Long John Silvers says "Adios" to Pepe

[Phillip Chapman]

Tom Coccia posted this over at rec.arts.henson+muppets (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=group%3Arec.arts.henson%2Bmuppets&hq=&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&site=groups) ...

I wrote to Long John Silver restaurants via email requesting info on how to purchase the Pepe doll they said they were going to be distributing at their restaurants, as he is their spokesmuppet. Imagine my surprise when I received a response, from a Kelly, stating that not only were they dropping Pepe, as their spokesmuppet, but they were not going to produce the dolls either. Well, that did it for me......no more Long John Silver food in this household. And if you believe as I do, let them know.

You can let LJS know what you think of this move from the comments section (http://www.ljsilvers.com/comments/comments.htm) of their Web site.

- Phillip

[dwmckim]

(Okay this is my first attempt at posting here, so let's see how well this does)

I saw that post on the newsgroup as well...hopefully someone else can get some additional confirmation, but for what it's worth, my local restaurant has taken down its Pepe picture.

[beaker]

Hey Phil! This is my first chat on the new forum, and I love it!
Thanx so much to you, frogboy, and whoever else is responsible!

Anyways, I felt something was a malankey bit off when the new commercials for LJS just featured the food and some announcer talking. Why, just a mere week ago I saw the Shakespearian Pepe tv spot. Hmmm:( I was really hoping they would come out with the Pepe plush. As a footnote(or pawnote) the one and only local LJSilvers restuarant was bustling soon after the Pepe commercials with an abundance of customers. Coinicdence?

Finally, you'll finally be able to find one Pepe merchandise off of
eBay. The NASCAR Pepe car, which along with the Beaker car(and the others) are too cool! too bad they don't come out til July.

Anyways, hats off to the new forum, I LOVE IT! And good seeing you back DW!

[frogboy4]

I will most certainly be sending the company a reply (though I am a vegetarian...shhhh). LOL! Actually that is changing, but only with chicken and fish and I certainly won't clog my arteries with anything over at LJS. If it were up to me, I'd say tax the stuff instead of other things. Kind of like how the cigarrette tax works. It could go to the health care system that avid fast food eaters will need down the line. Just my take though. LOL! Viva Pepe!!!!

[Warrick]

I think its a good idea in one way, And a bad in another.

Good, So he doesnt get too attached as the LJS Character.
Bad, Muppets arent on TV as much.

But in the UK we didnt get the Commercials anyway, So it doesnt actully matter to me.

And its a BIG shame that we wont be getting a Pepe plush from them too !!

I love all your Avatars !!
DW, Is that Fleet pic from Of Muppets and Men ?

See ya
*Warrick*

[frogboy4]

You never know, maybe Henson wanted out of the contract. I never was that keen on the spokes-shrimp idea, but I would have liked a Pepe plush. I can't see how they would make that whole lounge thing and then discard it so obviously something is up.

PS The Fleet pic is from a screen grab.

[beaker]

Perhaps its time Pepe jumped shrimp(misnomer alert! hehe) as LJS isn't exactly the most healthiest of foods:p I just wish they would have squuezed out some Pepe plushes before, oh well. I am grateful for all the really cool commercials they produced, and that spiffy Pepe lounge. The last LJS Pepe was really funny!(The Shakespeare one)
I wouldn't mind seeing him show up in other commercials, one can never get enough of da King Prawn!


Btw Frogboy, it's funny you mention vegetarianism, because I'm now vegetarian! I think Ive been a slave to Mcdonalds long enough^_^

To new beginnings!

///beaker///

[frogboy4]

Good for you. I remember going veggie about five years ago and it has greatly improved my habits. I am becoming a "California vegetarian" these days to up my protein (this means chicken and fish) but it is a little creepy to start that again. I've already gone back to fish (no crustaceans of course) but I haven't made it to chicken yet. But I will only eat the stuff sparingly.

