Disneyland Paris is winning raves from fans online for its new ad campaign, "Where Magic Gets Real," with at least one calling its centerpiece the best Disney short film of the year.
The one-minute commercial is airing in Europe, but you can watch it online, via the park's social media channels. It features a duckling who discovers a Donald Duck comic book and instantly becomes a fan. The duckling studies the pages to imitate his hero, but eventually loses the comic book when it's time to migrate, and the book is just too heavy for the duckling to carry.
After a harrowing flight, the duck flock takes shelter... and when the sun emerges, the duckling finally gets to meet its hero.
Practically, the commercial uses the duckling as a stand-in for young Disney fans across multi-cultural Europe, employing wonderful animation to tell its story without words, allowing Disney to show it across the continent and around the world without the need for translation. Emotionally, the short hits Disney's classic story beats of joy, loss, journey, and love, in a hyper-efficient 75 seconds. It's a master class in emotional storytelling, reminding viewers of just what they come to Disney entertainment to experience... and that they can get that experience in real life at a Disney theme park.
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* SNIFF * ... I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying ... So ... um ... Just shut up, 'cause you're stupid!
A Twitter follower reminds me of these other Disney TV commercial gems:
And a few more nominations...
And this, which might be the most cinematic one yet...
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Donald Duck is the name of a Dutch Disney magazine. The Character is big here as it is in Denmark and Italy. I have even wrote 1 Duck story that is bought, drawn and published. So this commercial is a great fit for the European market and is very cute.