amelia's DCOM Adventure: Intro
A deep dive into the magical world of Disney Channel Original Movies
I was born in the great year of 2000. This can mean many things. I have seen a lot, been alive for a lot. Grew up in a children’s media environment that rivaled its 90’s golden age, especially if you were a House of Mouse.
The Disney Channel, as it was known back then, started as a premium cable channel, akin to HBO, on April 18, 1983. By the mid-90s, most cable providers had moved the channel to basic cable, and Disney followed this move with its own change in channel content around 1997. The channel began to focus more on the highly, highly lucrative market of adolescent teens, rather than the whole family. This focus shift also brought with it what would become one of the channel’s most iconic aspects: original movies produced by the network!
As recognized by Disney themselves, the first ever Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) was Under Wraps, airing on October 25th, 1997 on the now readily available cable channel to an unknown amount of viewers. Over the years, DCOMs became as much a part of the Disney Channel identity as their teen sitcoms. Their most watched telecasts have been DCOMs; some of the most watched cable broadcasts of all-time are DCOMs. DCOMs were an institution for the American Kid.
I grew up in the heyday of the DCOMs. Your High School Musicals, Camp Rock, Cheetah Girls, you name it. Even if I considered myself more of a Cartoon Network girl more than anything, late 00s DCOMs were appointment TV. There is a sense of nostalgia looking back at these films that is hard to pull myself away from. They were my childhood, but I always knew there was more than just the string of iconic (in my opinion) DCOMs from my childhood. There were over 100 of these things out there! My little gremlin brain found that fascinating, and for the last couple of years I had a mission, of sorts, to watch every DCOM. Things have gotten in the way of such a mission. Life, motivation, other projects, the works. But I have decided, why not now, find the time to run through the DCOM filmography and talk about all the different films that make up this canon, from the late 90s to the present day.. per se.
This is the part of the post where I go over my game plan for this whole project, because I am aware a couple of YouTubers have already done videos on watching every single DCOM ever made. This isn’t something new. But I am amelia, and I have my own twists I want to throw into this project to make it an interesting adventure to read through.
Firstly, the format. A time ago, I was a member of another Substack called The Low Major, where we did a series reviewing and ranking all the Pixar films named Pixar Pints. They were short reviews, having to fit the confines of a Discord message. This is the format I will be taking with this series, reviewing and ranking all the DCOMs. I am doing this because
A) Make it a much easier read on your part and not a slog to write on my part.
B) Shorter reviews, shorter reading time, multiple movies per post! There will be a further breakdown of this later on.
C) Ranking is fun!
Furthermore, let me explain what I am rating for each movie.
Aesthetic: The look of the movie, from cinematography to low-budget CGI. To the lighting to the very, very obvious era-specific motifs. They’ll all be covered here
Story: Self explanatory. The plot of the movie and if it’s, yanno, good?
Characters: Different from the plot enough I wanna give them their own rating. Where the characters fun? Believable? Annoying? Somewhere in-between?
Acting: Doing this for TV movies I doubt will give great results, but I feel it’s still important to rate.
Music: This section will become very important as we get into the more modern DCOMs (High School Musical is rating high here for sure), but this will also include the scores and soundtracks in these movies, not just musical numbers if present.
Secondly, and maybe the most fun part, what will be considered a DCOM for the sake of this series? There is the collection of films under the official DCOM brand that started with the aforementioned Under Wraps in 1997, and by the time I end up getting to it, will have Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires as it’s latest release. These will be counted and reviewed, obviously. But, there is already a couple of YouTubers and maybe other article writers who have made this same trek with the DCOM branded DCOMs. So, to be a little special cupcake, I will be covering every single movie produced by or for the Disney Channel. This doesn’t just include the DCOMs they promote these days; this will include the roughly 44 “Disney Channel Premiere Films” that debuted in 1983 and kept this said branding till 1997, right before the release of Under Wraps. I will also be including a few films that were never branded as a DCOM but were produced by Walt Disney Television (our production stand-in for Disney Channel) in some form and ended up on the Disney Channel. I will mention these specific films when we get there. The only movies this rule will be leaving out are some of the Premiere Films that Disney bought the rights to, and the theatrical films based on Disney Channel properties and were produced by Walt Disney Studios proper. So no Hannah Montana Movie or High School Musical 3.. in the rankings. The Disney Channel Show Movies and the non-counted Premiere Films will get a special “Bonus Feature” review post towards the end of the project because of course I am going to watch HSM 3, I am not insane.
Lastly, how will it all be broken down? This is going to be a long project, with close to 200 films to watch, review, and rank, and making 200 posts for each movie is, quite simply, a lot! Below is the breakdown:
amelia's DCOM Adventure: Intro (you are here!)
amelia's DCOM Adventure: Premiere Films Vol. 1
amelia's DCOM Adventure: Premiere Films Vol. 2
amelia's DCOM Adventure: Premiere Films Vol. 3
amelia's DCOM Adventure: Premiere Films Vol. 4
amelia’s DCOM Adventure Bonus Features: (TBD)
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 1997-1999
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2000
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2001
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2002-2003
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2004-2005
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2006-2008
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2009-2011
amelia's DCOM Adventure Bonus Features: The non-DCOM DCOMs
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2012-2015
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2016-2019
amelia's DCOM Adventure: 2020s
amelia's DCOM Adventure: The End
18 different installments! Oh wow! I cannot guarantee a consistent release schedule or anything like that, but I really hope you follow along, share your thoughts, and relive some of the goofiness that is Disney Channel Original Movies!
PREVOUIS INSTALLMENT: … None, actually
NEXT INSTALLMENT: Premiere Films Vol.1