ABC’s Abbott Elementary is headed to Disneyland. The Emmy-winning comedy will film its 100th episode inside the park this month, and that episode is set to air in December as the Season 6 fall finale. Disney declined to comment on the shoot.
The timing lines up with the show’s own math. Season 5 wrapped on April 22 with 93 episodes on the books, which makes the seventh episode of Season 6 the series’ 100th. Season 6 is set for 22 half-hour episodes, so the Disneyland trip closes out the first stretch of the season before the winter break.
Season 6 Starts Wednesday Night
The news lands one day before the new season begins. Abbott Elementary returns to ABC on Wednesday, October 7, at 8:30 p.m. ET, with episodes streaming the next day on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers.
Quinta Brunson returns as Janine Teagues alongside Tyler James Williams as Gregory Eddie, Janelle James as Ava Coleman, Sheryl Lee Ralph as Barbara Howard, Lisa Ann Walter as Melissa Schemmenti, Chris Perfetti as Jacob Hill and William Stanford Davis as Mr. Johnson. The new school year shakes up the staff room, with Gregory taking on assistant principal duties on top of teaching and Melissa serving as the teachers’ union representative, as the Season 6 trailer showed.
Abbott Keeps Taking Field Trips
Disneyland is the latest location for a show that has spent the last two seasons getting out of the classroom. The cast traveled to Philadelphia to shoot the Season 4 finale at the Please Touch Museum in Fairmount Park, then filmed at a Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park for Season 5. The Season 5 mid-season premiere turned into a three-part story shot at Westfield Promenade in Woodland Hills over a little more than a month, after a burst pipe forced Abbott into a temporary home at the mall. Season 5 ended with the teachers headed to Miami.
Most of the show is still made far from Philadelphia. Interiors are shot on soundstages at Warner Bros. in Burbank, and the school’s exterior is Vermont Avenue Elementary in South Los Angeles.
ABC comedies have a long history of checking into the park. Modern Family sent the Dunphys, Pritchetts and Tuckers to Disneyland in a 2012 episode, and Abbott itself joked about the Happiest Place on Earth back in Season 2, when Janine compared a Pennsylvania teachers conference to a day at Disneyland.
What We Don’t Know Yet
Neither ABC nor the Disneyland Resort has announced which days the cast and crew will be in the park, which lands they will use, or whether filming will close any attractions or walkways while cameras roll. The plot of the episode is also under wraps, including whether the trip is a student field trip or a staff outing. Guests visiting Disneyland in the coming weeks could cross paths with the production.
The 100th episode is a big milestone for a modern network sitcom. ABC renewed Abbott Elementary for Season 6 back in March, announcing it with a voicemail from Ralph’s Barbara Howard, and the series is produced by Warner Bros. Television and 20th Television. Brunson created the show and executive produces with Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, Randall Einhorn and Brian Rubenstein.
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