Last week, the folks at Uranus Missouri launched a video in a campaign about its fudge factory and gift shop that eventually will make its way to major online platforms and network television.
Here’s the two-minute video, starring Louie Keen, the self-proclaimed mayor of Uranus, and more of his sophomoric and scatological humor:
Keen said the video was produced by Chamber Media near Provo, Utah. About the only shortcoming of the slick video is Keen’s ragged voice; he said he was “terribly sick” with bronchitis the day of shooting. He’s recovering now.
Keen said the Uranus Missouri video will be launched via paid advertising on Facebook and YouTube this week.
He said he’ll also buy television ads in local markets and late-night spots on network channels. Keen has a 59-second version made for such spots.
Keen said Chamber Media finished a second commercial last week — “about a 1950s road trip on Route 66” — and will shoot a third in May.
Keen also revealed another new venture: “It is called ‘Own a piece of Uranus,’ and we are selling square inches and square foots and people are able to get bricks in Uranus, etc., etc. We are going to build a Route 66 Park with the money. I am all in with Route 66.”
In addition to the fudge factory and gift shop, Uranus Missouri also features the Chicken Bones restaurant, the Moonicorn Creamery and Funnel Cakery, a circus sideshow museum, an escape room, an outdoors outfitters store, a shooting and archery range, a food-truck park, a tattoo parlor and the Axehole axe-throwing venue. In October, it installed a huge and elaborate neon sign. Forthcoming are a microbrewery and a wedding chapel.
Keen, who grew up on a farm in southwest Missouri, said in an interview a couple of years ago that road trips and visits to tourist traps, particularly The Rock Shop, made a big impact on him. Uranus Missouri owes a lot to Arizona’s The Thing? and other goofy and gimmicky roadside attractions.
(Screen-capture image from Uranus Fudge Factory video)