THEY HAD US MAKE HIM; THEN MADE US KILL HIM

TCS creates, destroys bizarre "Chazmo" alien for Totino's Pizza Rolls in hilarious series of ads, including one for 2025's Super Bowl LIX

RIP Chazmo. Chazmo we hardly knew ye. Pour out a 40 oz. of your fave soda and 10 Totino’s pizza rolls (cost: about a dollar) for our brave hero, Chazmo (if that even was his name; not that those are important.)

Chazmo, you saw things that people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
You watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
You hid inside Sam Richardson's garage. He didn't know.
Your candle burned for half as long… but twice as bright.
You ate eleventy billion Totinos Pizza Rolls and didn't pay for a got-damn one of them.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.

But let’s go back in time. To the beginning…

Rick Lazzarini and The Character Shop got the call. Or email, we forget which. One of those many zany requests that come in asking for “something existing ‘already on the shelf.’ “An Alien. Have you got one? And can we own the rights to it? We don’t have a lot of time or money.”

Yeah, no. It doesn’t work that way. You do know how IP works, right? We develop custom characters for clients and they own the rights to them, so even if we had something, somebody else already owns the rights to it; you don’t just give those away. Politely but clearly informed, politely turned away.

Things were quiet for a week. Then the follow-up came. Turns out, after calling ALL THE SHOPS IN TOWN (and everyone saying the same thing)… reality had sunk in. “Okay, so give us a bid for…”

Which was awarded! We were off to the races! General Mills brand Totino’s, their ad agency Dentsu, and production company Gifted Youth were looking for an Alien character to be designed and created, but the HOOK was: it banters about with freaking TIM ROBINSON and SAM RICHARDSON of “I Think You Should Leave” and “Detroiters” fame. WELL WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?! We're ALL IN!

We began by hiring some of the best freelance character designers in the business: Michael Broom, Austin Smith, Gino Ybarra. Pencils, papers, Wacom stylii flew. Agency creatives provided an initial graphic mockup to go by, we refined it, but we were tasked to come up with MORE, and then the flood came. A myriad of Alien images were generated, mixed and matched, discarded, selected, modified, agonized over...

Well, you know, not only do you have the brilliant Director, Alice Mathias, you also have her kickass Producer Bernard Rahill, and amazing Production Designer in Melanie Mandl, you also have, as I may have mentioned, Creatives and Producers from the Agency, and also the Client, and the fevered imaginations of the two stars and their creative partner and writer, Zach Kanin.

That’s like, 14 different cooks (if you include Rick) trying to make a delicious soup. You KNOW (desperately hope?) that the soup will be delicious in the end. But the process in getting there is at times, variously delightful, hilarious, inspiring, rewarding, then frustrating, nail-biting, contradictory, demoralizing, and all in all, very time-consuming! Rick has a saying he’s used from time to time, reserved for these situations:

“How about I give you each a knife, and whoever is standing last can be the one who tells me the direction to go?”

There were some specs that everyone agreed upon: he was to stand 4 foot hight. He was to be somewhat furry, with big eyes. Importantly, he was to appear very original; no “grey alien” look that’s been done a million times. But so much was still unresolved. Kanin started to break the stalemate by submitting a simple rough sketch himself; a squat, kind of pathetic, flubbery creature:

...and then things started to flow from there...

At a certain point, sketched 2D imagery stops being useful, and also it’s time to start sculpting the damn thing because remember, everybody? We don’t have a lot of time! So incredible artist Roger Baena was brought in to sculpt Chazmo’s head, so everyone could visualize in 3D, under changing lights and angles, what he would look like, close to real life.

Meanwhile, amazingly talented artists and frequent TCS contributors Stephen Blandino and Gabriela “Gabi” Paredes began sculpting his arms and legs, with lab assistance from Anthony Stewart, Elli Oster, Mitchell Clark, and Frankie Jimenez, Jr., while his body began to take shape via foam construction by Christine Papalexis and William “Billy” Bryan, and hair work began with the amazing Deborah Galvez and the marvelous Lisa Rocco. Mechanical animatronic work was undertaken by Mike West and Russ Herpich; every one of the crew brilliant, fast, clever, rock-solid.

