Terry Crews: Old Spice — Terry Crews yelling and holding an Old Spice Odor Blocker body wash bottle in a bathroom

Terry Crews: Old Spice

2010viral videoclassic

Published September 30, 2026

Terry Crews: Old Spice is a run of Old Spice deodorant commercials from 2010 starring actor and former NFL player Terry Crews, directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric Awesome Show. The over-the-top spots turned into raw material for YouTube Poops Music Videos and Japanese MAD videos on Nico Nico Douga.

advertising memes youtube poop memes nico nico douga memes mashup video memes early 2010s memes

Overview

The spots feature Crews shouting deodorant pitches while surreal visuals fire off around him, muscles pumping cartoon effects, brains detonating, a head rolling down a bowling lane. The Tim and Eric direction (rapid cuts, distorted audio, deliberately jarring imagery) gave editors a huge pool of usable clips, which is why the ads were quickly compared to earlier viral ad parody Powerthirst1.

Old Spice ran two batches of the campaign: the 2010 'Odor Blockers' series and the 2012 'Smell is Power' follow-up, doubling the footage available to remixers2. On Nico Nico Douga, Japanese users nicknamed Crews 'the fairy of body soap' and built dozens of MAD videos and YTPMVs from the ad footage3.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source ads) / Reddit and Nico Nico Douga (viral spread)
Date
2010

On March 31, 2010, Old Spice uploaded the 'Odor Blockers' commercials to its official YouTube channel, with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric Awesome Show directing and Terry Crews starring4. The next day, April 1, 2010, UpRoxx's Warming Glow blog ran a write-up titled 'Tim & Eric's Old Spice Commercials Are Awesomely Ridiculous,' comparing the spots to Powerthirst1. Videogum posted its own piece the same day praising the Heidecker and Wareheim direction5.

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How It Spread

Reddit picked the ads up in waves. On September 30, 2010, Redditor myarlak submitted an Odor Blockers clip to r/videos under the title 'I don't care what you guys thing Terry Crews is the best old spice guy,' where commenter OffBeatBiologist linked a DuckTales moon theme YTPMV built from the commercial7. A repost by Redditor bobob102 on October 17, 2011 hit the r/videos front page and pulled in over 1,477 upvotes before archiving6.

On February 1, 2012, Old Spice put out the 'Smell is Power' follow-up spots. In those clips Crews barges into two other household product commercials, rolls his head down a bowling lane, and detonates his own brain after using the deodorant2. Two months later, on April 3, 2012, the original Odor Blockers video was uploaded to Nico Nico Douga, where it drew over 665,000 views within about a week8.

Japanese remixers tagged more than 70 MAD videos using the Old Spice footage and gave Crews the nickname 'the fairy of body soap' (translated from Japanese)93. The commercials became a standing sample bank for YTPMVs and MAD edits well after the original ad flight ended.

Timeline

2010-03-31

Old Spice uploads the 'Odor Blockers' commercials starring Terry Crews to its YouTube channel, directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim.

2010-04-01

UpRoxx's Warming Glow and Videogum publish write-ups the day after upload, comparing the spots to Powerthirst.

2010-09-30

Redditor myarlak posts an Odor Blockers clip to r/videos, with a commenter linking a DuckTales YTPMV remix in the thread.

2011-10-17

A repost by Redditor bobob102 hits the r/videos front page with over 1,477 upvotes.

2012-02-01

Old Spice releases the 'Smell is Power' follow-up spots, including the bowling lane head-roll and the exploding brain.

2012-04-03

The original Odor Blockers video is uploaded to Nico Nico Douga.

2012-04-09

Over 70 MAD videos tagged 'Old Spice' exist on NND and the source upload passes 665,000 views.

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