Now introducing: a four-year anniversary surprise!
It’s more newsletter coming to your inbox because you didn’t have enough already!
Do you want to hear something kinda crazy? This newsletter is already FOUR years old! I started this whole thing in April 2021 as a little project to make sure that I write at least something once a week (and have an audience to keep me accountable). I’ve written about a lot of stuff: mascots, astrology, movies, more mascots, grief (also mascot related) and there’s still a ton more I still want to write about.
There’s one thing I haven’t talked much on my Substack even though it’s something I’m so passionate and knowledgeable about, and that is Disney Channel Original Movies. The old ones, the new ones, and all the ones in between. Years ago, I started a podcast with one of my college friends where we set out to watch every single DCOM out there and discuss one movie at a time. We made it to about seven episodes (the lifespan of most new podcasts) when life got in the way and the project fizzled out. I’ve kept all my DCOM discourse locked away in the noggin in case we started the podcast up again, but it’s been six years so I think the statute of limitations on this kind of thing is up.
I do want to do a (audio-only) podcast again someday, but not about DCOMs. I think the DCOM podcast is done for me. Instead, I’m going to take on the project of watching every single Disney Channel Original Movie and talk about each one on this very Substack. It’s the perfect situation: you’re already following me and it’s much easier for me to write essays then try to figure out how to record myself talking where you can’t hear Cubs fans walking around outside in the background.
For those of you who don’t know what a Disney Channel Original Movie is, it is a series of straight-to-television movies that aired on Disney Channel and was branded as a Disney Channel Original Movie. The first movie under the DCOM label is Under Wraps, released in 1997. That’s not technically the first movie that premiered on Disney Channel though. They’ve been making them since the channel began in 1983, but those were Disney Channel Premiere Films and they’re pretty forgettable—in that I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. (Fun fact: a lot of people think that My Date with the President’s Daughter was a DCOM but it was in fact a part of the revival of “The Wonderful World of Disney” on ABC Family.)
A true DCOM also had to premiere ON the Disney Channel and not have a theatrical release. That means that beloved childhood films like The Lizzie McGuire Movie, The Hannah Montana Movie, and High School Musical 3 are NOT considered DCOMs. Will I write about them regardless? Probably.
Also because we live in the age of streaming, Disney Channel as we know it is dead. It died in 2023 and is now just a part of the Disney+ streaming service so any movie that kinda fits the DCOM brand is now just called a “Disney Original Movie.” Those will probably also be covered because it includes Descendants 4 and I really have a lot to say about that movie. I once sat my friends through ten hours of film just so they could see Rita Ora as the Queen of Hearts.
In total, there are 114 DCOMs and five and counting Disney Original Movies. This means that if I successfully watch one movie and write one essay every week, this project will take over two years of my life. Considering I’ve already done a newsletter a week (with some breaks) for four years, I’ve already committed myself to ruining my Sundays with the adult homework I give myself. Why not give myself more? I’m nothing if not an overachiever.
For some insight into why DCOMs take up so much real estate in my brain as a woman in her thirties, it mostly comes from that time that I was unemployed after graduating college in 2016 and I went to go visit my friend in Chicago and we watched High School Musical 2 (the best one) and then I was like, “Wow! These movies that I loved as a small child and preteen are actually very fun and my brain can’t handle adult shows while I’m stuck in my childhood bedroom failing to be a functional adult!” Then I started writing more and doing comedy and lost my ability to shut the fuck up about anything—and now we’re here.
Is this another example of the epidemic of nostalgia-obsessed millennials? Is it weird that I’m a 30 year-old watching more movies meant for children than new movies made for adults? Does this make me a Disney adult? I would like to say no to all three, and you can keep any other thoughts to yourself.
So look out in your email inboxes for more posts by me from this very same newsletter. I’m thinking that they’ll go out on Wednesdays or Thursdays, but it’s all subject to change as usual.
Thank you for your support and reading my work! There’s a good chance there’s still another four years of writing in me to go.