[1] The cereal consists of multi-colored marshmallows and pieces of shaped pulverized oat, each resembling one of several objects or symbols associated with good luck.

Holahan came up with the idea after a visit to the grocery store in which he decided to mix Cheerios with bits of Brach's circus peanuts.

[6] Lucky has also been voiced by Eric Bauza, Tex Brashear, Jason Graae, Doug Preis, and Daniel Ross.

Piggy banks and plastic watches were introduced as cereal box send-away prizes as a marketing tactic to increase sales.

Following the product launch, the General Mills marketing department found that sales performed dramatically better if the composition of the marbits changed periodically.

A food safety website iwaspoisoned.com separately documented over 3,000 similar complaints from all over the United States and Canada that started trending upward in 2021.

[9] In September 2022, the FDA said it found no pathogen or cause behind 558 self-reported cases of illness “despite extensive testing for numerous potential microbial and chemical adulterants.” [10] [11] The first boxes of Lucky Charms cereal contained marshmallows in the shapes of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers.

In 2006, the assortment included purple horseshoes; red balloons; blue crescent-moons; orange and white shooting stars; yellow and orange pots of gold; pink, yellow, and blue rainbows; two-tone green leprechaun hats; pink hearts (the one shape to survive since the beginning); with the most recent addition being the return of the clovers in 2004.

[citation needed] The marshmallows are meant to represent Lucky's magical charms, each with their own special meaning or "power".

Some of these include: For an advertising campaign in May 2017, General Mills announced they would be promoting 10,000 boxes of cereal that contain only marshmallow pieces.

[25][26] In August 2020, General Mills announced it would be selling packages of Lucky Charms marshmallow-pieces-only in retail outlets for a limited time.

Each six-ounce bag contains hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, blue moons, rainbows, red balloons, and unicorns.

[27] In the earliest commercials, Lucky Charms cereal had no theme jingle; action was accompanied by a light instrumental "Irish" tune.