-jamie

[Fozzie Bear]

I vegetate rather frequently myself nowadays. Usually with some root beer and chocolate chip cookies. Or pickles and mustard. Or Pringles. I dig it all when I'm vegetating.

Although, I don't think that's what you were talking about.

FOZ!

[frogboy4]

As long as you don't grow an ear of corn, it's cool by me. LOL!

[Fozzie Bear]

Originally posted by frogboy4
As long as you don't grow an ear of corn, it's cool by me. LOL!

In honor of our Muppety friendship, I have decided to stay away from corn, and with the help of Dr. Scholl's corn remover, I shall succeed.

FOZ

[frogboy4]

Bein' corny is perfectly okay though. LOL!

[Fozzie Bear]

If being corny is okay, I should be PRESIDENT!! I'm the King of Corn.

FOZ

[frogboy4]

Is that anything like The Pumpkin King? There was a late evening I spent once (a very long time ago) when I kept shouting that I was The Pumpkin King. LOL!

[sidcrowe]

So now it's all coming out......nobody here ate the stuff! LOL!

Persoanlly. I've always found the notion of a critter happily promoting its own slaughter to be beyond stupid. I remember years ago Saturday Night Live did a parody ad for a chicken restaurant featuring a cartoon chicken taking people through the entire killing-butchering-frying process. It made a lot of sense.

Anyway, I'm still getting used to the new board. Can we post replies directed to ONE person, or merely the entire thread? This text entry field goes horizontally right off my iMac screen.

Again, for Pepe... "how can we resist?"

Easily, now!

Adios, LJS!

-CAW!

[Phillip Chapman]

You reply to a thread not necessarily to a person. If you want to address a particular person, put their name at the first of the message, so they can see it next time the read this discussion.

[beaker]

hmm, this format is kinda cool, can address more than one person:

frogboy: Yeah, im just a regular vegetarian now. cant be a vegan yet(still need my cheese now and then) Im a Californian, but not nessesarily a Californian vegetaian if that includes foul and sea.
(odd cuz Ive never liked foul or seafood) YEsterday I walked like a bazillion miles around santa cruz and only had a couple vegetarian burritos...so all is good on the diet front.

sidcroew: 'Crunchety Chicken' from SNL. that had to be one of the most disturbing SNL tv satires ever. I remember I havent eaten chicken since seeing that. Well that and I love all birds, even the ugly ones. So yeah, a animal spokes mascot promoting its own demise is pretty oxymoronish...but! I have to make an exception with Pepe, as it was too cute seeing him on tv...plus they never had prawns. *sigh* I wonder whats next for Pepe besides the labonte race car?

///beaker///

[MuppetQuilter]

I'm a vegetarian too. (I agree with Beaker-- can't do the vegan thing; cheese is good, but ice cream is essential!) Haven't eaten meat in almost 15 years. And I definitely feel better than I did when I ate meat (grew up on McDonalds-- at least 5 times a week when I was a kid).

About protein-- you probably know this, but non-meat forms of protein are more digestible and thus you get more protein with less food.

Yes, using animals to promote the eating of animals is really bizarre. But so are close-ups of cooking flesh when you stop to think about it. Did anyone see the commerical for a fast food chicken place that showed the legs of a bird doing a striptease? I don't remember the name of the place, but the legs were made to look like Big Bird. Truly grotesque-- implying that we should eat Big Bird! (It was funny when the Swedish Chef did it in Muppet Family Christmas, but that had a completely different feel to it)

I am disapointed about the Pepe plush-- I'm gunna have to get back to work on the one I was designing. Maybe Igel will come out with one soon....

Didn't Brian Henson say something at MuppetFest about hoping the quality of the LJS commercials improved? Ya think Henson may have pulled Pepe because they weren't happy with the commercials?

