Pepsi's Kung Fu Fail

New Spot With Shaggy, T-Pain, Tami Chynn Offends on Almost Every Level

Posted by Charlie Moran on 09.17.08 @ 02:19 PM

Pop quiz time! What's worse than one cover of "Kung Fu Fighting"? If you answered "three covers of 'Kung Fu Fighting,'" then, sadly, you are right on the money.

For the Jamaican market, Pepsi has enlisted Shaggy, T-Pain and the relative newcomer Tami Chynn to re-record Carl Douglas' Orientalist 1974 hit, "Kung Fu Fighting." Through some miracle of irreverent modern marketing, all three can be downloaded as free ringtones at www.pepsikungfu.com if users destroy a building with a green T-rex wearing a party hat. If that weren't enough, in a national TV spot featuring Chynn's rendition, all three entertainers appear alongside Verne Troyer while people battle over cans of Pepsi and more dinosaurs battle in the streets and my god, what am I watching?

We understand this song was a major hit in Jamaica 30 years ago, and maybe we can chalk some of it up to cultural differences, and Chynn is part Chinese, but this thing offends on so many levels. From the "hilarity" of a fighting little person to the sheer laziness of the cover to Chynn singing the line, "They were funky Chinamen from funky Chinatown," this spot makes us cringe as if we were reading Archie Bunker's friends-only Live Journal.

Please, let us keep this foreign menace off U.S. shores.

[Via Jamaica Gleaner]

1 Comment

By RichRob | Miramar, FL September 20, 2008 02:48:42 am:

A correction more than a comment. In your reference to "We understand this song was a major hit in Jamaica 30 years ago, and maybe we can chalk some of it up to cultural differences,"

I would like to point out the songs success came from it being a hit in the US before appearing in Jamaica as a hit climbing to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 2 weeks in December 1974 and sticking in the top 10 for many more weeks of 1975.

I find it interesting that a song which entertained so many American's in a more I suppose "brutal age" is now so offensive, now that America is so PC. Not saying that this excuses the choice to use this song as we Jamaicans say two wrongs don't make a right. I for one as a Jamaican, the market in which your article points out as the target demographic. Do not find it offensive, a little silly maybe but aren't the those the ads that stick in your head. Based on that feedback I think Pepsi can pat themselves on the back, Mission Accomplished.

Also I highly doubt that this ad was produced solely for the Jamaican market. Based on the content of the associated website.

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