About

I love bell peppers ! is a YTMND fad featuring Iron Chef's chairman Takeshi Kaga biting proudly and enthusiastically into a bell pepper or other various vegetables/fruits/objects, also having his face replaced by many others faces, mostly from well-known YTMND characters.

Origin

On July the 2nd 2005, YTMND user AcidicConcepts made a YTMND site featuring Takeshi Kaga in one of his show's opening scenes where he is seen biting into a bell pepper. That site was called I love bell peppers!, having a short loop of the scene while the Dragonforce 2004 Fury of the Storm song is playing in the background.
According to YTMND wiki, The audio loop was already used in another previous YTMND-site and the .gif animation was found in an AlbinosBlackSheep forum thread from early 2002.
The Iron Chef episode from which the animation has been made of is unknown.

As of today, that first YTMND has got more than 300 000 views and rated 4,32 out of 5 on the website.

The fad

The fad didn't take off immediately.
The first YTMND parody jumping on it is I Liek Milk!!1 the 4th of August 2005.
The next day, among other YTMNDS sites going along, the most popular iteration from the fad was created by YTMND user dmac and entitled Brian Peppers loves bell peppers!, gathering more than 330 000 views and reusing another popular internet phenomenon at that time : Brian Peppers.
While the "X loves bell peppers" formula is often used in the meme, many others YTMNDS on the same theme without a similar title were made.
By comparing the list of sites using bell peppers as keywords and Fury of the Storm as soundtrack, we can guess that there has been about 200 sites created to date.

Among the most populars, sorted by views, are :

• I love Tiger Handhelds! (Updated Sound) (more than 100 000 views)
• iRon Chef (iPod) (more than 70 000 views)
• I Love Bell Peppers XP (more than 50 000 views)
• how i did love bell peppers by andy age 9 (more than 44 000 views)
• Iron Chef VS Steve Colbert (more than 42 000 views)
• Iron Chef: Tasty Mac! (more than 38 000 views)
• A-ha loves bell peppers (more than 27 000 views)
• Bell Peppers Loves Takeshi Kaga! (more than 23 000 views)

Concerning famous personalities and characters used in the fad can also be found :

• Mario vs Luigi (more than 41 000 views)
• Khaaan (more than 29 000 views – Khan! meme)
• Senator Ted Stevens (more than 20 000 views – Series of Tube meme)
• Weird Al Yancovic (more than 12 000 views)
• Family Guy (more than 7 400 views)
• Cutie Honey (more than 7 100 views)
• N*gg* loves bell peppers! (mora than 6 900 views – Stole my Bike meme)
• Lazy Town (more than 6 000 views)

Influence within Y.T.M.N.D

According to the YTMND wiki, this meme is one of the most difficult to create on YTMND because of the amount of editing required.
Nevertheless, it was, according to the article again, the one that launched the "Fury of the Storm"'s popularity as a song within YTMND. That soundtrack would also be included in the YTMND Soundtracks volume 3.
Lastly, Takeshi Kaga's picture would also appear as a cover for the Volume 11 edition.

Iron Chef's opening sequence

The main appeal of the Iron Chef's cooking show is the Takeshi Kaga's character, always expressive, especially in the opening sequence in which, among famous catchphrases like Allez Cuisine ! starting every cooking "battle", can be seen his signature, the bell pepper biting :

(Bell pepper biting at 2:00)

Actually, Takeshi Kaga has done many different intros featuring different ways of biting his bell pepper :

While not really related to the meme itself, there is a certain amount of video on Youtube parodying this intro and presenting people biting into various vegetables/fruits :

The bell pepper biting move was also reused in Iron Chef America. The show is presented as a successor to the original Iron Chef, as opposed to being a remake. In it, the Chairman is portrayed by martial artist Mark Dacascos, who is introduced as the nephew of the original Japanese chairman Takeshi Kaga.
For the show, Mark Dacascos is seen, in almost every opening sequence, holding a bell pepper before biting into an apple :