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foodfightnovelization · 9 months ago

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Every Real-World Brand Mascot in the Foodfight! Workprint

Hey everyone! So as mentioned in my last post, I'm going to be poring through the entire workprint and pointing out every single time we see (or hear!) a real-world brand mascot. If you've been following this blog for a while or just binged a bunch of my posts recently, you might remember we did this for the finished movie and it turned out there were only 18 real-world brand mascots in the entire film! But with this workprint being from 2005, several years before a lot of the larger brands pulled out from the project, there are bound to be tons more, right? So, let's dive right in and play another game of "spot the cameo"!

#1: Chester Cheetah: Okay so this one is obvious since he gets his own fully-animated segment set to "Bad To The Bone", but he's the first one you see in the entire workprint and honestly he looks great, with the squash-and-stretch style of the early animation suiting him incredibly well. This segment was also used extensively in the original trailer as well as a crewmember's animation reel, so it's one a lot of people are already aware of, but hey- I'm listing all of these, for completion's sake.

#2: The Vlasic Stork: Just like in movie, the Vlasic Stork makes his first appearance here crashing into Vlad Chocool while he's in the middle of flying, although here Vlad has the ability to turn into a bat, whereas in the finished film he's still in his human form and simply awkwardly flaps his arms. Of note is that I can't quite make out what he's saying as he crashes into him- it sounds like he's yelling "Summer fear! Here come!" but that's obviously not right, so if anyone has a keen ear please let me know.

#3: Mr Clean: Once again, just like in the finished film, Mr Clean makes his first appearance here being splattered with poo water as Lord Flushington jumps out of a manhole. He gets a few more scenes later on in the workprint, even getting a line at one point (he says "Dusting for prints..." while the Ikes are investigating a crime scene, and according to the script from around this time he was supposed to be using baby powder to do this. Funny!) He also makes an appearance in the Copabanana, talking with Aunt Jemima as Dex walks into the club. Speaking of which...

#4: Aunt Jemima: Here's one of the many real-world mascots who didn't make it into the finished movie. Aunt Jemima was the mascot for a popular brand of pancake syrup for decades, until the company rebranded in 2021 over concerns the character could be seen as racist. Which I'm sure is true, but what I'm more focused on right now is how baffling her design is here. She doesn't really look like the Aunt Jemima character herself at all, instead looking more like a personification of the old syrup bottles (which were vaguely in the shape of a person). But it's so uncanny because it's this weird hybrid between both- the model and shape is clearly that of the bottle design, yet they've textured her so that she has clothes and a face like the actual character. It's like this weird halfway point where it doesn't look right as either. She was ultimately replaced by Mrs Buttersworth in the final product, with a scene where she spills syrup on Mr Clean being identical aside from the characters being swapped out. Something worthy of note is that this is one of the early character models that was found during the production of ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight, and so is available for download on archive.org if you want to tinker with it.

#5: The Keebler Elves: The Keebler Elves, one of the only mascots seen fully animated in the workprint, are seen here witnessing Daredevil Dan crash his plane into their factory. In the finished movie they're replaced with creepy generic-looking gnomes, but it's clear they were always intended to be the Keebler Elves and were simply switched after The Keebler Company pulled out from the film.

#6: The M&Ms: By far one of the most recognizable mascots of all time, the M&Ms get a single appearance in the workprint, being led to a table by Charlie Tuna while the Green M&M tells the Red M&M she's suffering from "peanut envy". Of note is that in the script, it's the Red M&M telling this to the Yellow M&M, which I personally find bizarre as the joke doesn't land nearly as well if it's two guys having the conversation. If you're familiar with the Freudian concept of penis envy, it's a condition he alleged was a key part of female psychosexual development- and so the gag lands far better if it's the Green M&M, a woman, saying it. But even having said that, according to ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight they accidentally modelled the Green M&M as a guy anyway so... I don't know what kind of gender confusion you'd call that.

