X

Carolina Panthers hide 'Fresh Prince' lyrics in team's tweets

Feel like going on a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew-style clue hunt? The football team has a trick play hidden in its social media messages.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper

If you work in social media, sometimes you have to find ways to entertain yourself.

On Friday, the official Twitter account of the Carolina Panthers posted this teasing tweet.

Spoiler for those who don't feel like scrolling through tweets about former players, strength training, player birthday wishes and ads for jerseys -- your reward is a read through the start of the lyrics of the TV theme song from Will Smith's 1990s sitcom, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

This kind of Hardy Boys hidden-musical-message isn't original to the Panthers. Twitter user Richard Cook pulled one off with Smash Mouth's "All Star" earlier in the week.

Some people (including the Chicago Cubs) definitely felt the Panthers owed Cook royalties, or at least a hat tip.

Three hours after posting the clue reveal tweet, the Panthers acknowledged Cook and promised him a gift package.

Original idea or not, some just got a kick out of the Fresh Princeing.

But not everyone found it so fresh.

But the best part of the whole stunt is that it really brought out the GIF patrol.

Star Wars at 40: Celebrate the many ways the Force-filled sci-fi saga has impacted our lives.

Logging Out: A look at death in the digital age.