"Walkie Talkie Man" is a song by New Zealand band Steriogram, released in 2004 on the album ''

Schmack! ''Schmack!'' is the debut studio album by New Zealand rock band Steriogram, released on 29 February 2004 by Capitol Records. The album was re-released as a tour edition in 2005. The song " Walkie Talkie Man" featured on an Apple iPod ad and ...

'' and as a single. The song is widely recognized as bringing Steriogram the majority of their popularity. Its simple, catchy riff and fast-talking verses contribute to the song's popularity, and it attracted even more attention when it was used as the background music to an advert by Apple for the iPod. The song debuted at #19 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and reached #14 on the

New Zealand Singles Chart The Official New Zealand Music Chart ( mi, Te Papa Tātai Waiata Matua o Aotearoa) is the weekly New Zealand top 40 singles and albums charts, issued weekly by Recorded Music NZ (formerly Recording Industry Association of New Zealand). The Music ...

in the band's native

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The riff is almost an exact replica of the one used in "Picture Book" by

The Kinks The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, north London, in 1963 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies. They are regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s. The band emerged during the height of British rhyt ...

, which was also emulated in "Pretend Best Friend" by

Terrorvision ''TerrorVision'' is a 1986 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Ted Nicolaou, produced and written by Albert and Charles Band and composed by Richard Band, all of whom would go on to found and work with Full Moon Features in ...

, " Warning" by Green Day, and " Big Bang Baby" by

Stone Temple Pilots Stone Temple Pilots (also known by the initialism STP) is an American rock band from San Diego, California, that originally consisted of Scott Weiland (lead vocals), brothers Dean (guitar) and Robert DeLeo (bass, backing vocals), and Eric Kr ...

. Exactly 1:59 into the song, lead guitarist Brad Carter sneezes.

Music video

The music video for "Walkie Talkie Man" was directed by

Michel Gondry Michel Gondry (; born 8 May 1963) is a French filmmaker noted for his inventive visual style and distinctive manipulation of mise en scène. Along with Charlie Kaufman, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one of the writers ...

, and features scenes of children working as studio staff and knitting instruments and equipment, and the band is terrorized by a giant hand made of wool which grabs singer Tyson Kennedy and tears him in half, showing that his insides are also made of wool. The children save him by unraveling the threads that compose the giant and sewing his lower body back in place – but it is sewn backwards and Kennedy ends the video with his legs turned back to the camera, unlike his upper body. Brad Carter's woollen guitar bears the words "New Zealand". The video is available on the DVD compilation '' Michel Gondry 2: More Videos (Before and After DVD 1)''. The music video was nominated for a

Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video The Grammy Award for Best Music Video is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to performers, directors, and producers of quality short form music videos. Hon ...

in 2005 and four

Video Music Awards The MTV Video Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the VMAs) is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honour the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category) ...

Use in media

The song was used in the films ''

Robots "\n\n\n\n\nThe robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the site they are allowed to visi ...

'', Kicking & Screaming'' and '' Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London'', as well as the video games ''

MVP Baseball 2004 ''MVP Baseball'' was a baseball game series published by EA Sports, running from 2003 to 2007 with five games produced. In 2003, ''MVP'' became the official successor to EA's long-running ''Triple Play Baseball'' series, and it simulated Major L ...

'', ''

MLB 2005 The ''MLB (Year#)'' series, is a series of Major League Baseball video games by Sony Computer Entertainment published under their 989 Sports label. The series was originally developed by Sony Interactive Studios America, who later became 989 Stu ...

'', and ''

Elite Beat Agents ''Elite Beat Agents'' is a rhythm video game developed by iNiS and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. It was released in North America, Europe and South Korea. As the second of three rhythm games developed by iNiS specifically for the DS, ...

''. ' Kicking & Screaming''

Personnel

* Tyson Kennedy – lead vocals * Brad Carter – co-lead vocals and lead guitar * Tim Youngson – rhythm guitar and backing vocals * Jake Adams – bass guitar and backing vocals * Jared Wrennall – drums and backing vocals

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2004 singles 2004 songs Animated music videos Capitol Records singles Music videos directed by Michel Gondry New Zealand songs Song recordings produced by David Kahne Steriogram songs Stop-motion animated music videos