Puppeteer Grant Baciocco takes Magic Untapped behind the scenes of the Lorwyn Eclipsed trailer.
The trailer for Lorwyn Eclipsed, featuring puppets from the Jim Henson Company (JHC), has quickly become one of the most watched trailers in Magic: The Gathering history. Within a week, the video received around four million views on YouTube with many non-Magic fans being drawn in thanks to the sheer quality of it.
Amongst the puppeteers on the project is Grant Baciocco, a longtime JHC veteran who has had iconic roles from being Crow T. Robot in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot on Netflix to various projects for the Walt Disney Company. In the trailer, he helped portray Cragg the Boggart, as well as one of the backup dancers and a frog. Grant was kind enough to tell us a bit about his experience on the project, as well as a bit about the whole Magic: the Gathering aspect around it.
Coming into the Lorwyn Eclipsed trailer, Grant had a long career in puppetry spanning a few decades and, even though he never thought he would be a puppeteer, all roads led to that eventuality.
“I’ve always loved puppets since I was little,” says Baciocco. “ I have distinct memories of watching The Muppet Show every Saturday night. And then my Grandmother got me a puppet for Christmas with Velcro. They were the types popular at the time, with monkeys and monsters. I had a monster. I never thought it would be a career, but in around 1998 I was doing standup comedy in LA when a friend of mine approached me and we tried to develop a kids show. And it had puppets. So I was wondering how to make a puppet. Like I knew sock puppets, but I was wondering about puppet puppets. So I looked on the internet, and I found a book called the Foam Book.
He continues: “I built a puppet of my girlfriend's dog for my first puppet. That led to others asking me to build puppets. Around 2003 someone from the JHC saw one of those and wanted me in for a Muppet pilot show. On that shoot they mixed in legit puppeteers with amateurs to cause trouble and drama. I met many puppeteers there, including Leslie Carrara-Rudolph."
In 2006, Baciocco pitched the idea of a podcast to JHC back when podcasting was still a relatively new idea. It's a project he would wind up doing for six years.
“During that time we started up Puppet-Up! Uncensored puppet improv. And I also got more formal Henson Company training on puppets too. Since then very fortunate to be with them, right into Lorwyn Eclipsed.”
Amongst the crew and puppeteers, most had at least heard of Magic, with several having played it at one point or another. In the recent behind the scenes of the trailer video, several of them say how close they have been to Magic and Wizards of the Coast. And for Grant, he was no exception either.
“Oh yeah, I had first edition Magic cards when they first came out,” he confesses. “I probably, without knowing, just donated them. I probably had a lot of now expensive cards in there. I could have had a Black Lotus in there."
Even today, Baciocco still enjoys tabletop games, though it's been a while since he'd played Magic going into working on the trailer.
"It was fun getting back to it for the trailer," he says. "Everyone else on the shoot at least heard it. Drew Massey on the shoot (who portrayed snake) is big on D&D. Raymond, Ben, Donna. Ben (Schrader, the main puppeteer for Squen) grew up with it. Kevin Clash was the only one who never heard of it.”
Grant, left, with Kevin on the right
The shoot itself utilized some of the more complex puppets made of latex with mechanics inside, with a lot of puppeteers being needed.
“I was the assist for Kevin Clash, who was the main puppeteer for Cragg. I was Cragg’s hands. Like when he’s playing the guitar, those are my hands.
"I was also a frog who was squeezed, and one of Squen’s backup dancers. The one on the lefthand side. It’s always a team effort like this though.. Whenever you see them full body it’s three to four puppeteers. Not full body, it’s three: one for main body, one for hands, [and] one for eyes. That’s what is so fun about it. You get that team feeling. But with puppeteers all of us are in the scenes.”
And while the who shoot was storyboarded, there was a little time for improv in trying to figure out the best way to do things.
“Because it’s a song, the dialogue was prereorded,” continued Baciocco. “The frogs puppeteered on set were live. Donna as Moire did dialogue. Not a lot of room for improv. But we did fun puppet things. Like, when he’s playing guitar, we were experimenting with him doing rock star things, like how he can drop down to his knees. Oh, and we were experimenting about throwing the kithkin baby. Like which way we could do it to be the most funny."
