While Walt Disney Pictures is the most acclaimed and influential animation studio in the world, their television shows, much like their live action films, have never garnered as much acclaim as their animated features. While the programs made by the Disney Channel do have a tendency to be formulaic (how many sitcoms has the channel produced that are about middle schoolers with double lives or magical powers?), that hasn’t stopped their writers from producing memorable content for the past thirty years. While there have been some obvious duds among the channel’s many, many shows, other shows were childhood staples for millennials and members of Generation Z.
While not all Disney Channel shows were cut from the same cloth, the key to the Disney Channel formula was combining the fantastical, or at least extraordinary (kids who get to hang out at the White House, people turning into dragons, television and pop stardom) with what is for the channel’s target audience, mundane, namely school and family life. It’s a deceptively clever modus operandi that serves as escapism while being relatable to kids. And while Disney shows tend to be comedic, they’ve given us quite the range of humor over the years - from the oddball sensibilities of Gravity Falls and Dave the Barbarian to the broad laugh-packed gags of That’s So Raven and Hannah Montana. While no one will ever claim that the Wizards of Waverly Place was as brilliant as Game of Thrones or Mad Men, these shows are awesome after-school entertainment. Here are 25 Disney Shows That Were Cancelled Too Soon.
Gravity Falls
Gravity Falls can make a serious claim to be not only one of the greatest Disney Channel shows of all time (or at least since the network’s premiere in 1983) but one of the greatest of all animated television shows. With its mix of humor, folksy characters, and an intriguing supernatural mythology, Gravity Falls was akin to a lighter, family friendly Twin Peaks, and anything that warrants a positive comparison to David Lynch’s oeuvre is worth your time. Whereas many other Disney shows ended without much fanfare or a real finale, Gravity Falls went out with a bang of a last episode that tied up many loose ends.
Sabrina: The Animated Series
After the Sabrina series with Melissa Joan Hart ended but before Sabrina became America’s favorite Netflix occultist, Sabrina: The Animated Series kept the original teenage witch on screen, at least until Hermione Granger took her place in popular culture for a few years. The show retained many of the charms of its live-action predecessor, the best being Nick Bakay’s inimitable performance as Salem, but the fact that it was an animated show allowed it more freedom to pursue more otherworldly storylines than the easier series. The fact that it was canceled after a single season is a real shame.
Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana may have been one of the most polarizing Disney Channel sitcoms, but it was undeniably one of the most memorable and widely known. Everyone knew who Hannah was and who played her, regardless of whether or not you were part of the show’s target demographic. There were plenty more places that the show could have gone, and it only really ended because Miley Cyrus was not interested in playing Miley Stewart anymore and wanted to abandon Disney and craft an edgy image for herself, much like her most obvious predecessor, Britney Spears.
Phineas & Ferb
With its portrayal of grade school inventors, Phineas and Ferb was clearly Disney’s attempt to mimic the success of Dexter’s Laboratory and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. However, Phineas and Ferb had a much lighter, one might even say Disney-esque tone, brighter colors, and some incredibly catchy tunes. While it was certainly derivative (Dr. Heinz Doofenshmintz was very similar to Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers films while Candace’s character owes plenty to Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched), it was all forgivable due to the show’s effective oddball jokes.
That’s So Raven
That’s So Raven is quite possibly the greatest of all Disney Channel sitcoms. Raven-Symoné had so much charisma in the title role (which is why she’s had a storied television career since the show was canceled) and the secondary characters, from Corey to Chelsea to Eddie were all memorable. The idea of a teenager who is able to see the future is appealing because it combines mundane and relatable high school life with a sprinkling of fantastical escapism. The show’s humor often worked so well that it didn’t even need a laugh track.
Wizards Of Waverly Place
Harry Potter was arguably the defining media franchise of the 2000s, so it’s no wonder that Disney tried to create their own equivalent to J. K. Rowling’s wizard soap opera. Disney made several attempts to build their own Hogwarts from the ground up, including Sky High, the Halloweentown movies, and The Chronicles of Narnia, but none were more long-lasting than Wizards of Waverly Place. The show managed to make a multimedia superstar out of Selena Gomez and garnered a huge fanbase by combining aspects of Harry Potter (wizards in training) with the hallmarks of Disney sitcoms - school struggles, everyday family dynamics, and clear moral lessons.
Brandy & Mr. Whiskers
Brandy & Mr. Whiskers was one of the wackiest shows that the Disney Channel ever produced. While most of the Channels shows kept in the spirit of the studios live-action films, Brandy & Mr. Whiskers seemed to emulate the shenanigans of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s. There was an anarchic spirit to the show with its fourth wall breaks and the bizarre character of Mr. Whiskers, who seems to combine the comedic antagonisms of Bugs Bunny with the sad sack side of Daffy Duck that he displays in his less manic moments.
