‘Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?’ docu-series review: An all-American pop rush that fizzles out in the end

John Leonard and Todd Hoffman in ‘Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?’
| Photo Credit: Netflix

Remember in the early 2000s we were all enamoured by pencils that introduced us to the enticing prospect of “extra marks for good handwriting”? I wonder what would have happened if back then little kids, who took the slogan to heart, marched up to Hindustan Pencils’ headquarters demanding that they make good on what was essentially a memorable marketing line.

Well, in 1995 John Leonard, a college student, actually did attempt to act against a brand which he felt had failed to keep its promise. Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? tells us this very American story of Leonard quite literally walking up to Pepsi’s headquarters demanding that he be given the fighter jet, as promised in their advertisement. This then results in a straightforward legal battle, but Andrew Renzi’s four-part docu-series fills its time with enough ‘Americana’, to make for a light-hearted dinnertime watch.

Renzi had two ways he could have gone about this venture. The ‘megacorporate Goliath versus the scrappy college-going David’ theme intact could have been a subtler meditation on the notion of the ‘American Dream’ existing alongside capitalism. Renzi, however, ditches this idea to opt for creative choices that capture the essence of the advertising market, dominated by the Cola-wars between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, that lured Leonard. Boisterous, flashy, and full of red, white, and blue (the colours of Pepsi…and America!) graphics, the docu-series launches us into the mid-1990s United States, where a young Leonard sees on TV that he can own a Harrier fighter jet if he collects 70,00,000 Pepsi points. The ‘promise’ of a jet, obviously meant as a tongue-in-cheek spoof, is made believable when the advertisement doesn’t follow it up with any fine print. According to Leonard, this makes it a “legit offer,” and he embarks on his quest to acquire the required Pepsi points.

Leonard is joined on his mission by Todd Hoffman, a friend and mentor, who gives him the additional financial investment to get the remaining points. A fictional recreation of their attempt is intercut with present-day footage of them hiking a mountain in Antarctica. Capitalising on their decades-long friendship and their love for mountain climbing, the docu-series is liberal in its use of metaphors to tell the story of two friends taking on a corporate giant. Their story is elucidated upon by a large supporting cast which includes not only friends and family of Hoffman and Leonard but also the executives from Pepsi and its advertising agency who were in charge of that advertisement. However, even the individual versions of their story — acting as back and forth — fail to produce material that merits four separate parts of the documentary.

By the end of the second episode, the series has already entered its final act as the legal battle between Pepsi and Leonard ensues. Anyone familiar with the case would also conclude that this part is not worth more than a mid-sized Wikipedia entry. Stretched across two episodes, it loses any factor that pulled us in — a quick, ridiculous story about another one of Pepsi’s ad fail. The initial tone of the documentary not taking itself too seriously is jarringly interrupted by a legal drama that doesn’t have enough of a foundation to hold itself up. A short-lived discord between Leonard and Hoffman, the lengthy cameo by Michael Avenatti and even a shady deal by Pepsi to allegedly acquire the fighter jet don’t do enough to infuse the second half with energy.

An interesting segment that Renzi saves for the end is a short exploration of the Pepsi Number Fever incident in the Philippines. A promotional offer by Pepsi, with the promise of a grand prize of one million pesos, in 1992 led to a surge in Pepsi sales in the Philippines. However, a bungled execution of this scheme led to multiple people winning, Pepsi rescinding the offer and concluded in rioting which resulted in deaths of at least five people.

Pepsi, or for that matter any mega-corporation, is not naïve in its pursuit of profit. For the Philippine population, what could have been a chance to earn a life-changing sum of money, turned into a cash-grab opportunity for only one winner—Pepsi.

In Leonard’s story, Renzi tries to search for a similar emotional vein but fails to locate it. If the docu-series had stuck to its initial flow of a Ripley’s Believe It or Not fact come to life, it would have managed to retain interest until the very end. In the absence of that, watching Hoffman and Leonard scale a mountain in Antarctica while a legal fight ensues in New York, is about as enjoyable as drinking flat Pepsi left out for too long.

Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? is currently streaming on Netflix.