Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Once Upon a Studio’ on Disney+, a Heavily Nostalgic Self-Promotional Short Celebrating Disney’s Animation Studio

Once Upon a Studio (now streaming on Disney+) is an animated short celebrating two things: One, the 100-year anniversary of Disney. And two, your freshly hiked Disney+ subscription rates! The first one’s intentional, and the second one surely ain’t, but maybe this conglomeration of all your favorite characters from Disney’s animation studio (note: Pixar not included) will remind you of all the wonderful movies and related content you’re getting for more dollars a month than you used to pay, so you can gauge whether or not it’s worth the extra dough. So even if this nifty little short seems like nothing more than shameless hooray-for-us self-promotion, it might actually be useful for us consumers.  

ONCE UPON A STUDIO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The setting: the Roy E. Disney Animation Studio. Workers file out of the building at the end of the day, and apparently Disney is a utopian workplace because the office is completely empty after hours. “If these walls could talk,” says a gentleman as the door closes behind him. And whaddaya know, the walls can actually talk, sort of, because on one of those walls is a photo, and in the photo are Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and they come to life and hop out of the frame. Notably, the cartoons only come alive when humans aren’t around, because even if Pixar isn’t officially part of this Disney studio, Toy Story rules still apply.

And so all your superstar favorites and animated lessers come alive, gathering for a commemorative 100-year-anniversary photo. You’ve got your various princesses, Bambis, Rescuers, dalmations and Moanas and such, with old-timers like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (!) and Pluto mingling with newbs like Mirabel Madrigal and Sisu the Last Dragon. Everyone’s apparently signed a temporary cease-fire, because even the villains are included. And so all the ’toons pile in front of the building, and then Goofy, ever the imbecile, breaks the camera. It’ll surely never be fixed. Party’s over! Sad trombone!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Hey, remember Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons? Well, you do now.

Performance Worth Watching: Confession: I love Donald Duck. But classic Donald only – you know, angry, redfaced, stomping-mad, with steam coming out of his ears. We don’t really get that Donald anymore. They’ve sanded down his edges since his midcentury glory days, when he was obsessed with vengeance, and hunted chipmunks with a shotgun, and destroyed stuff in a maniacal fury. But he enjoys a pretty good bit here where his patience is tested by Baymax and the sloth from Zootopia.

Memorable Dialogue: Eeyore drops this hard-as-nails one-liner after the camera goes crash-tinkle-tinkle: “Maybe we can try again in another hundred years.”

Sex and Skin: Oh god no.

Our Take: Fourteen dollars without ads. You in? Probably, with the same deep sigh you emit when your kid begs for a $50 plush Baymax stuffie. Maybe you can save a few bucks with a Hulu bundle; maybe you just pay up for a month here and there when a new Star Wars series hits (because those Marvel series are so crushingly mediocre). Of course, the Disney catalog is 100 years deep now, so if you like to watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks on an endless loop, well, time to cough up an extra buck or three. (But if you want to watch Clouds or Artemis Fowl or a bunch of other Disney+ exclusives, you’re out of luck, because that stuff is gone-baby-gone from the service. Apparently, even Disney doesn’t like some of its own forgettable junk!)

Anyway: Once Upon a Studio. It’s a reminder of how great Disney Animation Studios is, and we’d be more inclined to agree with the assertion if Disney itself wasn’t asserting it. You’ll probably be curious to see what happens when Wreck-It Ralph rubs elbows with Baloo or whatever, but beyond that? It’s just self-promotion steeped in thick, syrupy nostalgia. It might be fun to pause various frames to see if you can name all the characters, which will allow you to determine how deep Disney has brainwormed you over the decades. You could even create a Disney Brainworm Scale to see how far gone you are! 

Our Call: Once Upon a Studio is a reminder that Disney is a massive, frequently litigious corporate behemoth that has churned out a hell of a lot of great animated films over the decades. It’s cute and clever, and successfully stokes the embers of memories of all those moments of increasingly expensive Disney Magic you’ve experienced. (Note, if you’re not aware of the phrase “cognitive dissonance,” this is a prime example.) You’ll probably STREAM IT once to churn up the feels, and then shrug as the monthly Disney+ fee continues to automatically be charged to your credit card. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.