Behind the scenes of Snoop & Martha’s Tasty Halloween with EPs Casey Kriley and Jo Sharon

Casey Kriley and Jo Sharon are the co-CEOs of Magical Elves, the unscripted production company behind hits like Cold Justice, Nailed It!, Sugar Rush and more. Their latest project is Snoop & Martha’s Tasty Halloween special for Peacock, for which Casey and Jo are executive producers.

The new Halloween spectacle sees three teams of three bakers compete to create 12×12 edible marvels with four tasting components for the judges, Snoop Dogg, Martha Stewart and Alvin Zhou, to sample. Additionally, the entire special is framed by a Halloween party where the partygoers get to experience each team’s diorama and sample the edible treats.

1428 Elm talked to Casey and Jo about how they brought this lively special to life, what sets it apart from other Halloween baking competitions, and whether there is a future for this event to turn into an annual festivity or even spinoff for different holidays.

Snoop & Martha’s Tasty Halloween: How the executive producers brought this special to life

JO SHARON: We are partners with Buzzfeed’s Tasty, and we’re huge fans of the Tasty brand, so we were excited that that was our entry point. One of Tasty’s brand tenets is that the food is the star, so we knew we had to do something that really put food front and center. That was our starting point. Another tenet of their brand, which we share at Magical Elves, is that everything has to be unique and fresh and never been done before.

We looked at everything they had done in the baking competition space, holiday and Halloween and otherwise, and realized there had never been anything that had true scope and scale. There have been great showpieces or dioramas, but we wanted to see something bigger. A huge reason for that is within the confines of a TV show, people only have so much time. We said, what if we gave them more time? And we leaned into that in the creative part of the show.

What if we framed it within a party where partygoers could come in and experience what they’re making? And we actually have them create the backdrops for the party and create edible experiences? Much like a party, you don’t plan a party in six hours. You’re working on it for a couple of days.

That’s part of the creative where these three teams of three bakers got a headstart. They know the theme, come up with their take on it, and create 12×12 foot edible experiences that these partygoers can walk through and taste and experience.

Snoop & Martha’s Tasty Halloween: How did Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart become involved?

CASEY KRILEY: It was all happening simultaneously, but I think to Jo’s point about the creative idea we had, to frame this in the POV of a party, who better to throw a big Halloween party than Snoop and Martha? And Alvin Zhou from Tasty Buzzfeed. In terms of their pre-existing relationship and that dynamic, it made sense that there was no one else better to co-host the party.

1428 ELM: Can you tell us what people can expect from the special? Is there pumpkin-carving? Sugar work? Chocolatiers? A mixture?

JO: The three teams of three bakers got to put their teams together, and they are all incredibly eclectic. There are sugar artists, chocolatiers, people known for doing big cake work, and an ice sculptor on one team—all different specialties. They were able to create their experiences based on skillsets they had on their team. You will see all the different types of work. You will not see pumpkin carving, but you will see ice carving.

CASEY: What we did is said: Your theme is fear. You have 72 hours to prepare anything you want in terms of your edible experience, as well as four tasty treats that you select for the judges to taste. Then we wanted to set them up for success in terms of creative freedom for each individual’s talents and their collective talents on a team and see what they came up with.

Could Snoop & Martha’s Tasty Halloween become an annual event or even branch off to other holidays?

JO: That’s our hope. That is definitely our hope that we can do many more of these across different holidays.

1428 ELM: How did you navigate the pandemic while putting this all together?

CASEY: Since the pandemic started, we’ve been fortunate, based on Magical Elves’ amazing staff and team, to work diligently to figure out our COVID protocol on set. Based on everything we’ve learned and done on previous shows we’ve shot since COVID started, we’re at a place where everyone knows them and adheres to them, we’ve all adapted, and it’s just part of producing now. It works pretty seamlessly. Luckily we didn’t have an incredible challenge around it since we’ve had so much experience.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Snoop & Martha’s Tasty Halloween special is now streaming on Peacock.