In response to Covid-19, production was put on hold, so executive producer and co-showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett came up with the idea for an animated special.
“As we all know, it’s hard to keep ‘One Day at a Time’ off the air. During this unprecedented time, we wanted to find a way to keep our family — on camera and behind the scenes — together and create more entertaining content for our fans who are self-distancing at home,” Kellett said in a statement. “This animated special gives us an exciting opportunity to imagine the Alvarez family in a colorful new way while continuing to tell important and relevant stories.”
The Alvarez family spends the episode discussing strategies for how to get through it, illustrated by fantasy sequences.
Production will be completed remotely and will premiere later this spring.
The mid-season finale for the series aired Tuesday night.
“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.”