The trailer's director, Brian Henson, son of Jim Henson and the current chairman of JHC, handled the video's storyboarding.
"He super storyboarded it out,” Baciocco comments.
The entire trailer was shot in a week, not including the creation of the puppets and set. Those were prepared beforehand with the set, which was coupled with a blue screen and painted backgrounds, being designed by Darcy Prevost
“We shot this in September of 2025," says the puppetteer. "I’ve been lucky enough to be in commercials before. I was a talking snuggie in an Alaskan Airlines commercial for example. Commercials are usually a two-day shoot or one-day shoot. But this was a three- to four-minute trailer. This was a full week shoot. Monday was rehearsals, and then Tuesday through Friday we did long shoot days. We got there at 8 A.M. and left at 8 or 9 P.M. at night."
“I had never worked this closely with creature puppets before, the ones with latex with mechanics inside," he says. "Mostly foam, fleece or hard plastic. So I got to use them. The detailing on them is so crazy. They are supposed to look real when close up. And everyone in the creature shop is there to work on it, because they will break down over time. Cragg’s hands started breaking up mid-shoot, so they were there to patch it up. Or one of the eyes went wonky, so we needed to stop and fix it. The team is right there."
Filming for the trailer wound up being a bit challenging at times, too.
As Baciocco tells it: “The scene where Cragg runs through the field looking into sun -- Darcy made set pieces with flowers and we started way in the back. Kevin Clash said follow me. I’m doing the hands. We had to wind ourselves through these two-foot spaces. Brian wanted to shoot the scene for slow-mo, so we had to run fast to synch with the recorded song. We all thought we were going to trip. But we walked it once and got right through. It turned out great. I had to run behind him but keep the hand up front to make it look like Cragg was running, and it does in the trailer.”
The trailer wasn't the only time JHC and Wizards of the Coast teamed up for Lorwyn Eclipsed. There were other parts that were filmed in November 2025. Specifically, the Squen and Cragg social media promos where they pretend to do a podcast showing off the cards. There, Wizards of the Coast were a bit strict.
“We shot these social media pieces with Cragg and Squen hosting a podcast," mentions Baciocco. "They had some of the Lorwyn Eclipsed cards on the set. They would be holding them up and opening the packs to show you how far WOTC has come, it was under strict security. It didn’t even matter it was a closed set. Someone from WotC was there getting the cards and packs away from us as soon as we were done.
Wizards took the security of these cards, all of which would not be released for a couple of months at this point, seriously, making sure they were all accounted for.
“It's not like they came in a locked briefcase or anything. Someone counted them after each shoot and made sure they were all there," recalls Baciocco. "No photography at all. One of the cards fell underneath when we were doing puppet stuff and I made sure to return it. The WOTC employee was relieved. It felt like working on an Apple commercial for something that didn’t come out.”
In the end, Baciocco was happy with not only how it turned out, but how it was received too.
“It’s very cool to be part of that, and you wonder how it will turn out," he says. "Everyone working on this knew it would be big. Brian was directing for goodness sake, and the vibe was like a little return to the 80s fantasy projects the Company worked on before. Then we saw the numbers -- 2.8 million views only two days after it came out. Holy cow."
Baciocco says he loves the reception the trailer's characters got from fans.
“People want a card of Cragg, Squen, Moire, even Snake," he comments. "Maybe they’ll get a special card later on."
He continues: "Some people told me about Secret Lair and how they would fit in there. So here’s hoping. You have no idea how many people said they want them. You know how actors know they make it big when they get an action figure of themselves out? Well, Kragg on a card would be cool like that. I could say that ‘I was part of that.’”
Magic Untapped thanks Grant for the interview. You can see more from Grant on his Puppet Up! Uncensored shows in which he appears with fellow Lorwyn Eclipsed puppeteers Donna Kimball (Moire) and Raymond Carr (Squen's Assistant puppeteer).
