Mobile Leprechaun

2006viral videoclassic

Mobile Leprechaun is a 2006 local news clip from WPMI-TV in Mobile, Alabama, where Crichton neighborhood residents claimed a leprechaun was hiding in a tree. The report, complete with an amateur sketch and folk theories about crack heads and ancient flutes, became one of YouTube's earliest viral videos.

pre youtube viral videosyoutube viralcryptid memesstreet footage memeslate 2000s memes

Overview

Mobile Leprechaun, often called the Crichton Leprechaun or Alabama Leprechaun, is a WPMI-TV news segment about a supposed leprechaun sighting in a tree in the Crichton neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama1. The report packed together bewildered eyewitnesses, a child-like pencil sketch of the alleged creature, and residents holding up a metal pipe they described as an ancient flute2.

The clip is recognizable for two things above all else. The first is the amateur sketch, a crude ballpoint drawing of a hatted figure that looked, in one writer's words, like a blindfolded three-year-old's doodle2. The second is the mix of straight-faced local news framing with residents openly speculating that the leprechaun might be a crackhead who climbed up the tree3. Together those ingredients turned a two-minute St. Patrick's Day filler piece into one of the earliest YouTube-era viral news moments4.

How It Spread

Blogs picked up the video within a week. On March 23rd, 2006, pop culture site The Modern Age ran a post titled "Leprechaun Sketch = Brilliant" focused on the drawing, and the video was mirrored to Break.com the same day4. YouTuber markslidesquad posted a hip hop remix called "Leprechaun dimme da gold rap video" on March 24th, 2006, which pulled in more than 2.5 million views over the next six years4. Less than three weeks after the broadcast, The New York Times cited the leprechaun clip in an April 3rd, 2006 article about YouTube's rise, questioning whether it might be a hoax4.

Merch and mainstream television followed. A site called Where Da Gold At launched on April 9th, 2006 selling t-shirts printed with the amateur sketch4. On March 18th, 2009, South Park's episode "The Coon" opened with a news report parodying the format4. Bill O'Reilly aired the WPMI clip on The O'Reilly Factor on July 29th, 2009, asking his panel whether the report played on racial stereotypes of the Black residents interviewed, a framing anchor Jane Skinner pushed back on by telling him to "lighten up"1. Comedy Central kept it in rotation, with Tosh.0 airing a follow-up segment on July 26th, 2011 in which Daniel Tosh interviewed the pipe-flute man from the original piece4.

The format itself got parodied again on February 21st, 2012 by Key and Peele, who restaged the WPMI report around a Pegasus sighting instead of a leprechaun4. By 2014, the original upload sat at close to 24 million views, ranking on Time's list of YouTube's top videos2.

How to Use This Meme

The clip is typically shared as a St. Patrick's Day post or as shorthand for absurd local news reporting. Remixers often loop the "where da gold at" line or the pipe-as-flute close-up, and the amateur sketch is commonly reused on its own as an image macro or t-shirt design4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Mobile Leprechaun

2006viral videoclassic

Mobile Leprechaun is a 2006 local news clip from WPMI-TV in Mobile, Alabama, where Crichton neighborhood residents claimed a leprechaun was hiding in a tree. The report, complete with an amateur sketch and folk theories about crack heads and ancient flutes, became one of YouTube's earliest viral videos.

pre youtube viral videos youtube viral cryptid memes street footage memes late 2000s memes

Overview

Mobile Leprechaun, often called the Crichton Leprechaun or Alabama Leprechaun, is a WPMI-TV news segment about a supposed leprechaun sighting in a tree in the Crichton neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama1. The report packed together bewildered eyewitnesses, a child-like pencil sketch of the alleged creature, and residents holding up a metal pipe they described as an ancient flute2.

The clip is recognizable for two things above all else. The first is the amateur sketch, a crude ballpoint drawing of a hatted figure that looked, in one writer's words, like a blindfolded three-year-old's doodle2. The second is the mix of straight-faced local news framing with residents openly speculating that the leprechaun might be a crackhead who climbed up the tree3. Together those ingredients turned a two-minute St. Patrick's Day filler piece into one of the earliest YouTube-era viral news moments4.

How It Spread

Blogs picked up the video within a week. On March 23rd, 2006, pop culture site The Modern Age ran a post titled "Leprechaun Sketch = Brilliant" focused on the drawing, and the video was mirrored to Break.com the same day4. YouTuber markslidesquad posted a hip hop remix called "Leprechaun dimme da gold rap video" on March 24th, 2006, which pulled in more than 2.5 million views over the next six years4. Less than three weeks after the broadcast, The New York Times cited the leprechaun clip in an April 3rd, 2006 article about YouTube's rise, questioning whether it might be a hoax4.

Merch and mainstream television followed. A site called Where Da Gold At launched on April 9th, 2006 selling t-shirts printed with the amateur sketch4. On March 18th, 2009, South Park's episode "The Coon" opened with a news report parodying the format4. Bill O'Reilly aired the WPMI clip on The O'Reilly Factor on July 29th, 2009, asking his panel whether the report played on racial stereotypes of the Black residents interviewed, a framing anchor Jane Skinner pushed back on by telling him to "lighten up"1. Comedy Central kept it in rotation, with Tosh.0 airing a follow-up segment on July 26th, 2011 in which Daniel Tosh interviewed the pipe-flute man from the original piece4.

The format itself got parodied again on February 21st, 2012 by Key and Peele, who restaged the WPMI report around a Pegasus sighting instead of a leprechaun4. By 2014, the original upload sat at close to 24 million views, ranking on Time's list of YouTube's top videos2.

How to Use This Meme

The clip is typically shared as a St. Patrick's Day post or as shorthand for absurd local news reporting. Remixers often loop the "where da gold at" line or the pipe-as-flute close-up, and the amateur sketch is commonly reused on its own as an image macro or t-shirt design4.

Frequently Asked Questions