Stuff I Grew Up With: The Disney Channel

When I was a young kid, Cartoon Network was the television channel that I watched the most. Many of the classic cartoons shown on that channel as well as its own original programming were big parts of my childhood. However, even though I wouldn't have bragged about it at the time, I did watch the Disney Channel as well. I think the reason I say that is because while Disney was part of my early childhood, from ages eight on into my mid-teens I went through this phase where the general consensus among my peers was that Disney was for little kids and Cartoon Network and the like were for big kids. Still, although it was mainly when I was over at my grandparents' house, I would watch the Disney Channel from time to time. I remember that very well because they hadn't actually purchased the channel and while the cable would still show the channel, there would be a big black text box instructing you on how to order that would block the picture and I'd have to keep pushing the VIEW button all throughout the show I was watching at the time. As an adult, I now realize that the Disney Channel was an important part of my childhood, even if I wouldn't have admitted it for a long time, and this post will be similar to the one I did on Cartoon Network: talking about the shows I liked, the phases I went through with it, and my opinion on what it's become now.

I honestly can't remember if I watched these shows originally on Disney Channel or not but I'm pretty sure I did. My earliest memories of Disney Channel (and earliest TV memories in general) are from shows like Welcome to Pooh Corner, Madeline, Babar and Paddington Bear as well as re-runs of classic shows like Zorro. (I realize some of those shows weren't necessarily originally created for Disney Channel but I do remember watching them on that channel.) There was also The Ink and Paint Club, which would show the classic Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy shorts, usually late at night (I don't think I watched that block as a kid.) The shows I definitely remember around that time were classic 80's animated series like DuckTales, Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, and Darkwing Duck (basically all the Walt Disney Television Animation that I watched on ABC on Saturday mornings were played again on Disney Channel.) As I said, while I enjoyed watching these shows again after enjoying them on Saturday mornings, I would never admit it to my peers at the time because it just wasn't perceived as "cool." There were some shows that were shown mainly on the weekend that I never got into, like Bonkers and reruns of The Muppet Show (the latter being because some of those Muppets kind of freaked me out). I didn't think much of Recess either, even though I was about the age of those kids when it was originally shown. I don't remember Disney Channel showing much of the studio's classic animated features (although I do have an early childhood memory of the last act of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), no doubt due to the studio's insistence on keeping those classic films in their vault and bringing them back out sporadically and for a limited time each. They did however show movies from other studios, some of which made sense like The Land Before Time and An American Tale films, Once Upon a Forest, and FernGully, and some that didn't make sense like Gremlins (why would that show that on Disney?). Also, when they were later creating their own original movies, they would show original movies from other channels like Seventeen Again, about a divorced couple of grandparents who end up becoming young when they come into contact with their grandson's experiment. I don't think I've ever heard of a channel showing another channel's original movie but I could be wrong.

Beginning in 1997, Disney Channel split itself into three programming blocks. Because it wasn't uncommon for the teachers at my elementary school to have nothing planned for big chunks of the morning, they would often have us watch TV and that's when we ran the risk of blundering into Playhouse Disney, the morning block geared towards preschoolers. While I personally didn't mind it, the other kids (mainly the boys) did and they would make their displeasure very vocal. Having always been a guy who shies away from tension-filled situations, that was like a living hell for me. Still, there were some Playhouse Disney channels that I enjoyed then and I still enjoy now. I will admit that I did like Bear in the Big Blue House as a ten to eleven-year old (and even some of the other boys seemed to as well). I thought Bear was cool. The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was a big part of my early childhood long before Playhouse Disney so I did indulge myself when it was shown on that block (never watched The Book of Pooh though). I always avoided The Little Mermaid TV show for obvious reasons (even though I did watch the movie a lot as a very young kid) but when I started to transition into my early teens, I did go through a phase thinking Ariel was hot (TMI?). Some shows I never liked even as an older person who could appreciate them were stuff like Rolie Polie Olie, Handy Manny, JoJo's Circus, Katie and Orbie (although I did think the concept was interesting), and Little Einsteins among others.

