The official parade starter for the World's Shortest St. Patrick's Day Parade had the internet going "Woooo!" on Thursday.
Hours after showing up as a top-trending story on Facebook when ESPN reposted a video that showed 67-year-old, two-time WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair dead lifting 400 pounds, Visit Hot Springs posted a promotional video of Flair on YouTube and its Facebook page for the parade.
Flair posted the video of the dead lift, which ends with his signature "Woooo!", to his Twitter account on Wednesday.
There was also plenty of "Wooo!"-ing going on in the promotional video, a new promotional gimmick being tried by Visit Hot Springs to get the word out about the parade, held annually on March 17 on Bridge Street in downtown Hot Springs.
"We asked him to do it, and he gladly did it for us," Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said Thursday.
Flair, in the unscripted video, says he is heading to Hot Springs "Woooo! Looking only as I can look! Diamond ring wearing, Rolex wearing, being the man, knowing the man, seeing Hot Springs, I cannot wait!"
Arrison said Flair was given "an idea," but the video had to be short, because it was being posted on Facebook. "We gave him the facts, that it was the 14th annual. He just went with it."
The parade will feature television star Alfonso Ribeiro as the celebrity grand marshal. Ribeiro, the winner of season 19 of "Dancing with the Stars" and the co-star of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," played the character of cousin Carlton Banks opposite Will Smith in "Fresh Prince" during the 1990s. His impromptu dance to the Tom Jones hit "It's Not Unusual" brought him nationwide fame.
Uncle Kracker will perform at the free concert following this year's parade, which will also feature a dozen Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders -- the largest contingent in the parade's history -- and Express Employment Professionals Clydesdales.
The videos can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/ShortestStPats/ and http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/18406972.
Local on 01/06/2017