Frozen Fans Will Flip Out About What's Coming To Disney+
One of Frozen's fan favorite characters has a surprise for everybody stuck at home.
Disney+ has announced that thanks to at-home participation from star Josh Gad as well as animator Hyrum Osmond, they'll release a new series to help keep homeschooled and quarantined kids entertained, entitled At Home With Olaf (via Collider). The spin-off short movies will focus on Olaf the snowman, voiced in the Frozen films by Gad, doing his best to "socially distance" just like everybody else. In the midst of a pandemic with no exact end in sight as of this writing, children are often hit the hardest psychologically — though they get snippets of the news, it can be tough to process — so this is definitely a great move on Disney's part to keep kids entertained, relatively informed, and reassured.
On Twitter, Disney released a short teaser for the series, which will begin this week; Gad also took to social media to comment on the new release, tweeting, "My friends @alittlejelee & @mrhyrum (who worked behind the scenes on the Frozen films) called me up one day & asked me if I would be able 2 record some dialogue & sounds as Olaf from home. These little shorts done from home by Hyrum & the @DisneyAnimation team are so charming & hopefully provide a smile during these scary times."
Gad and Disney are clearly trying to do some good in the midst of a global crisis, and hopefully, adults and kids alike will be able to escape into Olaf's world and distract themselves. At Home With Olaf will join Frozen 2 on the streaming service, which Disney dropped early to help out working parents suddenly at home with their children.
Olaf's journey: from sidekick to his own spin-off
In the first Frozen film, Olaf simply served as a supporting character to leads like Anna (Kristen Bell), Elsa (Idina Menzel), and Kristof (Jonathan Groff), showing up on Anna's journey as a snowman she once made with her sister that has come to life, only able to survive in the coldest regions of the world (or with the help of Elsa's freezing powers). However, in the years since the first Frozen movie hit theaters, Olaf has become one of the series' most popular characters.
With that said, Olaf's standalone adventures haven't always been a success; for example, 2017's Olaf's Frozen Adventure, which premiered before Pixar's Coco, didn't go over particularly well, though this had less to do with Olaf's presence and more to do with the "short" film's rather intimidating length. Clocking in at a whopping 21 minutes, Olaf's Frozen Adventure was simply way too long to watch before the feature film even began, and theaters were forced to put up a warning sign about the adventure's length to let families know they were in it for the long haul. Ultimately, it was even pulled from theaters (via ScreenRant).
However, At Home With Olaf, thanks to its perfect timing and socially responsible message, will surely fare better than its predecessors. At Home With Olaf will begin streaming on Disney+ during the week of April 6, 2020.