Lin-Manuel Miranda Joins One Day at a Time’s Spring Animated Special

Pop TV has announced that award-winning actor Lin-Manuel Miranda has officially signed on to join the voice cast of One Day at a Time‘s upcoming animated special which is set is scheduled to air on Tuesday, June 16. When the series was unexpectedly cancelled by Netflix last year, The Hamilton actor was one of the many celebrities who rallied behind One Day at a Time by expressing their love and support through social media in hopes of catching other streaming services or networks’ attention to save the series for another season.

Joining Miranda as a guest-star are Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Melissa Fumero and Grammy winner Gloria Estefan, who have both appeared as Estrellita and Mirtha in the third season of the fan-favorite sitcom. In addition, the announcement also came with the released of a new photo which you can check out below, featuring our first look at the animated versions of casts and guest stars.

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Filming on the fourth season was halted in mid-March amidst the growing health concerns and executive producer/co-showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett brought the idea of an animated episode with fellow executive producer/co-showrunner Mike Royce after developing it with her cartoonist husband. The duo then pitched it to producing studio Sony Pictures TV, which helped get development underway on the special.

“In my 97 years, I’ve never known of a multicam comedy to animate a single episode as a special,” Lear said in a statement. “Even this I get to experience.”

The special will center on Penelope’s conservative family visiting and the dread she’s feeling over the upcoming election and how it will affect their interactions, believing it will lead to a fight over politics. The Alvarez family will spend the episode discussing strategies of how to get through this, illustrated through fantasy sequences, with Jonas Diamond, executive producer and co-owner of Smiley Guy Studios in Toronto overseeing the animation.

The storyline for the episode was originally planned for a live-action production with virtual effects versus animation, but when the pandemic hit and production was shut down, the creators pivoted to the animation decision, namely as it would have no connection to the overall arc of the season.

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One Day At a Time, the comedy-drama inspired by Norman Lear’s 1975 series of the same name, follows the life of Penelope Alvarez (Justina Machado), a newly single Army veteran, and her Cuban-American family, as they navigate the ups and downs of life. Now a nurse practitioner, Penelope is raising two strong-willed children. When faced with challenges, Penelope turns to her “old-school” mother Lydia (Rita Moreno), and her building manager Schneider (Todd Grinnell), who has become an invaluable confidant. The series offers a contemporary take on what life looks like in both good and bad times, and how loved ones can help make it all worthwhile. The series also stars Isabella Gomez as Elena Alvarez, Marcel Ruiz as Alex Alvarez and Stephen Tobolowsky as Dr. Berkowitz.

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