A love letter to disney channel

If you’re a twenty something like me, chances are you were raised on a healthy diet of cable tv.

The early 2000s was a golden age for children’s programming. While social media was still in its infancy,
cable tv was thriving. It’s no surprise that so many beloved children’s series come from this time period
(Lizzie McGuire, Spongebob, That’s So Raven, Kim Possible, Powerpuff Girls, Even Stevens, Fairly
Oddparents, Recess, Samurai Jack).

Now I wasn’t loyal to one kid’s channel growing up, and I think that every channel had its own strengths.
But when it came to grounded, coming-of-age stories—Disney Channel had that formula on lock.

You’re not going to tell me you didn’t get majorly hyped when this bumper came on. A new Disney
channel movie was an event that got you to park your butt on the couch for 90 minutes. Just look at
how many Disney channel movies came out in the 2000s. Up until 2007, we were getting 5-10 movies a
year. That’s in addition to their regular shows like Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens, Kim Possible, Jett
Jackson, and more.

Now, when I say grounded shows, that doesn’t mean Disney channel shied away from the whacky or
absurd. But at the heart of these movies and shows, characters faced relatable issues that children and
teens could identify with. Having an alien step sister from a gas planet called zircilon is absurd, but
having to live with a new blended family is highly relatable. Having a smart house become sentient and
wreak havoc on your life is hopefully pure scifi, but coping with the loss of a parent is an unfortunate
obstacle for many children.

So, they got you interested with that whacky premise, but underlaid it with real-life dilemmas young
people face. Pretty sneaky, sis. And when I say formula, I mean it. Disney really milked this setup for
many of their movies and shows. But the thing is…it worked.

Teen girl + psychic powers = That’s So Raven

Teen boy + action show = Jett Jackson

Teen girl + secret agent = Kim Possible

Teen girl + singer alter ego = Hannah Montana

Teen boy + mermaid puberty(?) = The Thirteenth Year

Around the time the first High School Musical came out, I lost interest in the channel and never really
looked back. I don’t know if it was a lack of interest in the new shows, growing out the channel’s
demographic, or a combination of both.

Now that I have a niece, I have turned to the channel on occasion out of a combination of curiosity and
nostalgia, but I find the shows on the channel now to be very juvenile and cheaply made. I remember
that many of the original Disney shows were filmed on location and now it appears that they are all
filmed in a studio with a live audience. The shows on Disney now actually remind me a lot of Dan
Schneider’s shows for Nickelodeon like iCarly or Sam & Cat. I always felt his shows were filled up with
silly gags and were pretty superficial.
But I don’t want to stand on some soapbox and act like children’s programming today is worse than it
was before. B/c I am sure that my childhood memories are very colored by nostalgia and the shows I
revered as a child don’t hold up so well under a second viewing as an adult.

Today, for better or worse, the Internet has given young people access to so many more avenues for
entertainment than I had in the early 2000s. Social media apps have changed the game and consumer
taste has changed permanently.

The point is that there’s a lot more things shaping the minds of young people today, and I don’t know if
we’ll ever see the kind of dominance that kid’s channels had on entertainment in the early 2000s.

So, looking back, I am grateful that Disney channel used its platform to teach life lessons in their
programming. I do think in some way it helped me navigate life growing up through gradeschool. Now,
as an adult, I like that my generation has this shared experience of growing up with the same
programming. It’s something you can easily bond over and share a laugh about.