Frozen's new short film Once Upon A Snowman on Disney+ copies an idea previously used in The Lion King 1 1/2, in which events from the first film in the franchise are retold from a different perspective. Just as The Lion King 1 1/2 follows the popular supporting characters Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella) as they tell the same story of The Lion King from their own perspective, Once Upon A Snowman similarly revisits some of the events of the franchise’s first film Frozen from the perspective of Olaf (Josh Gad), Frozen’s most beloved minor character.
While Olaf has been the subject of Frozen’s past short films, including Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, Once Upon A Snowman is the first Frozen short to revisit the plot of the first animated feature film instead of exploring a new standalone story. Once Upon A Snowman follows Olaf during his first moments as a sentient snowman after Elsa (Idina Menzel) creates him with her elemental magic during her solo “Let It Go.” Before Olaf is discovered by Anna (Kristen Bell), Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), and Sven in Frozen, the short reveals that Olaf wandered through the woods in search of his name, shopped for a nose at Wandering Oaken's Trading Post after the shopkeeper sold the last of his carrots, and was chased by wolves since the nose he selected was a sausage. While Once Upon A Snowman doesn’t divulge too much new information about Olaf’s origins, the short emphasizes Olaf’s impact on the main character’s lives despite being a supporting character.
Once Upon A Snowman reveals that Olaf was the catalyst for some of the events that occurred in Frozen before his character was introduced, specifically the scene when Anna and Kristoff are pursued by wolves during their journey up to the North Mountain to find Elsa. After shopping for a nose amongst Oaken’s wares, Olaf selects a summer sausage, which of course attracts wolves that Olaf unknowingly leads onto Anna and Kristoff’s path as he’s running away. Similarly in The Lion King 1 1/2, it’s revealed that Timon and Pumbaa were responsible for an iconic scene featured in The Lion King. When the animals from the Pride Lands came to Pride Rock to see the future king Simba (Matthew Broderick) presented to the kingdom, Pumbaa passes gas, which causes some of the nearby animals to pass out and encourages the animals at the front of the crowd to follow suit and bow to the future king.
The plot of Once Upon A Snowman and The Lion King 1 1/2 also reveals that this kind of serendipity works both ways and that the main characters’ actions also affect the supporting characters’ journeys. Throughout The Lion King 1 1/2, Timon and Pumbaa attempt to settle down within the Pride Lands before they meet Simba, but they’re consistently driven out by events from The Lion King, including Simba’s rendition of “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” Mufasa’s (James Earl Jones) confrontation with the hyenas at the elephant graveyard, and the infamous wildebeest stampede that takes Mufasa’s life. In Once Upon A Snowman, Olaf similarly sets out to discover his place in the world and find a sense of self by acquiring a nose at Wandering Oakens. Olaf’s quest is delayed, however, by Anna, who purchased the last of Oaken’s supply of carrots.
While both films are successful retellings of well-known Disney stories, the Frozen short film does a better job aligning the stories of the main and supporting characters in a shorter amount of time. At the end of The Lion King 1 1/2, Timon and Pumbaa create a home for themselves not at Pride Rock with Simba, but rather at the "predator-free" oasis with Timon’s meerkat family, which suggests that their journeys will eventually diverge given that Simba’s place is at Pride Rock. In Once Upon A Snowman, when Olaf befriends one of the wolves by feeding it his sausage nose, the wolf gives him a hug, which resurrects his memory of his identity: that Anna and Elsa as children named him Olaf and that he “likes warm hugs.” Frozen's Once Upon A Snowman then suggests that Elsa, Anna, and Olaf’s stories are entwined within the past, present, and future.