I'll tell you my absolute favorite Playhouse Disney show and it was the start of my getting back into Disney as a whole: PB and J Otter. It's interesting because the show didn't premier until I was eleven and I didn't start watching it until I was fourteen and it had ended its run by that point. Like most Playhouse Disney shows, my first reaction before I even watched it was, "Give me a break." But when I actually did watch it (although I don't know why I even did so), I ended up falling in love with the characters (particularly Jelly Otter), the setting, everything. Even though it was geared towards preschoolers, I was amazed at how smart and genuinely funny it actually was. It made me reassess my thoughts on Disney in general and realize how its films and shows could be enjoyed by all ages, not just little kids. Unfortunately, PB and J Otter is not shown on Disney in the U.S. anymore or on DVD. You can't even find clips of it on the internet that are in English. I hope it pops up again soon because I would love to revisit it.

Before I discovered PB and J Otter, I had begun to watch Disney Channel on a regular basis, mainly because I realized that there were shows on that channel that did appeal to me at that time. The one that got me interested was Going Wild with Jeff Corwin, hosted by a very funny and entertaining wildlife biologist (a few years before he would become much more popular with The Jeff Corwin Experience on Animal Planet). This show was one of the best wildlife documentary shows I had ever seen at that time. I loved it for two things: the animals and habitats that Jeff Corwin would explore as well as Corwin himself. I knew about him long before I found out about the late great Steve Irwin, a.k.a. the Crocodile Hunter. He was, and still is, a very entertaining guy, able to make wildlife and biology fun. Going Wild only lasted two seasons and you can't find it anywhere, which is a shame because I would kill to revisit it as well. Disney Channel was where I discovered a nice little sitcom called Smart Guy, which starred Tahj Mowry as a brilliant ten-year old who attends high school because of his intelligence. This was another show that I wished lasted longer than it did because I thought it was funny and charming (albeit a bit edgy to be shown on Disney). I did later watch Sister, Sister when it started showing on Disney Channel and though I don't think I would watch it today, I did grow to like it (you can call me gay or whatever but I did like it). I will also admit that I did watch Boy Meets World when it was shown on Disney Channel but I must admit that I'm now kind of ashamed of it because I realize how downright stupid and annoying of a show it is (no offense to anybody who's a fan of it).

In 1998, Disney Channel introduced a very unusual programming block called Zoog Disney. This block would run from the afternoon to late in the evening, had shows geared towards teenagers, and was hosted by robotic, two-dimensional characters called Zoogs. For almost a full year from 2001 to 2002, they also had what they called Zoog Weekendz, with the Zoogs hosting the entire weekend lineup save for Playhouse Disney and Vault Disney (the latter of which would play classic Disney stuff). The Zoogs themselves were interesting and enjoyable characters but I can't say ever became mega-fans of them. Their look was revamped in 2001, with the block now being called Zoog 2.0, but they didn't last long after that.

It was around this time that I discovered the very well made original programming that Disney Channel had created for itself. While I had been aware of original shows like Bug Juice, the first Disney Channel original series that I got into was So Weird, a show that centered around a teenage girl touring with her rock star mother (played by Mackenzie Phillips) and the paranormal activity she encounters along the way. I first saw an advertisement for an episode of the show that featured Bigfoot and having been interested in the paranormal since I was a young kid, I was compelled to watch it. I ended up becoming a fan of the series and ended up watching every episode. This show stood out from other Disney Channel original series due to its rather dark tone, particularly the second season, which had the lead teenager discover a connection between the paranormal activity she was experiencing and the death of her father that had occurred before the beginning of the series.

Another show I was aware of for a long time but didn't become a fan of until after I started watching So Weird was The Famous Jett Jackson, which centered on a teenager who was the star of a hit television series but at the beginning of the series, has the production of his show moved from Los Angeles back to his hometown in North Carolina so he can have a normal life when he's not working. I really got into the show because I loved the characters (particularly Jett and his best friend J.B.), the situations, and the constant cutting back and forth between the actual show and the show within the show: Silverstone, where Jett plays a young secret agent. It was just a very well made, charming, and funny little show that I watched basically every day.

Even Stevens focused on the constant bickering between an immature, rude, and prank-pulling high school student and his older, uber-successful and talented sister. Years before he would become the star of blockbuster movies like the Transformers franchise, Shia LaBeouf got his star on this show as the goofy Louis Stevens (in fact, he won an Emmy for it). I found this to be one of Disney Channel's funnier shows, mainly due to the crap that Louis would pull and the constant conflicts between him and his older sister Ren, as well as his older brother Donnie and his parents. I will admit that as the series went on, Louis did become more than a little annoying when he was basically being a jerk to people. I will admit as well that I did enjoy Lizzie McGuire, the show that was basically a day in the life look at three friends (two girls and a boy) as they go through middle school. I know it was perhaps mainly intended for girls but I did enjoy it, particularly for the friendship of the main characters as well as the interesting use of the animated version of Lizzie who represented Lizzie's inner thoughts. There were other original series that I just never got into. I never watched The Jersey, a show about a jersey that could transport the wearer into the body of a famous sports player, because of my lack of interest in sports, nor was interested in their reality Totally shows (Totally Circus, Totally Hoops, etc., each of which would focus on kids in different professions). Nobody seemed to like In a Heartbeat, a show similar to NBC's Third Watch that was pulled after being on for less than a year.

