About

Afro Ninja is a viral video of stuntman Mark Allen Hicks failing to complete a backflip, using nunchucks and collapsing during an audition. The short video clip appeared on eBaum's World sometime in 2004 after being leaked online, spreading over the following years and becoming a meme.

Origin

The footage was filmed in 2004 during an audition for the "Chamber of Fear" Nike commercial starring basketball player LeBron James. According to an interview years later, Hicks was heavily jetlagged while auditioning for the role of a background nunchakuka and was styled after martial arts legend Jim Kelly (Enter The Dragon) who would also be starring in the commercial.^[1]

That same year, the clip was then uploaded to eBaum's World and subsequently went viral as it spread online.^[12]

It is unknown precisely who leaked the footage to the internet, as Hicks has stated, "I wanted to do some serious bodily harm to the person who leaked it. I felt violated. But I got over it."^[1] Despite claims to the contrary, Hicks' audition was successful and he can be seen behind Kelly in the commercial (seen below).^[2]

On October 22nd, 2004, the the identity of Mark Hicks was discovered and revealed by blogger Andy Baio.^[3]

A video titled "afro ninja" was uploaded to YouTube on January 17th, 2007, by user airmoney, in which a man with an afro tries to do ninja-like moves (shown below). As of May 19th, 2025, the video has 19.5 million views and 94,000 likes.^[4]

False Origin

In 2005, Namco released a series of commercials for the PS2 video game Tekken 5 (shown below), inspired by the viral Afro Ninja clip. The ads, complete with a similar background to Hicks' original audition, featured amateur martial artists failing to impress followed by the disclaimer: "Not everyone has what it takes. Do you?"

At some point, the Afro Ninja clip was added to a compilation of the ads, and it was wrongly assumed to be the source material.^[5]

Spread

In May of 2008, Weezer released their music video for the song "Pork and Beans" featuring Hicks recreating the infamous botched stunt before successfully fighting off multiple ninjas.^[6]

On June 4th, 2009, the first episode of Comedy Central's Tosh.0 featured Hicks on its "Web Redemption" segment, giving him the opportunity to successfully land the stunt on camera.^[7]

On August 24th, 2010, an interview discussing where Afro Ninja was six years later was posted to Business Insider.^[8]

Aftermath

In March 2009, Mark Hicks would write, direct and star in the feature length action comedy movie Afro Ninja: Destiny (shown below),^[9] reframing the origins of his infamous clip as a rescue attempt gone wrong. The film was not well received, with one reviewer calling it "an abysmal waste of time, money and effort."^[10]

Despite the unfortunate nature of the viral clip, Hicks would continue his already prolific career as a Hollywood stuntman and coordinator.^[11]

Search Interest

External References