Valuetainment - July 08, 2026


“Took a Joke to Court” – Pepsi Lawsuit Ends After 30 Years


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

198.79

Word count

2,129

Sentence count

146

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A man who sued Pepsi 30 years ago for a fighter jet finally gets his reward 30 years later, and it s not even close to what he actually got. It s a story about a guy who was resourceful enough to do exactly what he set out to do in order to get a jet.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 A man sues Pepsi 30 years ago, because Pepsi did this campaign.
00:00:04.980 If you can't even pull up the campaign when they did this back in the days,
00:00:07.520 because you guys showed me this video yesterday.
00:00:09.960 They do this thing about, hey, we're going to give a fighter jet.
00:00:13.960 And so this one guy decides to go and do every single thing required to win this thing.
00:00:21.360 And then all of a sudden, I don't know what page the Pepsi story's on.
00:00:24.200 Oh, there it is.
00:00:24.640 I found it.
00:00:25.120 Man who sued Pepsi over fighter jets finally gets his reward 30 years later.
00:00:29.140 This is the original commercial, by the way, from October 30, 1995.
00:00:33.820 Watch this.
00:00:34.320 Go ahead.
00:00:37.860 Oh, my God.
00:00:38.820 This is how commercials sound it.
00:00:40.340 Listen to the audio.
00:00:41.300 Oh, my God.
00:00:41.880 That is terrible.
00:00:42.840 Can we get past the six seconds?
00:00:44.220 Yeah, go a little bit.
00:00:46.300 All right, let's see it.
00:00:48.880 Oh, is that audio?
00:00:51.560 Oh.
00:00:53.660 Oh.
00:00:54.900 Boom.
00:00:55.300 introducing the new pepsi stuff catalog yeah
00:01:01.540 now the more pepsi you drink the more great stuff you're going to get sure beats the bus
00:01:12.340 so they put this saying if you get seven million points you're gonna get a fighter jet and this
00:01:20.140 one kid gets it done that's so freaking and they they're like they never thought it was
00:01:23.760 going to happen so they never gave him the jet what are you going to do deliver the jet to the
00:01:27.240 guy's house can you imagine how crazy this campaign was what if he's a middle east guy 0.81
00:01:30.320 pepsi's like holy shit three decades later after suing pepsi for refusing to give him a fighter jet
00:01:36.700 john leonard pull up his picture i actually want to see what this man looks like before and after
00:01:41.880 what he looked like as a kid finally got a reward that may be even better according to a post that
00:01:46.720 super blondie uh supercar blondie leonard became the center of all advertising most famous legal
00:01:52.620 battles after taking a 1996 Pepsi commercial at face value,
00:01:56.140 the ad promoting the company's Pepsi points loyalty program,
00:01:58.600 jokingly claimed customers could redeem 7 million points for a military
00:02:02.640 Harrier jet.
00:02:03.940 Rather than laughing it off,
00:02:05.180 the Seattle college student raised enough money to buy the required
00:02:08.640 points and submitted a claim for the aircraft.
00:02:11.420 Pepsi rejected it,
00:02:12.440 insisting the jet was never a real price.
00:02:14.820 The article says that the case went to court where a judge ruled that no
00:02:18.080 reasonable person would believe Pepsi was seriously offering a fighter jet.
00:02:22.620 In a soft drink promotion, although Leonard lost the lawsuit,
00:02:26.540 the bizarre dispute became legendary and was later chronicled.
00:02:32.420 How do you pronounce this word?
00:02:34.280 Chronicled, sir?
00:02:35.140 Chronicled in the Netflix documentary.
00:02:36.240 Don't worry about it.
00:02:36.860 I got you every time.
00:02:38.080 Where's my jet?
00:02:39.140 Now, nearly 30 years later, Frontier Airlines gave this story a happy ending
00:02:43.340 as part of a Super Bowl campaign called The Big Redemption.
00:02:46.880 The airline converted Leonard's original 7 million Pepsi points
00:02:50.780 into 7 million frontier miles,
00:02:52.820 effectively giving him free flights for life.
00:02:55.640 The airline even featured Leonard
00:02:56.980 in a tongue-in-cheek commercial,
00:02:59.340 handing him the keys to an Airbus A320neo
00:03:02.500 as a nod to the decades-old saga.
00:03:04.740 Now in his 50s, with a wife and children,
00:03:07.300 Leonard joked that unlimited airline miles
00:03:09.060 are far more practical than owning a main...
00:03:11.140 Yeah, you think?
00:03:12.740 ...military jet.
00:03:13.980 After waiting three decades,
00:03:15.100 he never got the Harrier,
00:03:16.260 but he may have received an even better price.
00:03:19.180 Tom.
00:03:19.400 so marketing has consequences and i think if you're gonna do this you know this is him this
00:03:27.900 is him as a kid a college student isn't that great and by the way can we see him today
00:03:32.180 can we see him what did he do what business did he get into for a guy to be this resourceful i
00:03:38.680 hope this guy became like super successful if he used his ability to get those seven million points
00:03:44.720 Your ability to be resourceful is off the charts.
00:03:47.660 This is him now.
00:03:48.420 That's so funny.
00:03:49.080 It's good, buddy.
00:03:49.860 Is there a video?
00:03:50.600 Can we hear how he speaks?
00:03:51.660 I actually wanted to hear how he speaks.
00:03:52.840 I'd laugh if he became like a consumer protection attorney.
