Rhett Creighton, who starred in the recently-reviewed Crispy Critters commercial as a kid back in ‘87, agreed to shoot me an e-mail detailing the experience. If you’re interested in what would go on behind-the-scenes on the set of a cereal commercial, click ‘more’ to read ‘more.’ Big thanks to Rhett for taking the time to do this!

From Rhett:

“Ok, here’s my side of the story:

I was 6 years old and at the audition, with 15 other kids. The casting director came into the waiting room and said he wanted every parent out of that waiting room, and if a parent came into the room to try to help coach their kids, the kid automatically didn’t get the commercial.

After all the parents left, the director came out and said, “ok, all we want you to do is come in here and say ‘indubitably’”. It was a clever plan they had to see how kids would really mispronounce the word. But kid actors are like little parrots. We all went in there and pronounced the word perfectly. So then the director came out and said, “ok we want you to say ‘indubally’[sic]“. I think that a big reason why I got the part is that I was one of the best at parroting back the different varients they could come up with: indubably, indubidbly, etc. See, on the set, if they make a radical change from “indubably” to “indubally”, it can take some 6-year-olds hours to learn the difference, and time is money when everyone on the set is waiting till the kid gets it.

I think there were a few different versions of the commercial. A 60 second, 30 second, and a bit where I put a sticker on some girl’s nose that came as a special prize in the box.

The commercial shoot was something like 14 hours long. With hundreds of takes of me stuffing the cereal in my mouth, there was a guy underneath the table who was holding a cup I could spit it into.

The puppets were amazing. The little animal critters were carved from sponges and operated underneath the tables from puppeteers watching it on a monitor. Between takes, the guys operating the goat and rhino would talk to me through the puppets, voices and all. I think Crispy was the only puppet not carved from a sponge.

I hope that helps. Feel free to distort it in any way that you deem
funny.”

And there you have it. Anyone who’d like to request Rhett’s autographed 8×10 should probably stop by his site first. Thanks!

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!