Frozen Fever

Frozen Fever is an animated short sequel to the 2013 film Frozen.

The short was announced on September 2, 2014, as part of The Story of Frozen: Making a Disney Animated Classic. It featured a new and original song written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and premiered in theaters on March 13, 2015, in front of Disney's live-action film Cinderella.

Plot
Queen Elsa is excited because today is Anna's birthday and intends to make sure her sister's special day is perfect. Using her ice powers, she creates a special ice decoration on the top of Anna's birthday cake: figures of Anna and Elsa ice-skating happily together. Kristoff makes a banner that he hung up across the castle courtyard which reads "Happy Birthday Anna". Elsa and Kristoff spent all morning preparing everything and now time was running out. Before dashing off to wake up Anna, Elsa leaves Kristoff in charge of looking after everything until the guest of honor arrives.

Elsa tiptoes into Anna's room and gently nudges her sister, who is still asleep. Anna struggles to wake up but after being told about the day Elsa has planned for them, she immediately jumps out of bed. When Elsa sneezes, neither of the sisters notice that two tiny snowmen pop into the air, drop to the floor and scamper away. Starting off the day, Elsa uses her magic to create sparkly new dresses for each of them before heading out on a mystery tour which involves following a long string that Elsa had wound through the castle, leading Anna to different gifts. Inside a suit of armor, Anna finds a bracelet. Inside an armoire, she finds an Olaf cuckoo clock. And on a balcony, there's a bouquet of sunflowers. Elsa sneezes again and more little snowmen pop into the air and tumble to the ground, but still the girls don't notice. The snowmen scurry into the courtyard where Olaf finds them and is thrilled to see them. Anna and Elsa follow the string all over Arendelle. Along the way, Anna discovers more presents: a family portrait, silk stockings, even a fishing pole. All the while, Elsa continues to sneeze and each time she does, more little snowmen appear and still the girls don't spot any of them. Anna is having a wonderful time but is concerned for Elsa's health. She feels she should go home and rest but Elsa declines. She leads Anna to Oaken's shop, where she presents her with one of Oaken's beautiful heavy cloaks. Then noticing her sneezing, Oaken presents them with a bottle of medicine which Anna accepts gratefully, knowing they may need it. Next, Elsa takes Anna to the center of the village, where a children's choir sings for Anna.

Back at the courtyard, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf try to keep things under control as more tiny snowmen run in, causing a lot of chaos and trouble for them. When Kristoff spots several little snowmen climbing up to the cake, he grabs Olaf's head like a bowling ball and takes aim. Olaf's head rolls into the snowmen, knocking them away from the cake. Suddenly, the little snowmen knock down Kristoff's banner. Olaf manages to rehang the letters, but since he cannot read, they spell "Dry Banana Hippy Hat".

Meanwhile, Elsa leads Anna to their last stop, where at the top of the clock tower was her last gift. Anna's arms are now overloaded with presents and Elsa's cold is getting worse. Anna insists that Elsa needs to rest, but she doesn't listen. Already she is feeling feverish as she climbs the stairs to the top of the tower till finally she loses her balance. Anna drops her gifts and rushes to catch her. She notices Elsa is burning up with a fever and needs to get into bed, which Elsa finally agrees to. As Anna escorts her home, Elsa feels she ruined her perfect birthday but Anna tells her she hasn't. Then as they enter the castle gates, Anna is surprised by Kristoff, Sven, Olaf and the hundreds of little snowmen who present her with her birthday cake and a special birthday song. Caught up in the excitement of the song, Kristoff sings loudest of all and bursts out "I love you, baby!", becoming very embarrassed while a touched Anna grins at him happily. Though tired, Elsa insists on blowing the Birthday Horn, and sneezes into it, launching a gigantic snowball all the way to the Southern Isles, where it hits Hans as he is shoveling manure at the royal stables.

Afterwards, Anna helps Elsa into bed and thanks her for a great birthday and giving her the best present she could ever have: Elsa letting her take care of her. High on the North Mountain where stands the ice palace, Marshmallow is visited by Kristoff, Sven and Olaf, who present to him a parade of the little snowmen who would now be living with him.

