McDonald’s Happy Meal Blasts off Into Mario-Fuelled Multiverse of Family Magic

​The Visionaries-repped director Tom Brown has delivered a magical live action and animation blend in McDonald's latest spot in partnership with the 'Super Mario Galaxy' film.

What's inside a Happy Meal? Some nuggets? A Mario keychain?

In this spot, produced by Prodigious, a girl sat at a picnic bench with her parents is about to find out it's rather more than that. Her bag glows. She sticks her head in - and suddenly she's in the Mario Galaxy, leaping between planets alongside our favourite little moustached plumber. When we pull back, her parents are there too, the whole family now sitting on a Mario-esque planet of their own - a neat tie-in to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, out in cinemas now.

Blending live action and animation is territory Brown knows well, and he brings his characteristic warmth and precision to it here - making two worlds magically feel like one.

Here’s what Tom had to say about the project, "This was a supercool co-production between McDonald's, Universal Studios, Nintendo and the amazing animators over at Illumination. Since the live-action needed to merge with the CG Mario World being created, we used a motion-control rig to match our Happy Meal family to the tiny planet pull out, meaning they could end up sitting right on top of it like the iconic opening moment of the original game. Our star, Ruby Aurora-Wallin, was superb - really bringing her A game as she marvelled at magical Happy Meal boxes and the crazy worlds inside. And huge credit is due to Charles Whiteway and his art direction team who did a beautiful job approximating a Mario Galaxy style picnic scene so that the worlds could sit together seamlessly on screen."