Fake John Lewis Christmas ad featuring Sunderland singer wins fans
Ben Potts, from Town End Farm, and his business partner Andrew Green recorded their take on the Queen song Save Me as the pair work on plans to perform live together.
The track was then used by an anonymous trickster, who put together the song with animation, which shows a fox and mouse make friends before the bushy-tailed mate meets a sad end.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdIt has attracted more than 18,000 views since it was published yesterday.
It uses film created as part of a project by students of the CGI and FX department at the ESMA Art School in France.
The real advert, made at a cost of £7 million, stars Moz the Monster and a seven-year-old boy called Joe.
It features a version of The Beatles song Golden Slumbers, performed by Elbow.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdIt was directed by Michael Gondry, who has also shot videos for the White Stripes, Rolling Stones and Bjork, and has been viewed more than 1.4 million times since it went online yesterday.
Ben and Andrew, both 34, run Green Key Installations together, but are in their own bands - singer Ben in Rayne while pianist Andrew, who lives in Newcastle, is a member of Ambershift.
They recorded the track at The Garage studios in South Shields a few weeks ago.
Ben said: "A friend of mine does it every year and puts out a fake John Lewis advert and this year, before it came out, we put a video on YouTuve of us playing and he's put that on top of the animation.
"I then put it on Facebook and it's gone mad from there.
"When I saw it I thought it was brilliant.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad"We both play in bands and run a business together and we thought it would be good if before we play any gigs, we did some recording in a studio and we made a few videos too."
Among those to realise the Fox and Mouse version was not the real deal was Vicki Thompson, who tweeted: "I'm loving the fake #FoxandMouse John Lewis Ad more than the real one, sorry but #MozTheMonster isn't as good."
Another tweeter said: "Am sorry but I thought the fox and the mouse was gonna be the John Lewis advert."