00:03:57.060 I actually wanted.
00:03:57.960 So this is the commercial.
00:03:59.000 They're not showing Pepsi.
00:04:00.060 This is Frontier Airlines.
00:04:01.100 Ran a promotion.
00:04:02.560 Collect enough points, and you could trade them for a jet.
00:04:07.060 One man tried to claim it, but the courts ruled it was a joke,
00:04:11.580 and the plane never came.
00:04:13.760 Leonard's case was dismissed.
00:04:15.520 Give that man a check.
00:04:17.160 Give that man a check.
00:04:20.200 Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes.
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00:04:56.960 By the way, Frontier's marketing team should get a frickin' raise.
00:05:01.360 Oh, yeah.
00:05:03.460 Didn't get a check.
00:05:07.160 It's a deal.
00:05:08.380 Frontier redeemed John's 7 million old soda points for 7 million miles,
00:05:14.120 enough to fly free for life.
00:05:16.340 I got the jet.
00:05:17.720 Look at this guy.
00:05:19.060 So you finally got a jet.
00:05:20.200 And now we're getting away 70 million more miles.
00:05:21.880 They're making a money.
00:05:22.600 So you can turn loyalty points from any other brand into Frontier Miles, too.
00:05:28.380 Redeem your points at FrontierMiles.com.
00:05:31.200 Respect to Frontier Miles.
00:05:33.940 Don't you love this story, Tom?
00:05:35.180 I love this story.
00:05:36.220 You know, there's the business side of me says, listen, you got to be careful about doing sweepstakes or because somebody, even if they're going to do it, is going to is going to blow the thing up.
00:05:46.660 Yeah. Do you remember when I think it was American Airlines once upon a time had the three hundred thousand dollars pay once and your first class for life?
00:05:54.720 And I think there were you know who the there were three remaining members of it because they kept trying to buy them out.
00:06:01.020 And you know who one of those last remaining members was? Mark Cuban.
00:06:04.960 because it was three hundred thousand dollars about the american and so and by the way american
00:06:10.640 never thought people the number of people would do it and they nearly went broke not broke but
00:06:16.100 they were losing money on like three of them there was a guy that decided that every other week he was
00:06:21.380 going to the uk and apparently you had the right to take a american fly for life or whatever it was
00:06:27.520 you could take it you just i love it when when it snaps back uh and so that's what i think i love it
00:06:34.640 when it snaps back but you know what i love even more is when companies do something for good even
00:06:40.800 if they're doing it for funny what front what is frontier really saying here we'll go the extra
00:06:45.700 mile for you when somebody else wouldn't that might be a slogan right there they should pay
00:06:50.140 you for that tom that's what i think i love how do you feel about this adam
00:06:55.720 great marketing by frontier way to deliver on this i mean look at the end of the day
00:07:02.680 if I order a Coke at a restaurant
00:07:04.860 and they go, sorry, sir, we only have Pepsi,
00:07:08.000 I'm disappointed.
00:07:08.760 I went a totally different way on that.
00:07:10.480 Can you run a poll, Pepsi or Coke?
00:07:12.360 Diet Coke.
00:07:13.100 Run a poll, Pepsi or Coke.
00:07:14.340 I want to know which one of our audience is Pepsi or Coke.
00:07:15.900 There's nothing better than having a meal
00:07:18.620 and then just say, hey, can I get a Diet Coke?
00:07:21.280 You know what's funny?
00:07:22.060 I know you don't drink soda.
00:07:23.200 I haven't had it since July of 19, and I miss it.
00:07:26.440 I'm not going to lie to you.
00:07:27.580 Not having a Coke Zero.
00:07:29.700 No, no, I'm not going to drink it.
00:07:31.220 Do you know what I do, Pat?
00:07:32.260 What was the Coke ad?
00:07:33.120 You talked about, remember the Coke ad?
00:07:34.160 $5 million.
00:07:34.960 I would do a Coca-Cola commercial to come back.
00:07:37.620 I don't always drink soda, but when I do, I'll do it for $5 million.
00:07:42.060 I go to Whole Foods and stuff, and I get just, you know, like the black cherry flavor.
00:07:45.160 Yeah.
00:07:45.540 And then you put stevia drops.
00:07:46.660 I know it's not the same, but if you want to get the soda carbonation taste.
00:07:50.180 What's going on with your voice?
00:07:50.780 By the way, do you remember RC Cola?
00:07:53.020 Remember RC Cola?
00:07:53.920 Royal Crown.
00:07:55.880 Did you ever drink it?
00:07:57.100 I would have called it Royal Crown.
00:07:58.440 By the way, RC was better than Coke, if you asked me 30 years ago.
00:08:01.520 Hey, hey, hey.
00:08:01.780 The blue bottle.
00:08:03.240 The blue can.
00:08:04.040 I agree.
00:08:04.540 I don't know.
00:08:04.940 The OGRC right there.
00:08:06.640 If they had a great product, they must have had horrible marketing because it doesn't exist.
00:08:10.180 Now we're all into blue pills.
00:08:11.360 First of all, if you drank RC, you were poor, but you got, you know.
00:08:14.960 But rich in substance and health and life.
00:08:16.820 But the drink was good.
00:08:18.960 And then what's the next time you think you'll have a soda, Pat?
00:08:20.840 I don't know about that right now at this point with what I'm going through.
00:08:23.320 But, hey, Arnold Palmer, that'll serve you well.
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