The Proud Family
The animation in The Proud Family is not impressive but Penny Proud was one of the most richly drawn (no pun intended) characters ever to appear in a family sitcom. Penny was a sassy, kind-hearted, and loyal girl whose limits were constantly being tried by the people around her, particularly her father, Oscar, and her friends. She felt far more real than say, the girls on Full House ever did. Her father was far less adult than she was. With his constant bumbling and failed schemes, he often felt like a 2000s answer to Gilligan of Gilligan’s Island, and he was voiced to comic perfection by Tommy Davidson.
Aladdin
Over the past twenty-five years, Disney has produced several sitcoms based on their successful animated films. Of all of these, Aladdin perhaps came the closest to embodying the film that it was based on. Robin Willaims was irreplaceable and inimitable, but Dan Castonella (most famous for voicing Homer Simpson) came close to giving the Genie Williams’ trademarked energy and goofy line deliveries. And while Jafar will forever remain in the pantheon of great Disney villains, Mozenwath was a memorable antagonist in his own right, and his relationship with Aladdin was more compelling than Aladdin’s rivalry with Jafar, as the two got to build up more enmity between each other than Aladdin ever did with Jafar.
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command did not embody the Toy Story films from which it was derived, nor did it try to. It was a fun series about Buzz Lightyear exploring the cosmos in the vein of Flash Gordon and Star Trek: The Original Series. The alien settings allowed for some very creative character designs, locations, especially for its time – years before Cartoon Network raised the bar for animation on television. Alongside Buzz, the show gave us a cavalcade of interesting side characters who would work well in a feature film if Pixar wanted to think outside the box for Toy Story 5.
Phil Of The Future
Phil of the Future was one of the few family sitcoms to deal with significant issues, specifically cultural clashes and cultural assimilation. It dealt with those issues by centering on a goofy family of time travelers from the 22nd century who get stuck in the early 21st century, but it still dealt with them. The show’s oddball 1960’s style premise allowed for some requisite Disney Channel silliness (especially since Phil and his family had a caveman for a “pet”) but its most interesting elements were its examinations of cultural differences and the sweet relationship between Phil and his best friend turned girlfriend Keely.
Timon & Pumbaa
After the phenomenal success of The Lion King, it made perfect sense to adapt it into a Saturday morning cartoon, but Disney threw the world a bit of a curveball. Rather than have their Lion King series focus on the lead characters of the movie, akin to Hercules: The Animated Series or The Emperor’s New School, the series focused on Simba’s Timon & Pumba. The show had a much more laidback and comedic tone than The Lion King, which is the most operatic Disney film with the exception of Fantasia. While Timon & Pumba lacks the ambition of The Lion King, it succeeds due to the vaudevillian talents of its actors.
Kim Possible
The title character of Kim Possible is beautiful and smart, a cheerleader and a secret agent. You’d be hard-pressed to find a second-grade girl who wouldn’t want to be her for a day, even a little bit. Kim works really well as a female power fantasy and her show has an even broader appeal thanks to the hilarious antics of her clutzy best friend (and later boyfriend) Ron Stoppable as well as her arch nemesis, Dr. Drakken, a James Bond-style villain with an interesting employer-employee relationship with his partner in crime Shego.
Lizzie McGuire
Lizzie McGuire wasn’t exactly groundbreaking. In terms of story, its pretty standard. It’s about an everyday middle schooler and her relationships with her friends, her family, and the stereotypical mean girl who antagonizes her. What elevates the show is Hilary Duff’s charm and charisma, as well as the show’s endearing animated segments where we get to see Lizzie’s inner thoughts visualized. The show might not be Breaking Bad or even That’s So Raven but the charm of its cast goes a long way - it’s not hard to see why Duff was able to launch a successful film career.
Even Stevens
Many Disney sitcoms were able to launch a star, but Even Stevens was the rare Disney sitcom to launch two, or at least one and a half: the show introduced audiences to up and comer Shia LaBeouf and the future Kim Possible, Christy Carlson Romano. It also stood out because it was more bizarre than your average family sitcom - how many other shows have musical episodes that come completely out of left field or tie in movies where the characters get sucked into taking part in a Survivor-style reality show. The humor in Even Stevens was also fittingly oddball, making it more of a proto 2010’s Cartoon Network show than a traditional Disney show.
DuckTales
DuckTales is a fun, cute adventure show in the Indiana Jones mold, but that is utterly irrelevant to the fact that the show is worthwhile. The show’s ultimate worth is derived from the fact its theme song is one of the catchiest in the entire history of television. The song is built around a memorable whistling hook. In the early 2010’s, whistling hooks became commonplace in pop hits including OneRepublic’s “Good Life,” Maroon 5’s “Moves like Jagger,” and Flo Rida’s “Whistle.” This trend is likely directly attributable to the DuckTales theme song influencing a generation of songwriters.
