Lin-Manuel Miranda, Gloria Estefan and Melissa Fumero Join ‘One Day at a Time’ Animated Special

By Will Thorne

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The “One Dat at a Time” animation special in the works at Pop TV has added a trio of heavy hitters.

Lin-Manuel Miranda (fresh off announcing that his “Hamilton” movie will premiere on Disney Plus in July ), Gloria Estefan and Melissa Fumero will all guest star in the special which is slated to air June 16.

Estefan and Fumero will reprise their previous roles of Tia Mirtha and Estrellita respectively, while Miranda will be making
makes debut on the series which he vowed to help save when it was dumped by Netflix after three seasons. 

The decision to produce an animated episode came after production of the multi-camera comedy was put on hold in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. “ODAAT” had its mid-season finale on April 14
due to the production stoppages, and the animated special, titled “The Politics Episode,” will be fully executed remotely and premiere on Pop
 following a marathon of the current season.

The special will center around
Penelope’s (Justina Machado) conservative cousin Estrellita, Tia Mirtha, and Tio Juanito (Miranda) coming to visit. With the election looming, they won’t be able to avoid fighting over politics.

Jonas Diamond, executive producer and co-owner of Smiley Guy Studios in Toronto, will oversee the animation. The episode was the idea of executive producer and co-showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett. 

The Sony Pictures TV series stars Machado, Rita Moreno, Stephen Tobolowsky, Todd Grinnell, India de Beaufort, Isabella Gomez and Marcel Ruiz. Act III Productions, Inc., Snowpants Prods. and GloNation produce, with Norman Lear, Mike Royce, Calderón Kellett and Brent Miller as executive producers.