[frogboy4]

Good to see you made it! It wasn't right without you. As for Pepe and LJS - good riddence anyway. I never found it right for a Muppet to peddle what I find to be toxic waste. LOL! You know me, healthnutty guy. Big Bird supporting "Buckle-up" Chevy ads was one thing (and that even creeped me out a little) and Piggy promoting Lays and British Airways is one thing, but LJS? Kind of icky from the get go.

As for you question of direct reply - alas that is one of the few weaknesses here. But you've gotta like the logo! Hint Hint! Even though it has some lower case in it. LOL! Wondered why I jumped in that debate a while ago huh? Crazy me.

Hope to see you around here and I hope your Mac fares better with the board in the future. Just kiddin, dude. You know I had to get a Mac-jab in there somewhere. LOL! Could the problem be with your settings?

[Fozzie Bear]

Originally posted by frogboy4
Is that anything like The Pumpkin King? There was a late evening I spent once (a very long time ago) when I kept shouting that I was The Pumpkin King. LOL!

I LOVE the Nightmare Before Christmas!! I was trying to lose weight so I could be like Jack, then I remembered something VERY important about him that suddenly didn't appeal to me...

HE'S DEAD!!!

So, I quit wanting to be like him.

Later,
FOZ

[frogboy4]

Yeah, being dead must bite. LOL! I remember an ep of Ab Fab where Patsy predicts Edina's tombstone which would read "Eddie, Still No Thinner." LOL!

[Fozzie Bear]

Didn't they do that to the one of the Two Fat Ladies from Food Network after she kicked out?

Geez, that was in bad taste!
And so was that pun!

FOZ

[sidcrowe]

Hey-you're registered as being at this forum before me. Oh well, there go all our old stats from Delphi. Looks like you leapFROGged right over me! :)

Yeah, I'm gonna miss the specific replies. I hope at least that we get one generic message in our normal emails when someone responds. Phil-Frog replied to me and I got an email. I hope that part will work the same. If it doesn't, I just wanna apologize to you or anybody else beforehand if I don't reply to a message right away...or even find it. Like I said, I gotta find out how the forum works a little bit more. Heck, I managed to get my profile pic up...there's hope:cool:

Glad to know your true feelings about LJS. I didn't think you'd really eat that stuff anyway.

CAW!

[Warrick]

Im a Vegetarian too !

but i dont think i could ever be a vegan, I need milk in my tea !

see ya

[Schala]

Ooh, I'm a vegetarian too! ^-^ I could never be vegan though, I wouldn't be able to last a day without milk/cheese stuff.

I wish ljs had waited (or Henson if they pulled out or whatever the reason was) until after they had made the Pepe plush. My best friend is totally in love with Pepe and was really looking foward to having the plush of him. :(

[AruggeRadio]

Ok lets see of this board will acnologe me as anything over 13 years old :-) (I had some trouble registering, maybe I should read instead of just click click click).

That really stinks that LJS has drooped Pepe. I finally got hold of one of those place mats and they were quite funny.

One thing i have been thinking about is maybe LJS went into this thinking that it would turn out to be something like the Taco Bell Chiwawa but it didn't turn out the same. I'm sure they pumped more money into this campaign then any other they had done before.

But I’m bummed that was a funny ad campaign. Well i guess we will just have to wait for Pepe on the new Muppet show on Fox.

[Sir Didymus]

Thats too bad. I really liked him as their mascot.

Sir Didymus

[EmmyMik]

Maybe it was for the better that LJS dropped Pepe (Help me okay! I've fallen and I can't get up okay). Many of my friends know that I'm a Muppet fan, and whenever they'd see a commercial, they'd tell me. Our conversations usually looked like this:

Friend: "Hey, I saw that Red Lobster commercial."

Me: "What Red Lobster commercial?"

Friend: "You know the one with the shrimp."

Me: "What shrimp?"

Friend: "You know the Muppet shrimp." (and right now they're giving me a look like I don't know a thing about the Muppets at all, and they're the kind of people who confuse Fozzie for Gonzo).

