Watching the video on Tuesday was almost like passing a Glamour Shots studio and seeing an old friend come out with makeup and drapery still intact. The old friend was clearly inside the body, but we’ll surely never see him in quite the same light again.

After 94 years, including a variety of facelifts and upgrades along the way, Mr. Peanut has gone hip. The Planters Peanut company and owner Kraft Foods kicked off a new advertising campaign Tuesday that breathes life into the iconic figure. No longer, for instance, is Mr. Peanut the strong, silent type. Today, he speaks with the voice of Robert Downey Jr. The old yellow color has been dumped in favor of a brownish, nuttier hue. And now he has a sidekick — along with a whole backstory about his home and his friends.

It remains to be seen whether the move will be a hit or whether it will be the marketing equivalent of New Coke. More than 161,000 Facebookers had “liked” the natty legume’s page by Wednesday evening, but that number could be misleading, as they had to do so to see the commercial that was featured there.

Planters is betting on the retro trend by giving Mr. Peanut a decidedly early-20th-century look, while smartly planting him in the 21st century by means of social networking and viral video. Time will tell whether the campaign is successful at helping the company establish the idea that peanuts are “naturally remarkable.”

Still, it’s a testament to the marketing genius of Suffolk’s favorite come-here, Amedeo Obici, that anybody even cares about an advertising device consisting of a peanut with arms, legs, a hat and a cane. Nearly a century after a Suffolk schoolboy produced a rough sketch for Mr. Obici of the peanut that eventually grew famous, there will be people with passionate views on either side of the question of whether Mr. Peanut should have been changed.

Whatever the verdict, the discussion itself would have made the master marketer a very happy man.