Fish Hooks
In weird style and wind content, Fish Hooks was the Disney Channels’ fairly transparent attempt to mimic The Amazing World of Gumball, and that’s fine. Fish Hooks undoubtedly stands as the greatest show ever to feature a talking teenage clam. The show’s standard friends at school setup was livened by its offbeat sense of humor, mandatory fish puns, and the voice acting talents of Justin Roiland, the future co-creator and star of Rick and Morty, as well as Kyle Massey, the star of everyone’s favorite anime, Cory in the House.
The Famous Jett Jackson
The Famous Jett Jackson was a show about a teenage actor who gets to play a secret agent on television. It’s essentially James Bond meets Hannah Montana and if you watched it at the right age, it probably seemed like the coolest television show ever. The combination of Jackson’s life as a television star combined with the secret agent themes show within the show made The Famous Jett Jackson a rare example of escapism piled on escapism. Add to that the charisma of the late Lee Thompson Young and you had a recipe for Saturday morning perfection.
Cory In The House
As far as non-fantasy Disney television shows go, Cory in the House had a premise that was pretty out there. Victor Baxter, the chef from That’s So Raven, goes from being a moderately successful middlebrow restauranteur to the White House chef and gets to take his son Cory to work almost constantly. It’s so goofy and broad that it makes Hannah Montana look about as serious as The Godfather Part II. The silly premise feels like it belongs less in the landmaps of late 2000’s TV and more in the 1960s when similar kitsch was all the rage, and the show’s extreme as an anachronism was a part of the charm.
Lilo & Stitch: The Series
Lilo & Stitch: The Series wasn’t as heavy as the series film it was based on. Whereas the film was essentially the umpteenth cinematic retelling of Steven Spielberg’s E.T., the show is more of a kid-friendly, comedic take on The X-Files, and it works well for what it is. Lilo remains one of the most realistic and layered characters in the Disney canon, so it was nice to see her develop a bit further. Another fun element of the show was the various alien creatures that the show introduced to audiences, which ranged from a cutesy space vampire to a picnic basket stealer named Yogee to a doomsday creature who could destroy the universe.
5. The Replacements
The Replacements was a show about orphaned siblings who can have anyone in their lives replaced by someone cooler via their magic telephone. To get out of their orphanage, they replace their nonextant parents with an Evel Knievel-style daredevil father and a secret agent mother. Every other replacement the kids make works out poorly and leads to wacky hijinks before being reversed at the end of the episode. The series knowingly leaned into its strange yet formulaic nature in a Cartoon Network-esque way. It could have easily switched networks rather than getting canceled.
Recess
Of the many many Disney channel series which were set at schools, Recess was quite possibly the best of the bunch due to its large cast of characters, all of whom were given interesting personalities, backstories, and pathos. Even Miss Finister, the series’ grumpy though far from evil antagonist, is a layered personality rather than a typical one-dimensional cartoon villain. The Recess episodes that treated her sympathetically are among the show’s best. This show very easily could have gone on for much longer and its timelessness makes it ripe for rebooting.
American Dragon: Jake Long
American Dragon, Jake Long was a savvy synthesis of the J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis style fantasy genre and the superhero genre. Our hero is a teen who can turn into a dragon and journeys into a secret Harry Potter-style underworld of magical people. But of course, he also has to navigate the perils of middle school because what would a Disney Channel be without that phase of life? Jake Long was a fairly bland character, but his love interest who, unbeknownst to Jake, is also his adversary, was far more intriguing.
The Emperor’s New School
The Emperor’s New Groove is the best film Disney released since the studio’s Renaissance period ended in the 1990’s (sorry, Elsa and Anna). It’s cartoon spinoff, The Emperor’s New School, wasn’t as good, mostly because there was a pronounced drop in animation quality and the fact that the writers of School reused gags from Groove far too often. But the series had its charms, the greatest of which were the voice acting talents of jazz legend Eartha Kitt and comedic actor Patrick Warburton, as well as a spot on David Spade impersonation from J. P. Manoux.
Dave The Barbarian
A send-up of medieval fantasy narratives, Dave the Barbarian was hilariously odd mostly thanks to its narrator, who has a dry sense of future and pulls no punches when it comes to discussing the flaws of the show’s characters. The title character has the power and muscles of a certain barbarian played by Arnold Schwarzenegger but is far more cowardly while his sister is a stereotypical teenage girl from the mid-2000s despite living in the Dark Ages. The family dynamic, in the show are cute and occasionally heartwarming but the show’s Monty Python-style comedic bite is what sets it apart.
