To celebrate the Walt Disney Company’s 100-year anniversary, Walt Disney Animation Studios created a delightful new short, Once Upon a Studio, a vignette telling how all the Disney animated characters come together to take a group photo on the day of the company’s centennial celebration.
Once all the employees leave for the day, the animated characters come to life. They spring to life from artwork, fly across the studio, and even get entangled in some hijinks along the way. They eventually all congregate in front of the Roy E. Disney Animation Building to take their big family photo. It emotionally ends with the gang singing a swelling rendition of Pinocchio‘s “When You Wish Upon a Star”.
Once Upon a Studio pays homage to the animated heritage of the Walt Disney Company. Much of the company’s success can be attributed to these timeless iconic characters. The narrative is simple but well-executed, its primary purpose being to unite these characters in the ultimate Disney crossover, which is bound to delight Disney fans of all ages.
Despite this thin story, the strongest part of the film is when Mickey, pauses to honor a photo of Walt Disney himself. Walt’s favorite song—”Feed the Birds” by the Sherman Brothers—plays during this moment and it’s hard not to choke up during this tender homage to the man who brought so much magic and light into he world. (Fun fact: To record the music for this part, Richard Sherman returned to the piano in Walt’s office, where he and his brother played this song many times for Walt.)
An astounding 543 characters ultimately made the final cut—including characters from all 62 films in the Disney animated canon, various shorts, and many live-action animated films—though the bulk of the cameos appear in the big group photo at the end. With such a short run time, it must have been incredibly difficult to choose which characters got more prominent screen and speaking roles; however, directors Dan Abraham and Trent Corey did a great job selecting classic favorites such as Snow White, Jafar, and Winnie the Pooh, while also including more obscure or lesser appreciated characters such as Stromboli, Jim Hawkins, Eilonwy, and Robin Hood.
The filmmakers also went to great lengths to ensure authenticity, utilizing real employees, original voice actors, and bringing back traditional animators. A poignant scene features the company’s longest serving employee, Burny Mattinson, and the company’s newest employee, the intern, Renika Williams, walk out of work together and look back wondering, “If walls could talk….”, showing the dichotomy between old and new Disney personnel. The use of archival recordings for Robin Williams as the Genie and Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat adds a layer of fresh nostalgia. Though at times, some of the voice acting felt off since the replacements struggled to replicate the iconic voices accurately.
Animation is Disney’s bread and butter, so for a short that honors this legacy, the animation had to be top-notch. The benefit of CGI is that all the characters are on model; CGI characters from Moana and Rapunzel to Judy Hopps and Wreck-it Ralph all look fantastic.
The immense skill, expertise, and artistry needed to draw these famous Disney characters on model is becoming a lost art. For this very reason, Disney tapped Eric Goldberg to lead hand-drawn animation effort, bringing back former Disney animators (Mark Henn, James Baxter, Ruben Aquino, Tony Bancroft, Nik Ranieri, and Will Finn) to reprise their own and other characters. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and many of the animal characters are superbly animated.
However, some of the hand-drawn characters look painfully off model, especially particularly the tedious human characters like Gaston, Ursula, Snow White, Pocahontas, Cinderella. The talents of legendary animators Glen Keane (Ariel, Beast, Pocahontas) and Andreas Deja (Gaston, Jafar, Scar) were missed, though they likely busy with their own animation studios and projects.
Seeing the breadth of the Disney Animation legacy is breathtaking and overwhelming. Hardcore Disney fans will get giddy seeing this vast character ensemble come to life, previously only imaginable in fan fiction. But with the current direction of the company and studio, notably its abdication of traditional animation in lieu of CGI, the dismissal of veteran animators, and some perceived disdain for Walt Disney, the short feels a little disingenuous. Sort of like putting lipstick on a pig and cosplaying the Disney of old.
Once Upon a Studio is, at its core, a nostalgic love letter to Walt Disney and the artists who brought magical world of Disney to life over the last century. While not flawless, with chips in the paint peeking out here and there, the film ultimately celebrates the characters and who made magic for generations.
★★★1/2
Once Upon a Studio premiered on ABC on October 5, 2023.
For a further discussion on this short film, check out our in-depth review of Once Upon a Studio on the Animation Addicts Podcast!
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