Johnny Turbo

Johnny Turbo was a mascot that was used to promote the TurboGrafx CD. While Johnny Turbo never appeared in a video game, he turned up in a comic series that existed solely to attack the Sega CD on the grounds that the TurboGrafx CD was already available at the time.

Why He Flopped

 * 1) The comics he appeared in existed only to mock the Sega CD, and their reasons ranged from petty to just plain ignorant. (They made a panel where Sega supposedly forced people to pay for a Sega Genesis just to play the game when Sega explicitly mentioned in their ads that the peripheral was only for the Genesis.)
 * 2) Of all the games they could've promoted for the system, they only mentioned Sherlock Holmes and Gates of Thunder.
 * 3) The comics were very formulaic. It would portray Sega (referred to as "Feka") as some evil conglomerate and eventually turn into a promotional piece for the TG-CD and Gates of Thunder.
 * 4) Johnny Turbo is actually based on John C. Brandstetter, a real-life programmer (who more than a little ironically has worked on titles for Sega), while his sidekick Tony is based on translator Anthony A. Ancona. The series appears to have been put together by someone who really didn't like Brandstetter and/or was trying to see that they could get away with, especially the third issue which implies that Brandstetter and Ancona are a gay couple.
 * 5) The very idea of using this character to represent the console was a death wish. They could've easily used Bonk as their mascot due to his game's popularity.
 * 6) Even the character is just a wannabe Gi-Joe.
 * 7) Likely coincidentally, the word feka means "shit" in Esperanto and "negro" in Hungarian.

Reception
The character has been considered to be the worst gaming mascot of all time. His comics pretty much served as the final nail in the coffin for the TurboGrafx CD, which fell into obscurity, whilst its self-proclaimed adversary console faired much better.

Legacy
Brandstetter interestingly decided to keep using Johnny Turbo ever since founding his company, Flying Tiger Entertainment, as part of a series of Data East arcade-to-console conversions known as Johnny Turbo's Arcade.

Comments
Johnny Turbo also ended up appearing as a playable character in the crossover puzzle game, Crystal Crisis.