WPMI-TV later auctioned off the leprechaun sketch for $1,100 on eBay, with the proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. And it makes the South look terrible.' Many quotes and elements of the video, most notably the alleged leprechaun sketch, were printed on T-shirts, mousepads and other merchandise. Tosh referred to the clip as 'the Gone with the Wind of Internet videos. Tosh.0 featured the clip in a 'Web Investigation' segment in 2011, with host Daniel Tosh visiting Crichton and interviewing those involved with the video. The video was also lampooned on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Key and Peele, and South Park. Political commentator Bill O'Reilly of Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor debated whether or not the video perpetuated racial stereotypes. The report received attention from MSNBC, radio personality Howard Stern and received a piece in The New York Times, in which columnist Virginia Heffernan called the clip 'a local Alabama news segment that seems too hilarious to be real.' Reporter Brian Johnson was interviewed by radio stations in Dallas and Los Angeles following the report. The video was posted to YouTube on Maby user botmib and soon became a viral sensation, attracting millions of views.

That version, introduced by anchors Scott Walker and Nikole Patrick, was the broadcast that went viral. The piece was aired twice, once on the nightly newscast and again on WPMI's morning newscast.

Certainly I don't believe it's a leprechaun!' 'Some people say it is a shadow from some of the branches being too close and that there is moss on the tree that could explain it. 'I actually saw what was sketched on paper,' said Johnson at the time. Morrissette became known as the 'Flute Man' due to his appearance in the report. Among those who were interviewed was a woman who opined that instead of a leprechaun, 'It could be a crackhead.' Another interviewee, Demarco Morrissette, claimed Irish ancestry and showed off a 'special leprechaun flute,' that he claimed was thousands of years old. Crichton resident Nina Thomas-Brown submitted a crudely-drawn sketch of the supposed leprechaun. 'Things sort of snowballed' when the crew arrived, anchor Scott Walker later recalled, with multiple people claiming to have seen a leprechaun in a tree. Johnson had previously received numerous calls about possible leprechaun sightings and questions about it from friends at a barbershop and his church. On March 14, 2006, local NBC affiliate WPMI-TV was alerted to crowds gathering in Crichton, and dispatched reporter Brian Johnson to investigate. The leprechaun was purported to be seen in a tree on Le Cren Street near Bay Shore Avenue. The community is divided by Spring Hill Avenue into North Crichton and South Crichton, bounded generally by Mobile Street, Dauphin Street and Interstate 65. The video was shot in the Mobile neighborhood of Crichton, located near Toulminville. As of 2018, the video has over 28 million views. Patrick's Day 2006 and became one of the first YouTube viral videos and was referenced in mainstream media. The Crichton Leprechaun (also the Mobile Leprechaun, Alabama Leprechaun) is a supposed sighting of a leprechaun in a tree in Crichton, a neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama following a 2006 news report filed at local NBC affiliate WPMI-TV. The 'amateur sketch' of the purported Crichton leprechaun

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