A star is born in boxers

Forget the season’s hottest toy, latest must-see movie and anything J. Lo. The holiday buzz is all about the muscular, merrymaking, practically nude dude who coyly dances his way out of a silvery gift box -- worn around his hips--to reveal red boxer shorts trimmed in faux fur.

Doing the skivvy shimmy is Vaughn Lowery, 28, the star of a Kmart commercial for Joe Boxer shorts. Not since Tom Cruise danced around in his shorts in “Risky Business” has such a brief encounter captured -- and endeared -- an audience.

“It is a saucy commercial, but it’s also funny,” says Lowery of the spot called “Unwrapped,” which started airing in mid-December and this week moves into movie theaters. Another holiday take, called “Antler Boogie,” has Lowery with his hands on his head playfully impersonating a reindeer as he hoofs it up with four women.

Both commercials have become so popular that Kmart recently launched an online free e-mailable greeting card service on its Web site (www.Kmart. com). There fans can dress Lowery in different-colored boxers and view the commercials. Not sure how to do the dance? Lowery says the boxer-boogie action goes like this: Bounce in place, pretend to jump rope, make puppy faces and end with a victory dance.

The gig was just the break Lowery, who has a degree in labor relations from Cornell University, was hoping for when he moved to Los Angeles from Detroit two years ago.

“What can I say? I’m just so very thankful,” Lowery says about his sonic rise in undershorts. It started this summer when Lowery auditioned for a Boxer commercial and twice read from a script.

On his third try, he threw caution to the wind, dropped his trousers to reveal his Joe Boxers, and launched into his now almost-famous dance.

“He did his thing and everyone in the room just died laughing. It was forget the lines but keep the dance,” says Abigail Jacobs, Kmart spokeswoman. The script was indeed dropped and a spot featuring Lowery was created by TBWA/Chiat/Day, the advertising agency in New York that has the Joe Boxer account.

Those spots ran in summer, then came Lowery’s holiday spots and his star turn.

Joe Boxer founder Nicholas Graham says Lowery’s personality is a perfect match for the company’s product. “He’s hysterical and fun and goofy and everything that Joe Boxer is all about,” says Graham. “We’re getting hundreds of e-mails a day about Vaughn,” he says, adding the company has reshipped orders of all its Santa and reindeer boxer shorts to Kmarts. “That’s it. No more, just what’s in stores.”

If shoppers find themselves boxer-less, they can still be a part of the holiday hoopla.

The company’s Web site (www.joe boxer.com) welcomes versions of Lowery’s feverish routine from fans; many have e-mailed their own and can be viewed on the site.

Vaughn, who is reveling in his boxer-boogie mass appeal, isn’t sure yet what his next gig will be -- but he wants to act full time, and Hollywood has taken notice. “I don’t want this to end. But I’m very focused about what I want out of this business, which is success,” he says.

For now, that comes in making people laugh, and in understanding just why the spots have been such a hit: “We all know that everybody does that underwear dance at home in the front of the mirror.”