Cast

 * Kristen Bell as Anna
 * Idina Menzel as Elsa
 * Jonathan Groff as Kristoff
 * Josh Gad as Olaf
 * Chris Williams as Oaken (brief cameo)
 * Paul Briggs as Marshmallow
 * Santino Fontana as Hans (brief cameo)

Production
The short and its song were first announced on September 2, 2014 during ABC's one-hour special The Story of Frozen: Making a Disney Animated Classic. Variety announced on the same day that the short's release would be in spring 2015 under the title "Frozen Fever", along with Lee and Buck coming back as directors, Peter Del Vecho returning as the producer, and Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez writing the song. The short's summary is as follows: "...it's Anna's birthday and Elsa and Kristoff are determined to give her the best celebration ever, but Elsa's icy powers may put more than just the party at risk." Olaf, the snowman, also made an appearance in the toon. In a mid-October interview, Idina Menzel revealed that the cast had already recorded their vocal tracks: "We just worked on a short for Frozen." On December 3, 2014, it was announced that Aimee Scribner would be a co-producer and that Frozen Fever would debut in theaters with Disney's live-action Cinderella film on March 13, 2015. In late December, the directors told the Associated Press: "There is something magic about these characters and this cast and this music. Hopefully, the audiences will enjoy the short we're doing, but we felt it again. It was really fun." At around the same time, Dave Metzger, who did the orchestration of the first film, stated that he was already doing work on Frozen Fever.

Hyperion, a new rendering system which was used for Big Hero 6, was used to render Frozen Fever.

The song in the short was revealed to be "Making Today a Perfect Day". Josh Gad made an apology to parents at the El Capitan Theatre premiere of Frozen Fever and Cinderella for releasing another catchy song on their children, while his wife Ida Darvish noticed that he still hummed it only two days after his lines were recorded.

It was first revealed by the directors during a March 2015 interview with BuzzFeed that Walt Disney Animation Studios came up with the possibility of a short in April 2014, but were reluctant due to wondering why Frozen became very successful. However, they made an agreement to begin possibilities of brainstorming. Following early discussions focusing on Olaf, Marc Smith got an idea about what would happen if Elsa got a cold, which became the short's basis. The short's production was revealed by Buck to have taken six months. It started in June, and the directors came to the recording studio with the cast in August to put the vocal tracks down. The short had more animator credits, due to all of the first film's animators wanting to do at least one shot of the short. It then became tricky with making a tight time slot of the animation phase in fall 2014.

Release
The short was first released with Cinderella in theaters on March 13, 2015. It will later be available on digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere on August 11, 2015, before being released on the home video of Walt Disney Animation Collection: Classic Short Films on August 18, 2015. It will also be included on the home video of Cinderella on September 15, 2015.

Reception
The short was rated three out of four stars by USA Today 's Claudia Puig, who described "Making Today a Perfect Day" as "pleasant", adding that even though the short "is not as exhilarating and inventive as the original, it's still a treat to see an abridged tale of these two sisters in a warmhearted spinoff." The song was also called "catchy and fun" by Natalie Jamieson, a writer for BBC News' Newsbeat. Forbes ' Scott Mendelson mentioned that the short was "cute" and "really sweet", opining that it "works just as well as a gorgeous and funny romp for those who just want to spend another five minutes in the world of Arendelle." The song was said by The Hollywood News ' Ket Smith to not be much catchy as "Let It Go", but that Elsa's sneeze effects would be loved by children.

Trivia

 * This is the second short sequel to a Walt Disney Animation Studios movie. The first was Tangled Ever After.
 * One of the children in the choir resembles Anna when she was a little girl.
 * This is the first time Kristoff and Elsa are seen interacting with one another.
 * This is the second time Anna is seen waking up with messy hair.
 * Two of the topping decisions that Elsa created were the coronation pose and the "Anna's Frozen Death" pose from the first film.
 * The scene where Elsa wakes up Anna to wish her a Happy Birthday is quite similar to the scene in the first film where Anna wakes up Elsa when they're children.
 * During the opening of the song "Making Today a Perfect Day", Elsa sang the part "A cold never bothered me anyway", a reference to her solo song "Let It Go".
 * Prior to this, she uses the tune of the opening of "Life's Too Short".
 * The map that appears when the giant snowball Elsa created was launched through the horn shows the Southern Isles is located south of Arendelle. Also, the Roman numerals "MDCCCXL" or "1840" written in the upper left corner can be seen, presumably the year when the short takes place.
 * The part where Elsa and Anna are riding a bike through the hall is a reference to the line "...or ride our bike around the halls" in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?".
 * The portrait that was received as a gift for Anna shows that the four characters are now a family.
 * Unlike the original Frozen film, which was rated PG by the MPAA, this short film is rated G by the MPAA, as most Disney animated short films have that rating in the United States.
 * This is the first Walt Disney Animation Studios short film to be composed by the same songwriters and score composer as its predecessor.
 * After Kristoff's banner fell, Olaf said "I can fix it!" in a similar manner to Fix-It Felix, Jr. from Wreck-It Ralph.
 * A Snowgie with the face of Baymax from Big Hero 6 can briefly be seen.