#7: Charlie Tuna: Just like in the finished film, Charlie Tuna serves as the maître d' at the Copabanana, leading guests to their tables (and later getting his tail stepped on by Lady X). Of course here he's leading the M&Ms to a table, whereas in the movie it's that whole thing with the Roman gladiator who shoves his head up a cow's ass, but let's not get into that again.

#8: The California Raisins: There's not much to say here, as the California Raisins made it into the movie with minimal changes. But if you want to know something interesting, did you know the California Raisins were supposed to get an NES game back in the early 90s ? It ended up never being released, and so was lost for over a decade until a collector named Brandon Murphy happened across a prototype cartridge in the early 2000s, uploading the ROM online so that everybody could play it. I'd highly recommend looking the game up for yourself if you want to learn more, as although it's an incredibly fascinating story, it's also deeply tragic and doesn't quite belong on a lighthearted blog like this.

#9: Rosarita: So this is a more obscure one, but the character Vlad Chocool flirts with in the Copabanana is Rosarita, the mascot for a brand of refried beans. I would've probably missed this character entirely, but there's a similar scene in the novelization where she;s simply referred to as "Rosa" due to not being allowed to name any real-world brands, and so when I was writing my analysis I speculated about who this could be referring to. Sure enough, when I read the early script it was confirmed to be the Rosarita lady, and so it was fascinating to finally see her onscreen in this workprint. The character is usually depicted wearing a wide-brimmed hat and so seeing her without it you might just mistake her for a regular woman, but the flower in her hair made her instantly recognizable to me because I've spent far, far too much time on this movie.

#10: Chiquita Banana: Similar to the Keebler Elves, the Chiquita Banana lady was originally going to play the role of the bartender at the Copabanana, before being replaced by a much less visually appealing character called "Lola Fruitola". This seems to be a trend with Foodfight!- whenever a brand drops out, their character is replaced with an unflattering parody of them. Real professional, guys. Chiquita Banana is a little more complicated however, as in the draft of the script from around the same time the workprint was created, she was already replaced with Lola Fruitola. It's possible these storyboards were just drawn earlier on, and they just didn't bother replacing them even after the company no longer allowed their character to be used in the movie, but I can't say for sure.

#11: Sugar Bear: This is Sugar Bear, mascot for Post's Golden Crisp cereal. There's not much to say about him, since he's only seen briefly a few times during the workprint and he never does anything notable, but he IS one of the few brand mascots seen fully rendered and animated in this version of the movie.

#12: Punchy: Punchy, the Hawaiian Punch mascot, plays the same role as he does in the finished film- during the barfight at the Copabanana, he performs his signature move of offering someone some "punch" before literally punching them in the face. There's not much else to say about him, so let's move on.

#13: Twinkie The Kid: Twinkie the Kid is seen in the background of various storyboards during the workprint, but ultimately doesn't do much other than look far more visually appealing than he does in the finished film. There IS some early animation featuring a fully-rendered version of him, but for some reason it wasn't included in the workprint.

#14: Chef Boyardee: There's not much to say about Chef Boyardee either, as he only appears in the background of a few shots and doesn't say or do anything notable. For shame! Such a highly-regarded culinary expert deserves better than a mere background appearance.

#15: Pepperidge Farm: This is an interesting one as you don't actually SEE the character onscreen, but during the USDA meeting you hear the following dialogue- "Salts and sugars been competing for snack food supremacy longer than I even I remember!" "Pepperidge Farm remembers!" This is obviously intended to be the Pepperidge Farm spokesperson, and presumably had animation been completed while the company still allowed the character to be used, we would've seen him onscreen as well.

#16: Oscar Mayer: Oscar Mayer gets a few scenes throughout the workprint, but I'm going to save discussing them for the second part of my analysis, as there's one in particular I think is far funnier than it has any right to be and I don't want to spoil it. I think it's one of the highlights of the workprint, and it's truly a shame he ended up being cut from the finished film.