Me: "Oh, you mean Pepe."

Friend: "Yeah, sure."

Me: "Pepe's not a shrimp, he's a king prawn okay!"

Friend: "Whatever."

Me: "Oh yeah, and it's not Red Lobster, it's Long John Silvers."

Friend: "Whatever."

So maybe all of these people seeing Pepe commercials were flocking to Red Lobster looking for the Muppet shrimp...

[Fozzie Bear]

I'm a vegetarian who likes meat. Do I count for anything now?

FOZ

[Drtooth]

This bites the dust!!! Not only do I not get LJS over here, that way I can't see the commercials, but even if it DOES come here, it'd be useless. No Pepe doll! No free Pepe with every purchase. I WANT PEPE, DARN IT!!!!! WHO'S WITH ME??? BRING BACK THE PRAWN!!! BRING BACK THE PRAWN!!!

[Fozzie Bear]

Originally posted by Drtooth
I WANT PEPE, DARN IT!!!!! WHO'S WITH ME??? BRING BACK THE PRAWN!!! BRING BACK THE PRAWN!!!

I wanted it, too, but I don't think the LJS folks are going to be reading this.

Come to think of it, I don't think the LJS folks even KNOW how to read.

FOZ

[tattooedmerman]

I'm sad to see the commercials gone. I have a friend a work who just loves Pepe - he's only ever seen him in the commercials. He does quite a good impression and is always funny. Especially loved the last Shakespeare one.

[Edge]

Hey! I can SO read! :b lol Oh course, I'm not exactly the top of LJS command. ^^;;

Anyway, hi, I'm new here. I'm actually looking for ways to promote a petition I just made the other night. Word from the management in my store was something to the effect that Pepe "wasn't working for them" whatever that meant and that he was "fired". The company's just full of bad decisions but this one really bites. So I made a petition to get Pepe's job back and am wondering exactly where it would get me. Oh well... Pepe, I tried! ^__^ Spread the word. =)

http://www.petitiononline.com/5avePepe/petition.html

I just think it's so wrong. NOBODY fires a muppet. That's violating like the 11th commandment. =P

[frogboy4]

I'll have to agree with you. It's rather bad form to fire a Muppet. I just thought Pepe left because he was tired of being dipped in the tartar sauce.

[Fozzie Bear]

HAAAA!! Tartar sauce.

Well, if he bathed in SCOPE he could get rid of the tartar.

[frogboy4]

That's something that used to bug me. Why is it called tartar sauce? Eeeeew!

[Fozzie Bear]

Y'ever seen your teeth after eating that stuff? I've never thought about trying to look, but it may be a test worth doing.

Lemme know what you find out!

FOZ
(Cause I really dont' like tartar sauce; I prefer cocktail sauce and malt vinegar).

[frogboy4]

What's in tartar sauce? I doubt I can have it. You know - the meat/corn thing. LOL!

[Fozzie Bear]

What's in there? Hmm. Good question. I think some of it could be mayonnaise, vinegar, some kind of vegetable stuff, milk, salt.

The milk stuff gives me 'air' because I'm lactose intollerant, and nearly kill myself on ice cream cause I really like that stuff.

FOZ

[frogboy4]

Oh, mayo. I'm on this regiment now that wouldn't allow that. I'm always on something. My friends think it's how I keep trim, but it really is a health thing with me. Misspent youth inspired the change. LOL! One of my pals recently told me that with how healthy I eat that I'm going to be the one hit by a bus.

[Fozzie Bear]

hey, type up and mail me your regiMINTs then, cause I need to lose like 15 pounds. I'm 180 and need to be 165 (does that equal 15? I'm bad with math).

FOZ

[frogboy4]

LOL! Actually, I'm on the Body for Life thing now. Eat six ballanced meals a day, work out six days a week for 20 to 45 minutes. It all seems so easy, but it takes a lot of planning. It's pretty good and one day a week you are alowed to go nuts and do what you want. I have totally cut out alcohol, though I could have a cocktail or two each week on my "day off" if I'd like. I'm just to the point where it doesn't intrigue me much. LOL! It is a very simple and liveable plan. I actually workout less now. LOL!