A separate animatronic insert arm was also created; specifically to have finger grasping to allow for precision grabbing of individual pizza rolls for a tag at the end of the spot

The final design of his face and body was still developing, however. At one point, antennae were on the table…but no one backflipped about them, so they were out. At some point, his arms were very long...and then someone else wanted them shortened. It was undecided how MUCH hair Chazmo was to have, what color, what style. It was a difficult and frustrating process to generate so many choices, but we'd yet achieved no unity of agreement; everyone had different ideas of which direction to go. The tale of the Blind Men and the Elephant seemed an apt analog.

Finally, almost throwing his hands up, Rick posted a series of various images with different facial hair choices, jokingly dubbing one the "Gregg Allman”. Director Alice and Producer Bernard responded with a phone call where they couldn’t stop laughing. At or with? After all the back and forth, Rick couldn’t tell. He thought he might have to go back to Square One.

Suddenly, the next day, all became clear: Tim and Sam LOVED the Gregg Allman look. “That's it! That's the one! DON’T change ANYTHING!” was the edict. A ray of light shone and hosannas were heard from the heavens!

It took a rush in the last week to solidify all the options, do finish hair work, pack set kits.

The initial ads were shot at the Golden Oak Ranch in Newhall, CA, with Chazmo coming to life via rod operation and radio control animatronics, with puppeteers Herpich on the arms and hands, Blandino on the head and body, Debbie Smith on eyes and brows, and Rick himself on the mouth and lips. Plates were shot to later digitally remove Herpich and Blandino, wearing all-blacks, from behind Chazmo.

Multiple versions of the ads were released online in October ’24. Chazmo started to make an impact. The spots were weird, funny, off-kilter, and satisfied an itch only Robinson and Richardson could scratch. Check out the 2 minute long version featured on YouTube (and see other versions on the Totino's Pizza Rolls YT channel):

Not long afterwards...

Rick and TCS got yet another call: Let’s use Chazmo again. But this time, for the Super Bowl! The Big Game!

Oh yeah, and also? Let’s kill him.

In the script, the spaceship doors close on Chazmo, snuffing out his brief life in showbiz. His head was to be SMOOSHED!

Once again, Rick engaged artists Michael Broom and Austin Smith to help visualize what the sequence and impact would look like, with toothed doors and an elevator set fantastically realized by Melanie Mandl, returning to show us more of Chazmo’s spacecraft.

The design and build process went extremely smoothly the second time around, as there was no new design elements to be made, really; Chazmo’s look had already been established.

Rick and crew set to making a separate insert head, opting to keep the hero animatronic head sacred. Rick made an epoxy resin and fiberglass mold from the existing head, then cast a durable silicone replica from it that would withstand smoosh after smoosh, and bounce back for more takes. A system was made to interchange the two heads, while Blandino matched the paint job of the original perfectly, as did Rocco and Paredes with the hair. The separate FX head was accessorized with a pair of silicone eyeballs that could protrude (or even fall out!) along with a protruding tongue, all depending on how wild of a look Director Mathias desired…and what level of violence the Network could accept!

Smooshing video tests were shot, demonstrating the cartoon-like demise scenarios possible:

Shooting for the Super Bowl ad took place in early December at Allied Studios in Simi Valley, California, with various levels of skullcrush. It’s the combination of shocking violence and the deadpan reaction by Robinson and Richardson (“It’s not as sad for US because we didn’t know him as well”; “RIP Chazmo!”) that brings the belly laugh, and caught a massive amount of attention, media buzz and social chatter post-Game. Check out the ad for the Big Game!

BUT THEN THEY KILLED HIM SOME MORE!

The day after the Big Game, Totinos released a BANNED Extended Cut version of the ad, featuring more gore than the Network could stomach (and more seconds that would have cost millions more to air!). Check it out; you will flip!

Is this a real, final death for Chazmo? Is it like some Marvel Universe thing where nobody ever actually dies? Will he reincarnate as something else in the near future?

Look up; the answer you seek may be out there in the stars…

Whether you're a Producer, Art Director, Prop Master, Production Designer, Private Collector, Inventor, Burning Man Artistic Investor, or Exhibit Designer... you can have incredible animatronic creations for your Production or Project. Need incredible imagination and technological wizardry for your Film, Television Show, or Live Event? Contact The Character Shop at 805-306-9441 or lazzwaldo at mac.com!

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