Honestly, it’s pretty hard to get excited about duct tape, the utilitarian product used to solve millions of problems since its development during World War II.

Then you watch this commercial, which re-creates Tron’s lightcycle race with colorful rolls of Duck Tape. Whoever dreamed up the idea could give Mad Men’s Don Draper a run for his money (if he was, like, a real person who lived in the present day).

Those dreamers are San Francisco Bay Area media company Ryactive. According to the company’s CEO and the video’s producer Ryan Pamplin, the clip was made on a shoestring budget as part of a contest hosted by creative crowdsourcing site Tongal to make a web spot for Duck Tape.

What’s fun about the commercial is that it makes something as futuristic as a Tron lightcycle race out of something as unfuturistic as Duck Tape.

“We didn’t want to use any computer effects,” the video’s director David Brashear said in an interview with Wired.com. “We made a really conscious effort to make the entire set out of duct tape and not try to fix stuff that was messed up with the computer, because part of the charm was that it was kind of imperfect.”

What’s even better is the cameo at the end of the commercial. Yes, that’s none other than Jay Maynard, aka Tron Guy, who the creators said they thought of immediately when they were brainstorming the video’s concept.

Maynard was happy to oblige.

“Ryan Pamplin approached me and asked me if I was interested. I heard the concept, thought it would be fun, and said, ‘Sure!’” Maynard said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “I was really happy with the results.”

Roll on, Duck Tape. Roll on.

[via Topless Robot]