi's Japanese corporate branch, trying to come up with a catchy, attention-gathering mascot to sell their product. After hiring Canadian comic book artist Travis Charest to design a character sometime around the mid 1990s, commercials depicting a CGI superhero were cast unto the Japanese population. In the years following movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park, the ability to render more powerful graphics cheaply and easily enabled these commercials to be created in abundance. A total of 12 were created, broken into three arcs. €

Origins

The Commercials

The plots, if they could be called that, were very simplistic. But, they got the point across so everyone understood the problem and solution. #A single/group of people needed Pepsi for any variety of reasons. #The theme music would start, and you would see Pepsiman come out of nowhere. #A closeup of Pepsiman "pshaaa"ing (more on this later) the Pepsi to the wanting strangers. #Some horrible, yet amusing, fate would then befall Pepsiman. #The commercial would end with a Pepsi can mimicking the fate of our superhero.

Each commercial averaged :30 seconds, with a few hitting the 1:00 minute mark. They fit an amazing amount of action into a few of them, having Pepsiman come off at times like an extreme sports nut; surfing and snowboarding to name a few of his entrances.

His Strengths

Calling Pepsiman a superhero is really stretching the definition of the word. He doesn't fly, have heat vision, adamantium claws, or telekinesis. But he does wear a heavy silver chain around his neck. While his form is that of a top peak athletic male, he has no distinguishing facial features (other than a mouth, which manifests infrequently). He is, however, completely composed of some metallic silver compound (think T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day), with a distinguishing Pepsi logo on his chest. Hence, the product placement. He runs about as fast as a professional sprinter could, and somehow manifests Pepsi out of thin air.

In other words, when he is ready to deliver unto the masses seeking out his help, his mouth forms into an 'O', and with the sound of carbonation escaping a bottle of soda (hence, the pshaa sound), a bottle or can of Pepsi appears in the "victims'" hands. Everyone cheers and hoorays. The day is saved, and he continues on to wherever he goes when the day is saved.

His Weaknesses

After delivering the crisp, refreshing beverage, some cruel and painful fate would always occur to him. Whether it's trying to leap through the window of a house, only to hit his head on the frame, or run toward the entrance of a fast food restaurant when the cashier told customers they "ran out of Pepsi", only to start his pshaa and smack into the clear Plexiglas doors, an odd ending never fails to manifest for Pepsiman. There have been more serious finishes, like a crippling fall off the side of a snow-covered mountain, as he yells falling over the ledge. There is no blood or gore, so it's more slapstick than anything.

When mentioned that the commercial endings always show a Pepsi can mimicking what happened to our Pepsiman, it was being said quite literally. When he bangs his head on the top of the window frame, the Pepsi can has a dent on the top rim of the can. It's very creative without being over the top.

Pepsi Convoy

With the release of the Japanese Exclusive Transformers toy Pepsi Convoy, more of Pepsiman's origin was revealed. Apparently, the metallic silver compound Pepsiman is made of was developed by NASA, and was called 'intention-metal'. Pepsiman was created when the 'intention-metal' fused with Pepsi Cola. It is shown that Pepsi Convoy is made from this same living metal when a sample was given to the Autobots. Despite having the same mission in life (bring cool refreshing soda to thirsty sentients everywhere, thanks to his CO2 gun and "bottle station" trailer), an expanded version of the toy's bio revealed by the writer reveals that Pepsi Convoy is not in fact a new form of Pepsiman, but could probably be considered a brother or cousin. Whether or not Pepsi Convoy has the same lack of coherant speech and lack of luck is unknown.

Costumes

Pepsiman took on three different outfits, each one representing the current style of the Pepsi can in distribution.

1^st - Red vertical stripe covering the middle third of his body, save for the head and neck. The rest was all silver, and the Pepsi logo on the chest. This matched the very early 90's Pepsi can of the red, white and blue vertical design.
* The first five commercials occupied this outfit.
2^nd - A 70% blue/30% silver outfit, with the blue from the feet up to the chest, and sloped on a 45 degree angle; said Pepsi stayed the same. This matched the mid 90's change of Pepsi can with the mostly blue look.
* The next five commercials occupied this outfit.
3^rd - The most recent version is exactly like the second design, but now he has a lemon covering his head. He also gained the ability to speak, uttering the word "no" in a reverb, robotic sort of way. This, to no surprise, was to advertise the new Pepsi Twist lemon hybrid that came out on the market back in 2003.
* The final two commercials occupied this outfit.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Pepsiman ]

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