Pokémon Theme Song Cover Video Chronicles Two-Year Fat Pikachu Quest
A new Pokémon theme song cover on YouTube not only features the iconic track but also chronicles a two-year-long Fat Pikachu quest. The opening song of the Pokémon TV series from 1997 is one of the most recognizable tracks in the anime and gaming communities due to the massive popularity of the franchise across multiple forms of media and entertainment. The track, which solidified the franchise’s slogan “Gotta catch ‘em all!,” has been covered, remixed, and more a countless number of times across the past few decades, with one fan even recreating not just the song but the TV series intro using just stock footage.
Along with the iconic song, another easily recognizable aspect of Pokémon is Pikachu, who has pretty much become the face of the franchise. But like many other Pokémon, the design of Pikachu has changed over the years. The original design of Pikachu from Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green, was much chubbier than his current design. The older look became popularly known as Fat Pikachu and was somewhat brought back when Gigantamax Pikachu was introduced in Pokémon Sword and Shield.
Seth Everman published the cover of the Pokémon theme song on his YouTube channel which also visualizes his quest to purchase a ton of Pikachu cards from the 1999 Jungle set of the Pokémon Trading Card game over the past two years. He then sticks the cards, thankfully still inside protective plastic sleeves, to one of the walls of his room to create a massive Fat Pikachu mural. According to Everman, he started working on the video two years ago around the time when he made a Tweet calling Fat Pikachu the best version of the iconic character.
Fortunately, the specific Pikachu card that Everman chose for this project is one of the relatively more available and affordable ones from the older sets. The cost of producing the video would have been much higher if Everman opted to include some of the rarer and more expensive versions such as the Pikachu Illustrator card, which is considered one of the rarest and most sought-after cards in the world. Just last year, one of the less than a dozen Pikachu Illustrator cards believed to still exist sold for $250,000.
The amount of commitment required to not only produce a cover video of the Pokémon theme song over the course of two years along with the patience to find and purchase all those Pikachu cards is a pretty impressive feat and is just the latest in the content creator’s library of comedic videos.
Source: Seth Everman/YouTube