Pokémon Theme Music Video

Pokémon Theme Music Video is a viral video created by Smosh, then just the two friends Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox. The video featured the pair lipsyncing to the English Pokémon theme song. Created in November 2005, the video was uploaded to YouTube and became one of the very first viral videos on the site, if not the internet as a whole, and was among the most viewed videos on YouTube until it was removed for copyright infringement sometime in June 2007.List of most-viewed YouTube videos. Accessed 7 Feb 2023.
In 2010, Smosh recreated the video with lyrics parodying the situation and a cameo from Ryan Higa, another YouTuber who became popular around the same time for comedy skits.Pokemon Theme Song REVENGE!. Posted 26 Nov 2010. Accessed 7 Feb 2023.
==History==
Anthony and Ian first uploaded videos of themselves lipsyncing to the Power Rangers and Mortal Kombat theme songs on Anthony's website, smosh.com, for their friend group. Someone then took the Mortal Kombat video and uploaded it to the then newly created video sharing website YouTube, which Anthony found during a video search.
Pokémon Theme Music Video was therefore the first content created specifically for the Smosh YouTube channel, rather than being previously uploaded to smosh.com and ported over. The original video is representative of popular content on YouTube in the early days of the platform: raw, relatively unscripted, and made by regular people without skills or budget. It features a very random, eclectic mixtures of scenes that have very little to do with Pokémon itself or even the song that's being lipsynced, aside from the occasional feature of a Pikachu plush. This style of humor and video was very popular at the time, with other popular examples in the genre being i want candy.. DEAD and Keenan Cahill, who became popular enough to collab with 50 CentDown On Me (Keenan Cahill and 50 Cent). Posted 8 Nov 2010. Accessed 7 Feb 2023. and other musicians. This type of humor resulted in the offshoot communities of parody musicians, such as Dave Days, and comedy skit YouTubers, which Smosh eventually became.
At the time Pokémon Theme Music Video was posted, however, Smosh primarily produced lipsync content with a "haha so random" humor style. The oldest of these videos still up on their channel are the videos of them lipsyncing to the English Power RangersPower Rangers Theme. Posted 19 Nov 2005. Accessed 7 Feb 2023. and Mortal Kombat themes,Mortal Kombat Theme. Posted 19 Nov 2005. Accessed 7 Feb 2023. which were uploaded on the same day, likely because they were uploading their backlog.
In March 2006, the video briefly became the most watched video on YouTube, keeping the spot for almost two months before being overtaken by Evolution of Dance. It remained very popular on the site until it was deleted for copyright infringement, however, with the last available viewcount being over 24.5 million viewsArchived YouTube Page. Archived 10 Jun 2007. Accessed 7 Feb 2023. and has been cited as Smosh as the moment they knew their channel was something more than messing around with friends:
===Parody Remake===
On the fifth anniversary of the video's upload, Smosh uploaded a parody of the Pokémon theme with lyrics critical of the situation. The video featured a backing track by popular YouTube musician Kurt Hugo Schneider and a cameo by Ryan Higa, a YouTuber who became popular around the same time as Smosh for similar skit-style parody and was dedicated to everyone who watched the original video. This new video featured many references to the old video, including a moment where Ian summons "Anthonymon" like he did in the original video and another where a Jesus figurine appears. The main plotline, however, features the legal team of Game Freak sending ninjas led by Ryan to take down Anthony and Ian.
==Fan Comments==
==References==
Category:YouTube
Category:Pokémon
Category:2005 Vids