About
Terry Crews: Old Spice is a series of television commercials for the Old Spice deodorant brand starring the American actor and former National Football League player Terry Crews. The commercials are often used in YouTube Poops Music Videos (YTPMVs) and MAD videos on the Japanese video sharing website Nico Nico Douga (NND).
Origin
On March 31st, 2010, Old Spice uploaded the “Odor Blockers” series of commercials to their official YouTube[1] channel. The videos starred Terry Crews and were directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim from the sketch comedy television series Tim and Eric Awesome Show.
The Actor
Terrence Alan Crews was born in Flint, Michigan and attended Western Michigan University where he was a defensive end on the school football team. In the 11th round of the 1991 NFL Draft, Crews was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams and played in the NFL for a total of seven seasons before retiring in 1997 to pursue acting. Crews played the role of the family patriarch Julius in the television sitcom Everybody Hates Chris and has appeared in several films including Training Day, White Chicks, Idiocracy and The Expendables. As of April 9th, 2011, Crews has a Facebook[2] page with over 311,000 likes and a Twitter[3] account with over 116,000 followers.
Spread
On April 1st, 2010, the Internet culture blog UpRoxx[4] published an article about the commercials titled “Tim & Eric’s Old Spice Commercials Are Awesomely Ridiculous,” which compared the series to the extreme advertisement video Powerthirst. The same day, it was posted to the online video blog Videogum[5], which lauded the directorial talent of Heidecker and Wareheim. On May 10th, Crews was interviewed about the commercials on G4TV’s Attack of the Show.
On September 30th, Redditor myarlak submitted an Odor Blocker video to the /r/videos[6] subreddit in a post titled “I don’t care what you guys thing Terry Crews is the best old spice guy.” Redditor OffBeatBiologist commented to the post linking to a Duck Tales moon themeYTPMV using footage from the commercial.
On October 17th, 2011, the Odor Blocker video was reposted by Redditor bobob102, reaching the front page of the /r/videos[7] subreddit and receiving over 1,477 up votes prior to being archived. On February 1st, 2012, Old Spice released another series of Terry Crews commercials titled “Smell is Power”. In the videos, Crews interrupts two different household product commercials, rolls his head down a bowling lane and explodes his brain after using the deodorant.[12]
On Nico Nico Douga
On April 3rd, 2012, the original Terry Crews Odor Blocker videos were uploaded to NND.[8] In the following days, Crews was nicknamed “the fairy of body soap” and several MAD videos were created using the Old Spice commercial footage. As of April 9th, 2012, the original Old Spice video has received over 665,000 views and over 70 MAD videos[9] have been created.
Notable Examples
Left: Super Mario | Right: BEMANI Song
Left: River X | Right: Rhythem Heaven
Left: Dangerous Series[10] | Right: Vocaloid Song[11]
Search Interest
External References
Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to view the Nico Nico Douga videos listed in this section.
[2]Facebook – Terry Crews
[3]Twitter – @terrycrews
[4]UpRoxx – TIM& ERIC’S OLDSPICECOMMERCIALSAREAWESOMELYRIDICULOUS
[5]Videogum – You Guys, We Should Buy More Deodorant
[6]Reddit – I don’t care what you guys thing Terry Crews is the best old spice guy
[7]Reddit – You will go down in history Terry Crews
[8]Nico Nico Douga – 海外のボディソープのCMが狂ってる件 / Posted on 04-03-2012
[9]Nico Nico Douga – Search results for Old_Spice
[10]Nico Nico Douga – 危険なボディソープ / Posted on 04-05-2012
[11]Nico Nico Douga – リンちゃんなう×Old Spice マッシュアップ！ / Posted on 02-09-2012
[12]UpRoxx – Old Spice + Tim & Eric + Terry Crews = Too Powerful To Stay In Its Own Commercial