I also got into Disney Channel's first two animated original series, The Proud Family and Kim Possible. The Proud Family is interesting in that it was originally intended for Nickelodeon but was picked up by the Disney Channel instead. You can tell because, while not adult by any means, the show's humor was a bit edgier than what you would normally see on Disney Channel. I really enjoyed this show, again mainly for the characters as well as the fact that there were a lot of episodes that were genuinely funny. It also had two distinct animation styles: one that was rather reserved and fairly Disney-like in style and another that was much more overtly cartoony. Kim Possible was a light-hearted, action-oriented show involving two high school students who lead double-lives as secret agents. My interest in this show was a bit more sporadic than most Disney Channel original series. There were some episodes that I really loved and others that I thought were simply okay. It's also the longest running Disney Channel original series to this day but I grew out of watching the channel while the show was still going strong so I missed the last two or so seasons. Up until Phineas and Ferb, no other animated Disney Channel original series had the same success that these two had. I remember plenty of throwaway, short-lived shows like Dave the Barbarian, American Dragon: Jake Long, and The Buzz on Maggie. One other animated show that I did become interested in just because it was so damn a-typical of Disney was Brandy and Mr. Whiskers, which focused on a snooty dog named Brandy and a smelly, disgusting rabbit named Mr. Whiskers who end up getting stranded in the Amazon rainforest. This show had its fair share of unusual and downright gross moments (one image they showed behind an episode's ending credits was an orangutan wearing a bikini!) which made it feel more like something you'd see on Nickelodeon. I did find it funny but man, was it weird for something you'd see on Disney.

Disney Channel has also had dozens of original movies. For a while in the 2000's, they were basically cranking a new movie out every month. There are two basic types: totally original ones and those based on one of the original series (usually serving as the series finale for that show since for a while, there was a weird unwritten rule that none would last past 65 episodes). The first one I ever watched was Don't Look Under the Bed, a Halloween original movie about a young woman who discovers that the mysterious pranks that are being blamed on her are the work of the boogeyman. This movie actually has some scenes that would scare younger kids and in fact, it did receive complaints from parents as a result. Other noteworthy original movies that I saw included The Thirteenth Year, the story of a teenager who discovers that he's actually a merman (noteworthy to me because the kid's name is Cody); Smart House, about a family who wins a completely automated house that grows to take on the role of the kids' deceased mother; Johnny Tsunami, about a Hawaiian kid who's forced to move to Vermont by his parents and has to learn to adjust to his new life (there was a sequel in 2007 called Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board but I never watched that one); Horse Sense, about a spoiled twenty-year old who's forced to spend a month with his cousin in Montana to learn about working for a living (a later movie called Jumping Ship is actually a sequel to this but I never knew that until recently); The Other Me, about a kid who ends up accidentally cloning himself; Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire, about two kids who set their divorced mother on a blind date with a man who turns out to be a vampire; Phantom of the Megaplex, about a big premiere at a local theater which is plagued by bizarre occurrences caused by a mysterious cloaked figure; The Luck of the Irish, about a teen who discovers that he's half-leprechaun; Hounded, about a teen who accidentally ends up with his principal's dog who turns out to be a monster when she doesn't get her medication; The Poof Point, about two teens whose parents end up regressing in age mentally after an experiment goes awry; and finally Cadet Kelly, about a free-spirited eighth-grader who ends up getting sent to a military school and bullied by her mean-spirited female drill sergeant. There were movies that became franchises like Zenon, Halloweentown, The Cheetah Girls, and, probably the biggest one of all, High School Musical (ugh) but I never got into any of those for the first two Zenon movies.

