One Day At A Time to air animated special while cast and crew are social distancing

Here’s a clever idea that we’re surprised isn’t being done by more shows currently on a forced hiatus because of the coronavirus: One Day At A Time, which is now on Pop TV after Netflix decided it didn’t like good TV shows anymore (#SaveTheOA or whatever!), will be airing a “first of its kind” animated special that will be fully produced remotely. Producer Norman Lear, who created the original incarnation of One Day At A Time, says that he’s “never known of a multicam comedy to animate a single episode as a special,” so he’s excited that it’s something even he gets to experience for the first time (he’s probably right, off the top of our heads, as something like Community was single-cam and its animated episodes weren’t “specials”).

The conceit for why the episode will be animated is that Penelope’s conservative family is coming for a visit and that political arguments will end up being unavoidable, so the whole Alvarez family comes up with ways to get out of it that are animated as fantasy sequences. The main case will voice their characters, and a press release promises that there will be unannounced “celebrity guests.” The episode will air at some point “later this spring.”