Watch ‘Weird Al’ Lead Radio Shack Shoppers to a Magical ‘Toy Land’
No living singer is better suited to play the demented king of a Radio Shack “Toy Land” than “Weird Al” Yankovic. The parody master transforms into the Willy Wonka of gadget wonder for the company’s new holiday-themed ad campaign, located above.
The clip opens with a customer inquiring about Radio Shack’s “heliquad” drones, which prompts a buttery smooth sing-along led by Yankovic. “Toy Land,” he sings, is “where you always start when you’re wanting to gift smart,” a magical land where one can find gift “ideas for girls and boys and even cousin Bob, who’s 43 and lives at home.” Also, batteries.
Radio Shack, realizing its status as the punchline of modern tech retailers, has taken a self-deprecating approach with its recent TV spots. Their ad for Super Bowl 2014, located below, opens with a store employee handling what one assumes is a prank call (“The Eighties called; they want their store back”), but the threat becomes a reality as a crew of that decade’s celebrities – like Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, Hulk Hogan and the California Raisins – storm in to re-claim all of their dated technology. “It’s time for a new Radio Shack,” says a narrator.
While the company has been trying to update its image, Yankovic has continued being his consistently hilarious self in 2014. His 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun, which offers goofy parodies of pop smashes like Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” added up to his first Number One LP in a three-decade career.