I posted this in the Progress City Twitter feed earlier (subscribe today!) but felt that it might be too easily missed. There’s a ton of Disney-related programming on various cable and broadcast nets this week, and even the irritating ones might at least give a good peek or two at the parks. All the details can be found at Kirby Bartlett-Sloan’s weekly Disney television listing.
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Disney Television Bonanza6 comments to Disney Television BonanzaLeave a Reply |
 From the Progress City archives comes this collection of 33 tall tales and true from Disney history. Available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats.  |
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What’s particularly sad is that so many of these shows would have been so much better on The Disney Channel.
You know, a whole hour show about Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon instead of a two minute segment in a show mostly about cheesy parks in Tundra Bog, Wisconsin. Or at least the ability to enjoy the show without the fifty-eight Billy Mays “I’M SCREAMING TO SELL YOU CHEAP CRUD” commercials for combination dental picks & ear wax cleaners you get on cheesy cable. Or at least something other than the endless parade of tweener zitcom’s posing as television.
Please – put DISNEY back into The Disney Channel!
You said it. The same could be said for last weekend, when I wound up watching a ton of old Disney live-action films on TCM and Hallmark.
It’s so bizarre that they let all these other channels make their hay off of showing Disney parks. Well, at least Disney Channel isn’t showing the reprehensible Jon and Kate, at WDW or not…
It’s a lot of the typical Disney corporate shenanigans going on.
Attractions understands how incredibly valuable the shows on Travel Channel, etc. are to the parks. It’s not only free advertising, but they paint the parks as real destinations and in the most favorable light possible too. But having no budget to produce the shows on their own and with huge hostility from Corporate (unlike the days when Glen Campbell could wander past the Clinkers underneath the monorail), Attractions basically has to pimp themselves out to anyone with a high-def camera and a cable deal.
Meantime, The Disney Channel has been designated as the ONLY area within the company allowed to create “original” content. With the recent regime change, word has been going out that all Studio productions will have to be based on properties with “pre-awareness” – i.e. books, comics, remakes that can be turned into franchises. Today’s example is the unnecessary rehash of ‘The Black Hole’. The only reason this movie is being remade is because…it’s a remake.
Fear of failure has been the driving force behind Disney in the post-Frank Wells era and now it’s reached such a fevered level that even suits within the company are shaking their heads in disgust (okay, not many, but a few anyway).
Even the Disney Channel is feeling the pressure. Disney is running around (like the rest of Hollywood) buying up any tweener concept about magic, vampires, and great abs just because of the success of ‘Twilight’. They’ve already bought a set of books, set in New Orleans (I forget the title). The Channel also has to find a replacement for ‘Hanna Montana’ quickly as she and the Jonas Brothers have rather flopped as a franchise. That’s also leading Disney to turn away from “personality” based shows (because they get real expensive real fast) and more to “situational” projects that relay more on a high concept (or, gimmick) rather than talent. Hence – find today’s hot concept like ‘Twilight’ and come up with a quick, cheap knock off.
The Channel, rather than being a key player in supporting other areas of the company, is now the primary creative engine inside Disney. They are now responsible for generating the franchises to supply park attractions, hit soundtracks, and lunch boxes.
The culmination of these insanities are the whispers of the ‘Young Princes’ series which would take a character like Aladdin or one of the classic Princes and recast them as a young stud action hero. But even this is a knock off of a “early adventures of Jack Sparrow” concept that had been floated as a follow-up trilogy to “Pirates”. Young Princesses would attract boys and tweener girls to the Princesses line that is driving through the companies ancillary businesses (consumer products, theme parks, etc.).
There’s so much recycling and redigestion going on around the company these days that soon Disney will have to get Mike Rowe to host their cable shows.
It has been tough to find real behind-the-scenes shows or in-depth shows that really go into the belly of Disney parks. I can’t express enough how upset I was when I got my Disney Vacation Guide DVD and it had absolutely NO info in it!!! It was just “Hey look, these people are happy!” The best thing to this date is still Modern Marvels look at the Disney Parks. I want more of that! In fact, I’m surprised there aren’t more behind-the-scenes tours that would work like Modern Marvels where you could do something like see Space Mountain with the lights on. Heck, a hidden mickey tour would be great! There are all these books on the “secrets of Disney”. Why aren’t there tv shows on that??? Also, if we are doing Disney Channel, I want another channel that is simply live feed from cams placed around the park. Maybe some POV rides as well. That way I can enjoy Disney from 1000s of miles away. The shaky and dark POVs out there aren’t that great.
Are there any Disney neverworlds TV specials? All “Behind the Scenes” specials are rather disappointing.
Not that I know of… they really need to make one. I’ll volunteer to write it – Disney, you interested? 🙂