#255 – Pepsi, Where’s my Jet? is one of the MOST entertaining documentaries i’ve seen in a long time

Pepsi,Where’s my Jet was released on November 17th 2022. Luckily for me two nights later I had nothing to do and it came up on my homepage on Netflix so I threw on the trailer and after that I decided to give it a go. The trailer reminded me of the HBO documentary series McMillions about the McDonalds lottery scam that lasted for years. Pepsi,Where’s my jet is one of the most entertaining documentaries that I’ve seen in a long time. What got my attention right away was the energy and presentation of the story of how one young man in 1995 decided to take Pepsi up on an offer in one of their ads to win a Harrier Jet ( A military Jet worth $32’000’000 at the time). The story follows John Leonard who sees a commercial for Pepsi one night where you drink Pepsi and win prizes essentially. The Ad plays and John sees the Pepsi sunglasses and leather jacket and a gear bag but this doesn’t grab his attention right away, that is until at the end in the final shot the kid from the Ad lands outside his high school in a Harrier jet. The title comes up below that reads”700’000 Pepsi points. No terms and conditions, No warning, Nothing to indicate that this wasn’t real. The way John saw it Pepsi had a jet and he was going to get it. The story goes from high to high from this point on. The characters,legal issues, court cases and all of the twists and turns are so entertaining.

My favourite person from the documentary is such a character and one of a kind person by the name of Todd Hoffman. This guy is an entrepreneur and investor who loved the idea of taking Pepsi to task on accepting the outrageous offer they made. In Todd’s own words about Pepsi “Fuck em” and the pair go on their journey of claiming their Harrier jet. This 4 part Netflix documentary was so incredibly well made with fantastic first hand accounts from all sides involved from Pepsi presidents, legal teams, the advertising company that created the Ad and all the aspects are documented and reenacted with such detail and energy that it’s virtually impossible not to have a good time with this one. All I wanted for the entire runtime was for these guys to win their jet and for Pepsi having made their bed now it was time for them to sleep in it. Netflix definitely know how to make a brilliant and entertaining documentary series and I hope that they make more like this one, it was such a blast to watch.