Fido Dido ( or ) is a cartoon character of a male youth created by Joanna Ferrone and Sue Rose.
History
Rose first doodled the character in 1985 on a napkin in a restaurant. Ferrone came up with the character's name on her way to work the next day. The two later stenciled Fido on T-shirts. These T-shirts became very popular in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
, and featured the character's official
mantra
A mantra ( ; Pali: ''mantra'') or mantram (Devanagari: मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words (most often in an Indo-Iranian language like Sanskrit or Avestan) belie ...
: "Fido is for Fido. Fido is against no one. Fido is youth. Fido has no age. Fido sees everything. Fido judges nothing. Fido is smart. Fido is innocent. Fido is powerful. Fido comes from the past. Fido is the future".
Advertising
The character was licensed to
PepsiCo
PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...
in 1988 but the character did not receive much attention or popularity until the early 1990s, when he appeared on numerous products, particularly
stationery
Stationery refers to writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery usually specifies materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) or by equipment such as computer p ...
and
7 Up
7 Up (stylized as 7UP worldwide) or Seven Up is an American brand of Lemon-lime drink, lemon-lime–flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The brand and formula are owned by Keurig Dr Pepper, although the beverage is internationally distributed ...
ads and
boxer shorts
Boxer shorts (also commonly known as simply boxers) are a type of undergarment typically worn by men.
The term has been used in English since 1944 for all-around-elastic shorts, so named after the shorts worn by Boxing, boxers, for whom unhindered ...
. Later, he was replaced with
Cool Spot
''Cool Spot'' is a 1993 platform game developed by Virgin Games for the Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Master System, Game Gear, Game Boy, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The title character is Spot, a mascot for the soft drink br ...
as the 7-Up brand mascot. Since PepsiCo does not have the rights to 7-Up in the United States (where it is a product of the
Dr Pepper Snapple Group
Dr Pepper Snapple Group was an American multinational soft drink company based in Plano, Texas. Since July 2018, it is a business unit of the publicly-traded conglomerate Keurig Dr Pepper.
Formerly Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, part of ...
), Fido Dido was instead used to promote Slice. He reappeared in the 2000s on cans and advertising for 7-Up worldwide.
In 2018, Fido Dido reappeared in the Vintage Series cans.
in 2022, Fido Dido reappeared to star in a series of new commercials.
Fido Dido was used on PepsiCo's Turkish soft drink Fruko.
Other uses
Fido Dido appeared in
Saturday morning cartoon
"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series and live-action programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre was a ...
promos on
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
. His bumpers on CBS started in 1990 and lasted until 1993.
The graphic novel ''Fido Dido: Life In the Third Lane'' was published in paperback in 1989.
A large mural of Fido Dido was painted on the side of a building in the city of
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Guayaquil (), officially Santiago de Guayaquil, is the largest city in Ecuador and also the nation's economic capital and main port. The city is the capital (political), capital of Guayas Province and the seat of Guayaquil Canton. The city is ...
, in the early 1990s and was nearly erased by the passing of time. After a news article was published by ''El Universo'' in March 2019, the mural was repainted to refresh the image.
In 1992, Fido Dido appeared in his own magazine in the United Kingdom. The first edition introduced his family, and was titled "Meet the Fidos". It was published by Ravette Publishing.
In 1993, a video game called ''Fido Dido'' was made by
Super NES
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania a ...
and
Sega Genesis
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...
. However, it was never released, because the publisher Kaneko's United States branch shut down in the summer of 1994. There was a
Neopets
''Neopets'' is a free-to-play virtual pet site, virtual pet browser game. First launched in 1999, the game allows users to own virtual pets ("Neopets") and explore a virtual world called "Neopia." Players can earn one of two virtual currency, v ...
sponsor game starring Fido Dido.
In the early 1990s, Fido Dido had a comic strip in the teenage magazine '' YM''. ''Pepper Ann'', a spinoff of the Fido Dido strip, would later be adapted into a
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
TV series
A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...
.
Fido Dido appears in the 2009 animated short '' Logorama'', as a bystander.