The Crichton neighborhood sits in Mobile, tucked between Toulminville and the corridors of Spring Hill Avenue and Interstate 65. North Crichton and South Crichton straddle that dividing avenue, a working-class community where neighbors know each other and word travels fast. When the first calls about the leprechaun came in, the response was not skepticism but enthusiasm. Dozens of people gathered near the tree. The WPMI-TV segment that aired captured the genuine excitement of a community united by something absurd and wonderful - residents peering into branches, theorizing about what they'd seen, debating whether to catch it. The report's anchor, Scott Walker, delivered it with a straight face, and the segment's earnest sincerity is exactly what made it unforgettable.

When the video hit YouTube on March 17, 2006, the platform was barely a year old. The concept of "going viral" did not yet have a name. The Crichton Leprechaun clip spread through early internet culture like wildfire, attracting millions of views and making it one of YouTube's very first viral sensations. The New York Times took notice; columnist Virginia Heffernan called it "a local Alabama news segment that seems too hilarious to be real." MSNBC covered it. Howard Stern discussed it on his radio show. Comedy Central's The Daily Show lampooned it. Key and Peele created a sketch inspired by it. South Park referenced it. The amateur leprechaun sketch from the video was printed on T-shirts, mousepads, and other merchandise. By 2023, the original clip had surpassed 28 million views.

What began as a punchline evolved into something the Crichton community genuinely embraces. The leprechaun has become a neighborhood symbol, a point of local pride that puts Crichton on the map in a way no city planning initiative ever did. In 2023, the sign shop Sign Source began printing cardboard cutouts of the Crichton Leprechaun, and they sold remarkably well. An eight-foot-tall version now stands outside their store, a roadside monument to internet folklore. Anchor Scott Walker, who delivered the original report, wrote in 2011: "It's fun to be part of something that's talked about so much for so long, although some of my co-workers are probably really tired of it. But I never get tired of hearing about it."

Perhaps the most unexpected chapter came in 2023, when the National Leprechaun Museum in Dublin, Ireland, weighed in. The museum praised the Crichton Leprechaun news report as "one of the most significant pieces of documentary film over the last 20 years" and announced that they would officially certify the Crichton sighting as a "genuine" leprechaun sighting. From a tree in a Mobile neighborhood to official recognition in Dublin - the Crichton Leprechaun had come full circle, bridging Alabama folklore and Irish mythology through the strange alchemy of the internet. The certification was delivered with the same deadpan sincerity that made the original news report work so well.