Calabash Helps Turn Lucky Charms Into Loki Charms For ‘Mischievously Delicious’ New Spot

In celebration of Loki‘s recent release of the new Loki series starring Tom Hiddleston, Disney and Marvel have teamed up with Lucky Charms for a magical makeover, transforming the beloved cereal into Loki Charms for a limited edition Loki Charms cereal box. And Chicago animation studio Calabash, who have been animating Lucky the Leprechaun for years, handled the animation for the TV spot, which has already attracted over 200,000 views on YouTube.

Let’s dive into some “Loki Charms” here and enjoy this new animated spot, followed by an entertaining chat with Calabash’s Creative Director Wayne Brejcha, a Screen Exclusive!

“The spot was brought our way by the Lucky Charms brand team at General Mills, who worked out all the connections with Marvel,” Calabash’s Creative Director Wayne Brejcha shared with SCREEN. “As we developed the visuals for the spot, we presented to General Mills and that team shared progress with Marvel. The feedback was very quick and helpful from all the creatives involved. 

As for approaching this mischievous take on a classic brand, “We were starting with an existing commercial, so some of the look and a lot of the layout were established,” Brejcha shared with SCREEN. “The most obvious need was to create a “Loki version” of Lucky – or is it a “Lucky version” of Loki…. the debate rages – that would be recognizably both characters blended together. We created a 3D helmet (with the great big bendy horns) that was comped together with a very ingenious 2D ‘puppet’ of the main figure of Lucky-loki. We also gave a good bit of thought to Loki’s teleportation effect, so that it made some sort of tie-in with that existing LC spot and also honored Loki’s signature effects in the Marvel Universe.”

As for the creative team collaborating with Brejcha and Calabash, “It was also lots of fun working with Todd Syring [of Minneapolis-based Syring Music], who did the music and sound design,” Brejcha shared with SCREEN. “Since the spot was not for air, we kept messing with the actual screen-time length of the thing, and Todd made several variations keeping up with our changes. It was inspirational to get that music, with its shift to an ominous minor key, in over our rough animation early. And we had a ball studying Tom Hiddleston’s acting, timing, and expressions to try to incorporate some of that into the animation.”

For more animation wizardry from Calabash, click right here.

Creative Credits:

Client: General Mills/Disney

Agency: In-house

Animation: Calabash, Chicago

Creative Director: Wayne Brejcha

Executive Producer: Sean Henry

Lead Animator: Jeff Mika

Production Manager: Diane Grider

Compositing and VFX: Chris Blake

Chris Tedin: VFX

Music/sound: Syring Music, Minneapolis, MN

Composer: Todd Syring