There were few of the original movies based on a series that I actually watched. I never saw Jett Jackson: The Movie all the way through but it had an interesting premise: Jett and his television character Silverstone end up switching realities. I never watched The Even Stevens Movie, which had the Stevens family thrown on an island where they're unknowingly put on a Survivor-type reality show, nor did I see the Kim Possible movies, mainly because I had developed other interests around that time. I did see The Proud Family Movie, which involves a mad scientist creating clones of the family, since I liked the show quite a bit. I enjoyed it but that movie had stuff even edgier than the actual show which really pushed for something on Disney Channel (including implied nudity and make-out scenes).

What got me fully back into Disney after years of having an ambivalent attitude towards it were reruns of the show House of Mouse on Disney Channel. In the summer of 2003, I was bored one day when I was taking care of my sister's pets up at her house and as a result, I watched an episode of that show. As tends to happen with me, that led me to watching another episode and so on and so forth until I fell in love with it and decided to revisit all the classic Disney cartoons and movies that I hadn't seen in years. I've been a big fan of Disney ever since so, despite what I'm about to say next, I just want to make it clear that I now realize what both Disney and the Disney Channel have meant to my childhood and my life in general.

Nowadays, both Disney and the Disney Channel are not what they once were. I've heard some say that the Disney Channel isn't really a Disney channel anymore and I couldn't agree with that more. The use of the Mickey Mouse ears as the channel's symbol is the only thing that reminds you of what station you're supposedly watching. This change, for me, started in 2003 with the premiere of That's So Raven. While I didn't think it was that bad of a show at first, it became immediately clear how different it was. While Disney Channel's shows did focus on teenagers and middle-schoolers, the big difference with this one is that it had a laugh track like an actual sitcom. I don't know why but that just didn't appeal to me. Seeing as how I liked and became accustomed to the non-sitcom approach that all the series before had, this was a big change I wasn't able to readily accept. It wouldn't have been so bad except many similar shows followed, such as Phil of the Future, Cory in the House (a spin-off of That's So Raven), The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Wizards of Waverly Place, Sonny with a Chance, and, the biggest one of all, Hannah Montana. Before I knew what had happened, the Disney Channel was no longer the channel I knew. Gone were any references to the classic Disney characters and the great animated shows of the 80's and 90's that it used to play and in their place were these dumb sitcoms aimed at teenage girls. I felt maybe the subsidiary channel Toon Disney would become what the Disney Channel used to be (such as what Boomerang became for Cartoon Network) but nope. Toon Disney was replaced by Disney XD, which plays pretty much the same stupid crap that its parent seems content to show.

Now I know that in order to thrive, a company has to market its product to the most profitable possible audience. I'm well aware of that. But Disney seems to have completely forgotten its roots and thrown the very characters that built it out in the cold. All you see of Mickey Mouse and the gang anymore is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, the CGI-animated preschool show on Disney Junior (formerly Playhouse Disney). (Speaking of which, almost nothing is hand-drawn anymore but is instead computer generated, which just doesn't have the same feeling of character and life that hand-drawn does.) Sadly, all it comes down to is money. Even the president of ABC-Disney Television admitted that the shows on Disney Channel are meant to make money as well as entertain. You can't get more clear-cut than that. Disney, the studio that once made movies and television programming meant to please all factions, freely admits that it has now become a soulless corporation that targets the audience that will bring it the big bucks (I know some will argue that Disney has always been soulless but that's a discussion for another day).

 In my opinion, Phineas and Ferb is the one bit of chocolate in this sea of crap. I wouldn't say it has the classic Disney spirit and I do feel that it kind of thinks that it's smarter than it really is but on the whole, I think that it's an entertaining and genuinely funny show whose heart seems to be in the right place. Other than that and the promise of more traditional hand-drawn features (including one for Mickey Mouse), I have little use to the stuff Disney produces nowadays. I know I sound like an old stick in the mud but, to quote Brad Jones a.k.a. the Cinema Snob, if I want to watch something from Disney, I'll stick with the animated movies and shows of yesteryear, thank you very much.

Despite my ambivalence towards it in my early to mid-teens and my disgust at what it's become now, I do realize that the Disney Channel was an important part of my childhood. Its shows and original movies did keep me entertained while I dealt with the stress of attending a very tough private high school and for that, I am eternally grateful to it. If you were part of my generation and grew up with Disney Channel, I hope I've brought back some good memories to offset the frustration at what it's become in recent years. If you never saw a good majority of the shows I've mentioned, I would tell you to go check them out but I doubt if you can find them anymore and that's just sad. Either way, hope you've enjoyed this little retrospective.