#17: Mr Pringle: As mentioned in my previous post, Mr Pringle gets a scene set in the real-world supermarket where he reminds Kaptain Krispy not to lose his temper after his chips get stomped, but he also gets THIS later on in the movie during the battle with Brand X! I mean god damn, he's flying around on a giant Pringle like he's the Silver Surfer! I just can't help but find that hilarious and awesome at the same time, I mean how many times do you see someone flying around on a huge potato chip? It's kinda bizarre to see him with arms and legs though, I'm used to him just being a head.

#18: Tootise Roll Owl and Tootise Roll Man: There's hardly anything to say about these characters, as just like in the finished film the only thing they really do is stand around in the background. The Tootsie Roll Owl is part of the flying squad used to take down the Xobytes late in the movie, but it's not particularly noteworthy.

#19: Sonny The Cuckoo Bird: The mascot for Cocoa Puffs, Sonny's only role in the workprint is also as part of the flying squad used to take down the Xobytes. In the finished film, he was replaced with a character called "Jetpack Jeffery", some sort of elf with a big jetpack and an even bigger tumor sticking out of his head. I have no idea why- it's such an odd character design, and elves and jetpacks don't exactly mesh together well thematically.

#20: Mr Peanut: Mr Peanut, the Planters mascot, appears very briefly toward the end of the movie to hand Dex a message from Lord Flushington about their plan to take down Brand X. He doesn't say anything, and in the finished film it's instead Vlad Chocool who informs Dex about their plan. It really is wild how so many well-known mascots were in the movie at this point, compared to the finished film where most of the ones used are somewhat obscure.

#21: The Energizer Bunny: The Energizer Bunny, mascot for Energizer batteries, appears towards the end fighting off Brand X soldiers with some slick martial arts moves. While the Energizer Bunny does appear in the finished film (very briefly in crowd scenes) he never gets a chance to shine like he does here in the workprint, which is a shame because it would've been awesome to watch a tiny little rabbit beat the crap out of a bunch of grown men.

So that makes 21 appearances from real-world brand mascots in the workprint, only SLIGHTLY more than the finished film's count of 18. But the workprint has far more that are popular, recognizable and you'd actually see in most real grocery stores. The M&Ms, Pringles, Golden Crisp, Chiquita Banana. Compare that to Mr Bubble... Mama Celeste... Duncan Hines... you'd be forgiven for not even knowing who half of those are. Not that I necessarily think the movie would've been better if it had a scene where the M&Ms show up for 5 seconds to crack a penis joke, but I think it's a necessity if you're going to make a movie about a supermarket coming to life at night- for that premise to work you NEED to have characters and mascots you'd recognize from an actual supermarket, and so on that front the workprint succeeds where the finished film fails.

Seeing all these characters from existing grocery products makes Marketropolis actually FEEL like it's a supermarket rather than just a generic cartoon city. That being said, this whole thing is reminiscent of a kind of movie I've seen a lot of in recent years- I like to call them "Thing You Recognize" movies, because they're movies where they're clearly just showing off all the famous characters they own, in the hopes you'll like it because you saw a thing you recognized. You know what I mean, Ready Player One, The Flash, that horrible Space Jam sequel... they put Alex's Droogs from Clockwork Orange in the background of that one, like "Hey, remember the Droogs? You liked the Droogs, right?" And yeah, I liked the Droogs... when they were in A Clockwork Orange, not in your half-assed self-mastubatory children's basketball movie! I mean, what were they thinking? But I'm getting off topic now, and besides- Foodfight! isn't the cause of this kind of filmmaking, it's merely a symptom of it. I hope you enjoyed learning about all the cameos in this version of the film, and join me next time as I finish up my analysis of the Foodfight! Workprint!

#foodfight #dex dogtective #daredevil dan #m&ms #mr peanut #lady x #charlie tuna #pepperidge farm remembers #pringles #oscar mayer #chef boyardee #the california raisins #analysis

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