He-Man Sings

About

He Man Sings is a series of videos in which the fictional superhero character He-man sings a rendition of the 1993 hit “What’s Up?,” originally sung by the band “4 Non Blondes”. The video is a popular trolling tool for use on Synchtube.com to annoy the users of each individual synch.

Many people return to the video daily, as a common comment found on YouTube is people talking about how they are “returning for their daily dose”. Folks have taken to declaring the video the “best thing on the Internet.” Many copies, remixes and derivatives of this video have been made.

Origin

The video was originally created in 2005 by animation company Slackcircus Studios, who posted it to the Something Awful forums ^[1]. The original version, titled “Fabulous Secret Powers,” ^[2] coincided with an imitation 1995 blog created by Slackcircus ^[3].

The original 4 minute 29 second clip featured remixed footage from the 1980’s cult classic cartoon show “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,” dubbed over by Slackcircus employees singing ^[1] “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes.

The first copy of “Fabulous Secret Powers” was uploaded onto YouTube on August 9th, 2006.

In 2010, Slackcircus posted the video to Vimeo ^[4], removed the original Slackcircus watermark, and did not disable downloading ^[2]. From there, people took to downloading and remixing the video, as well as reposting it to YouTube.

A truncated two minute version, with the intro, outro and dialogue removed, is the most popular version of the video. One of the first truncated versions was uploaded onto YouTube on March 7th, 2010, and received nearly 1 million views in just under two years.

Another truncated copy simply titled “HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA,” was uploaded on November 7th, 2010 and has acquired 7.3 million views as of February 2012.

This video is sometimes considered a derivative of the Rickroll.

Video stats

LYRICS
And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out, what’s in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take A deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs,
What’s goin’ on

And I say hey…. hey….
I said hey, what’s goin’ on
And I say hey…. hey….
I said hey, what’s goin’ on

Ooh, Ooh, Oooohh, Oooohh, what’s up…
Ooh, Ooh, Oooohh, Oooohh, what’s up…

And I try, oh my God, do I try
I try all the time in this institution
And I pray, oh my God, do I pray
I pray every single day FOR A REVOLUTION!

And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out, what’s in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs,
WHAT’S GOIN’ ON!!

And I say hey…. hey….
I said hey, what’s goin’ on
And I say hey…. hey….
I said hey, what’s goin’ on
And I say hey…. hey….
I said hey, what’s goin’ on
And I say hey…. hey….
I said hey, what’s goin’ on

Ooh, Ooh, Oooohh, Oooohh, what’s up…

25 years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

“Rick rolling is funny. He-rolling is psychological abuse.”

-Thunderspuds91

Derivatives

Other versions of dubbed He-Man were spawned, such as the fairly popular “BoHE-MAN Rhapsody”
[Embedding disabled]
the YouTube video

External References

^[1]Slackcircus

^[2]Slackcircus YouTube

^[3]Adam’s Fabulous Secret Journal

^[4]Slackcircus Vimeo