[Fozzie Bear]

Body for Life? I should certainly hope SO! Cause, if you didn't have your body for life...just think of the alternative. I think that would mean at some point you were dead, wouldn't it? I dunno. I just woke up and can't philosophize right now.

So, is that a plan available in a bookstore or what?

FOZ

[frogboy4]

Does Disney still have his body or did they just freeze the head?

[Fozzie Bear]

I think all Disney's on Ice.

Bad thing about that is, it costs $15.00 per ticket!

FOZ

[Bragi]

Kevin, you're a vegetable, not a vegetarian. Big difference (-:

[muppet_fan_1]

I'm outraged by this fact! How dare they! Gewtting our hopes up like that...then squashjing them down...gggggrrrrr......soooo writing a death threat...(not really...but still...hey, I'm caught up in the moment..... gimme a break...)

[Fozzie Bear]

I heard it was death threats from shrimp that was behind Pepe's decision to allow the deal to fall through.

That's what I heard.

FOZ

[Jessie]

I was hoping to get a Pepe doll before they canned Pepe. :0( That's a shame.

[dmx10101]

I don't remember Pepe being in commercials for Long John Silvers.

[Fozzie Bear]

LJS had a part of their website dedicated to Pepe, but I don't know the link now. Anyways, it had the commercials on there.

Check this out to see if it's the right site addy:
http://ljs.winnercomm.com/pepes_lounge.html

[dmx10101]

LJS had a part of their website dedicated to Pepe, but I don't know the link now. Anyways, it had the commercials on there.

Check this out to see if it's the right site addy:
http://ljs.winnercomm.com/pepes_lounge.html
Link works, thanks for the info. I can't believe he's naked in some of the commercials.

[Fozzie Bear]

Link works, thanks for the info. I can't believe he's naked in some of the commercials.

What "I" can't figure is why he'd be nekkid near those FRYERS??! OW!!

[Luke]

I love those commercials and all that stuff. Would it be completely illegal of me to suggest someone who could burn a VCD just happened to visit that site someday?

Best things about the screen test - PEPE-RONI!

[dmx10101]

What "I" can't figure is why he'd be nekkid near those FRYERS??! OW!!
Fried Shrimp..Oops I mean fried Prawn! :rolleyes:

[guysmiley4ever]

Btw Frogboy, it's funny you mention vegetarianism, because I'm now vegetarian! I think Ive been a slave to Mcdonalds long enough^_^


I couldn't help noticing this thread, had to post... ;)

Hey cool, about 12 years ago I decided to go Veggie.
I was a strict vegetarian, no eggs, for about 4 years.
Then I got really sick and lot a lot of weight, I wasn't getting enough nutrition I s'pose.

So, I gradually added fish, chicken, and eggs to my diet again.
Still no meat and no shellfish :rolleyes:
, I love my cows and pigs :mad: Perhaps someday I'll go back to all vegetarian again.

Anyhoo, I think it's kinda odd that Pepe would be promoting Long John Silver.
Ewww, what bizzare advertising! That's like cannibalism. ick.
What next? Gonzo ads for KFC? :confused: or Miss Piggy and Jimmy Dean?
I'd expect like that fish thrower guy to promote Long John Silver, that would make more sense. (can't ever remember his name)

Just my opinion. I'll step down from my soap box now. have a spiffy day!!

[dmx10101]

Lew Zeland is the boomerrang fish thrower.

[AndyWan Kenobi]

What next? Gonzo ads for KFC?

Well, that would probably anger his girlfriends...

Actually, Gonzo used to do ads for "Kentuck Fried Whatevers," but that chain when out of business due to lack of interest and general disgust. ;)