October 15th, 2023 
Jackson Murphy 
Wonder what it’d be like to see all your favorite Disney animated characters come together in one, magical way? Well, your dreams are about to come true. New short Once Upon a Studio will air tonight at 8pm on ABC as part of a special “Wonderful World of Disney” evening honoring a century of The Mouse House and also featuring the broadcast premiere of Encanto. “Once Upon a Studio”, which sees beloved characters leaping out of paintings and coming to life at Walt Disney Animation Studios, is directed by Dan Abraham and Trent Correy (of 2020 Olaf short “Once Upon a Snowman”) and produced by Yvett Merino (Oscar winner for “Encanto”) and Brett Simonsen (“Us Again”). I met them in Hollywood to talk about the groundbreaking short, including a key piece of music highlighted at an emotional point. (These interviews were combined and edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: Why “Feed the Birds”?
Dan Abraham (Director): According to the Sherman Brothers, that was Walt’s favorite song. On Friday afternoons they would go to his office and talk about what’s happening at the studio that week. Eventually Walt would say, “Play it.” Richard knew what to do. He went over to the piano, sat down and played “Feed the Birds” for Walt. When we were putting together our Walt and Mickey moment, I said, “It’s gotta be Feed the Birds”. And the head of our music department, Matt Walker, said, “Why don’t we get Richard Sherman to play it?” And I’m like, “What?!” And he said, “Let’s record it in Walt’s office.”
Trent Correy (Director): By the way, Richard Sherman, 94 years young when he played this for us.
JM: Isn’t that amazing?
DA: What an incredible day.
JM: I’d love to ask you about timing. What was the timing process like of when to put the characters in?
TC: It was all about finding those right moments for where we wanted the comedy, the heart and the tears. Dan said Jiminy Cricket has to be the ringer of this song. He has to bring it home. I like that audiences might be watching this for the first time and saying, “Where’s so and so?” And they watch it and they might be surprised.
DA: There was some shuffling around a bit because there are so many characters in different situations. At one moment we had Ariel in the restroom using the dinglehopper combing her hair. But she didn’t say anything. We were like, “Wait. What are we doing? We have to meet Jodi Benson! We need her to sing! We gotta get her in the song!” For the song, from the storyboards, that stayed pretty much the same. But yeah, it was all about what character suits the best gag or situation.
TC: And it was the fun part of the short. The puzzle of it. How to incorporate these 62 features and shorts and hundreds of characters into eight and a half minutes.
DA: Endless possibilities.
Jackson with Dan Abraham and Trent Correy
JM: What impresses you about the ambition and the execution of what’s pulled off with this short?
Yvett Merino (Producer): From day one I’ve been impressed with Dan and Trent. They’ve had this vision in their head. There were revisions and changes that we made, but it came in so tight. It’s always beautiful to work with directors that have the vision of what they really want it to be. It really became more about, “How do we do it? How do we get it done?”
JM: My father grew up with these old Disneykins — these tiny figures of the animated characters. And then I played with them when I was young, putting them together. So seeing something like this, where they do all come together and interact with each other, is a dream I think a lot of Disney fans have that’s now come to life. You’re serving something that everybody’s dreamed about for a long time.
DA: We didn’t realize but when we put this together and pitched it to Jennifer Lee, our CCO, one of the things she was so excited about was, “People have been asking for the characters to all be together in a film or whatever it is, but it never really made sense as to why.” Why would Ariel be with Baloo? They don’t belong in those same worlds. But she said that the fact that we have them coming out of the artwork at the studio, she said, “That makes sense.” We were like, “Oh good. We touched on something that we didn’t even know was a thing.”
JM: What does it mean to you that this gets to be showcased on “The Wonderful World of Disney” for millions of people to get to see?
TC: And especially circling around the 100th Anniversary of when Walt and Roy signed that LLC. I don’t think in our wildest dreams when we were working on this little short two years ago and nobody knew about it that it would be coming out on the anniversary on ABC on “The Wonderful World of Disney”. It’s a “pinch me” moment.
Brad Simonsen (Producer): I watched it religiously. To think of something we created [being] on that show, it just tickles you pink. We’re super excited.
JM: Josh Gad has already come to the defense of people who were questioning the Robin Williams audio. I love him saying, “You gotta get all the facts straight. This was approved.”
DA: Very, very early on we went to the Robin Williams estate and we got their approval. That’s how you do it.
Brett Simonsen, Jackson Murphy and Yvett Merino.
TC: This short came from the pure respect of all those voice actors and all the talent that has come through. And Josh Gad, what a wonderful guy.
YM: I would work with Josh Gad any day, no matter what the film is. He’s amazing to work with. He is a bundle of kind joy.
BS: Incredibly creative. For the most part, everything was so surgical in how it was set-up. All the set-ups and payoffs. All the lines, even though they’re tiny, everything has a purpose. The only line that we played with and riffed with in the booth was with Josh. Josh has the ability to plus stuff. Not that other folks don’t, but he has that really quick, fast wit. He read the line and he understood it, and he said, “Let me play.” We ended-up using one of the ones he was riffing on.
JM: What character has stood out in your Disney mind that has meant the most to you?
YM: I love “Beauty and the Beast”. I would have it on just cleaning my room. I just need to hear it. To be able to work with so many characters and to see Belle and the Beast come back to life in a new setting, outside of our studio, I was like, “Oh my goodness. This is really happening!” Joy and magic.
BS: Tigger and Baymax. Those two, depending on my mood, are who I love. They’re just awesome.
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