Park Pictures’ Lisa Rubisch on Bringing Back Life Cereal’s Pint-Sized Picky Eater

Director Lisa Rubisch has fond memories of Life cereal’s famous commercials starring a pint-sized, picky eater named Mikey. “I feel like the original ad played throughout my entire childhood. I can recite it from memory, line by line, after all these years,” she says. The first Mikey spot debuted in 1972 and won numerous kudos, including Clios, back in the day.

Fast forward to Rubisch’s “Mikey’s Morning,” a fresh spot developed with PepsiCo’s in-house agency D3. It introduces a modern Mikey. Like his Nixon-era predecessor in the role, this tyke digs into a bowl of Life and gives the cereal a big thumbs up.

Here, Rubisch, who is represented for ad work by Park Pictures, talks about tapping into nostalgia, casting a new Mikey and creating a chaotic but happy family home while shooting the spot over two days in Vancouver.

MUSE: The new ad feels like today, but it also taps into my fondness for the original ad. Am I correct to assume that’s no accident?
Lisa Rubisch: Yes, exactly. This new ad obviously departs from the original in song and self-awareness—like breaking the fourth wall. But we wanted to plant little Easter egg homages throughout—Mikey’s mop-top head of dark hair and his red sweater, down to the two buttons on the shoulder. The way he leans on his hand while he eats. The infamous bowl slide. Things like that.

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