Ah, the good old days. This is an ad for the then-fairly-new Disney Channel from the fall of 1984. Youngsters who missed those heady days might be shocked that there’s material aimed at an audience older than seven years old. Crazy, I know!
Gather ’round The Disney Channel
It’s going to tickle your family’s funny bones, tug at the heartstrings, render them wide-eyed and immerse them in music.
You have no idea how much The Disney Channel will enrich your family’s time together, until you try it.
Month after month, The Disney Channel brings you programs you won’t find anywhere else: Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland and Pollyanna, to name a few.
The Disney Channel can bring your family everything you expect from the name Disney. It can also bring you one thing more. A little closer together.
Subscribe to The Disney Channel. Call your cable operator today!
At least we had a few good years. Thanks, Ron Miller!
I remember our whole family gathering around the TV to watch Five Mile Creek. Ah, the days before Disney decided to cater only to brain-damaged tween girls with their programming.
And there were NO COMMERCIALS. Because, after all, you had to PAY for cable TV–there certainly wouldn’t be commercials on TOP of that.
No commercials? But…but…how did people back then know what to buy?
I remember the interstitials where Mickey’s hand would make the old logo in various ways (condensation on a train window, in a tv dinner….) That was the best!
I didn’t have Disney Channel for much of my childhood because it was a premium channel (similar to HBO) and cost extra. Reading Wikipedia it seems this may not the case everywhere, but in New Orleans it was.
So sad what it’s become. Disney has always been about family entertainment, but these days that seems to equate sticking your kid in front of some mindless drivel while your TV does the parenting for you. I miss the classic films & shorts, the old, quality entertainment that the Disney name used to trade on.
I totally remember that ad!! The logo is SO captain EO! 😉 We got cable in 1984 and the Disney Channel was AWESOME! I was 8 and watched it constantly. This is back when Mtv played actual music videos, too 😉 Thanks so much for the flashback!
Along these lines, I like what they’re doing with the new Disney Family Movies pay channel. About $6/month and the variety of programming is on par with what we’d all remember from the early Disney Channel days. A bit of the new, a bit of the classics and a bit of obscure gems.
For now, the amount of movies offered per month is on the thin side, but I suppose with unlimited viewing it’s great for kids who will watch shows repeatedly and develop their favorites. Plus, the movies change each month just before parents feel the urge to pull their hair out at the 87th viewing of Flubber.
Ideally the idea grows beyond movies, with more nuggets of awesomeness such as old park specials, classic cartoon shorts, Goofy series, old Disneyland series, Mickey Mouse Club, classic Muppet Shows and such. No reason why this wouldn’t help round out their programming and drive more subscribers. Since it’s all On Demand, they could add this stuff, charge $10/mo instead of $6/mo and I think people would go for it. Then again, maybe I’m overstating the general population’s desire for this classic stuff and it’s the fanboy talking.
I used to LOVE to watch a show called “WDW Inside Out”. They would take you on a 30 min. tour of different things and happenings around Walt Disney World. George Foreman used to be a guest host sometimes. I miss it so much, I wish desperatley that Disney would bring the show back to the channel!