Among all of the originals coming from Disney+ is One Day at Disney. In this documentary, we get to explore different areas of the Walt Disney Company by the people who make the magic and what one day in their lives is like. Me being a big nerd for this side of Disney, I had to watch it and will share my thoughts with you.
The documentary is one hour long, which is considered feature-length, and we see and meet a surprising amount of people within that one hour. While each segment was interesting and unqiue, there are a few I want to highlight as my favorites essentially.
Starting with Disney Animation, we meet Eric Goldberg. He is one of the animators at Disney and he had the magical experience of animating the Genie from Aladdin. He tells us how he got interested in animation thanks to classic Disney films, how he ended getting to work at Disney, and the amazing experience of animating Robin Williams. The Genie portion alone was great, but listening to him tell his story and truly love Disney was a really nice early start to this film.
Next up on my favorites is at Pixar with sculptor Jerome Ranft. He sculpts, yes with clay, models of some of our favorite Pixar characters. He shows us a model he made for Cars 3 that never made it to the film, which is just fascinating that Pixar has so recently used physical sculpting for their films. He also talks about his brother, who was also a Disney and Pixar employee and how they got to share this experience and bond over Disney. I won’t spoil his full story, but I came close to crying so have a tissue box ready.
Another of my favorites was with a veterinarian for Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Natalie Mylniczenco gets the pleasure of working with all of the animals at the park. For anyone who loves animals of any species, this is a charming piece. One of my favorite moments was when she talks about how guests who are frequent visitors know all of the animals by name and can tell them apart and follow their journeys.
The last of my favorites is with Zamavuso (Zama) Magudulela who plays Rafiki in the Madrid production of The Lion King musical. Since I am a musical theatre geek, it is not a big surprise that I enjoyed this piece. Also, The Lion King is hands down the best stage production Disney has done. Hearing her story about coming from South Africa and having basically never done musical theatre prior to this show is a fascinating story.
That is just 4 of the 10 segments in the film. Every segment is unique and interesting and picking favorites was a little hard because when you explore the vastness that is the Walt Disney Company, there are so many fascinating things and people to see. The 10 alone don’t even cover it, which is why they are going to be releasing more segments in a series style after this documentary. And there is the book of the same name with all these stories too if you really want to deep dive.
I am looking forward to watching more segments and I do recommend One Day at Disney for anyone who enjoys any part of Disney, whether it is theme parks of animation or Pixar or Star Wars or Marvel and the list goes on. It is very wholesome and has its Disney wonderment. And you can see the honesty with everyone’s stories as well and how Disney has really changed their lives.
One Day at Disney documentary feature is available on Disney+ now. The serialized segments will begin releasing soon also.
Did you watch One Day at Disney? Tell me your thoughts with a comment below!
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