This song was released in honor of the tenth anniversary of Al's last album "Mandatory Fun!".
Ryan Krzak was invited by Al to animate the "Uptown Funk" segment based on his fan animations of Al's songs "Albuquerque" and "Everything You Know is Wrong". The main character from both videos is featured here. Also at the start of his animation, the yodeler is pummeled by a giant jar of sauerkraut, an allusion to "Albuquerque".
Since Al mainly appeals to a family friendly audience, he sanitizes many of the swear words on the songs. The one exception is "WAP", where he replaced what the title stood for with the sound effects of a water dripping, a donkey braying, and a cat meowing.
Originally, between "Thank U, Next" and "Shake It Off", Al wanted to put a portion from "Kill Bill" by SZA, but she never got back to him.
Jack D. Evans animated the "We Don't Talk About Bruno" segment, having previously animated the "Sexy and I Know It" segment for the fan collaboration video of Al's "Now That's What I Call Polka!".