Ask him about the nickname and he says, "It's because I'm an animal lover," and starts roaring like a big daft cat.
On the Fox TV programme, which also featured a grizzly bear outclassing the world champion hot dog eater and a Sumo wrestler losing out to an orang-utan in tug of war, Crawford was not put off by the giraffe's stalling tactics before the 100m and won at a canter.
Then, though, he was caught up in major controversy when he claimed the zebra had beaten him on a false start and he demanded a rerun.
Second time around in the dirt, the zebra clocked 9.9sec to his 10.8sec, leaving Crawford to mutter to reporters: "Tell the zebra I could have whupped him." For the moment, he'd settle for whupping Gatlin. The pair qualified effortlessly, winning their semis easily, Crawford clocking 20.05secs and Gatlin 20.35secs.
They will be joined by a fascinating support cast, headed by Bernard Williams, another American who doubles as a stand-up comedian with a stage name Hollywood Williams - and not a very funny one judging by his pouting performance to camera last night. Another finalist, 100m silver medallist Francis Obikwelu, described the US trio as being "arrogant". They will be even more so when they finish 1-2-3.
Sadly, the British interest ended with Darren Campbell and Christian Malcolm bowing out tamely to leave Britain without a man in either the 100m or 200m finals for the first time since Montreal in 1976.
The other American who is playing the key role in this event is Trevor Graham, coach to both Gatlin and Crawford.
He has been at the heart of controversy this year, finally revealing the sport's open secret here that he was the coach who sent a sample of the designer steroid THG to the US Anti-Doping Agency, thus sparking the whole BALCO drugs saga.
Yet the name of Jamaican Graham, who used to include Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery in his successful stable of sprinters, has also cropped up in the testimony to investigators of Jones's former husband CJ Hunter and Montgomery. It has been claimed he supplied performance-enhancing drugs to his training group - although he denies this emphatically. He reckons he learned to sprint when fleeing his uncle who would try to hit him with a belt, used to be considered ill-disciplined and lazy in training despite having the talent to record sub-10 second times but he has improved dramatically since joining forces with Graham's South Carolina-based group last November.
"He's changed," said Gatlin, who himself was once caught up in a drugs scandal when he tested positive for a drug he used to treat an attention deficit disorder. On that occasion he was given a reprieve by the International Association of Athletics Federations.
"He had no discipline whatsoever but now he works for it. He's strong as an ox," said Gatlin. And as fast as that damned zebra, naturally.
