On March 23, 1979, at 5:00 PM EST, the television landscape changed forever. The Disney Channel was the first successful attempt at overthrowing the TV triumvirate of ABC, CBS, and NBC, and opened the door for new channels like the Paramount Television Service to enter the market and led to the diversification of televised content.
The first broadcast on the Disney Channel was a two-and-a-half-hour special for
The Wonderful World of Disney. It's opening mixed the classic Sherman Brothers theme to
The Wonderful World of Color with songs from Disney movies and theme park attractions as the music was played over scenes of Disneyland, the EPCOT Center, and Disneytropolis.
Walt then came onscreen, and welcomed the viewers to the brand-new Disney Channel. During this introduction, he interacted with a variety of his animated characters, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Jimminy Cricket. Wasting no time, after some playful banter between Walt and his creations, the man himself introduced the first segment of the show: the premier episode of
Star Wars: The Animated Series.
After the 25-minute long episode (two minutes longer than a standard episode of the show), the focus came back to Walt, now joined by a guest, George Lucas. The pair talked for a while about
Star Wars, before dropping an unforseen bomb in the form of a new movie trailer for May's
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
After that, a new segment began, highlighting the work Disney was doing in their theme parks. They hyped up EuroDisney extensively, though Cascade Peak at Disneytropolis and New Horizons coming to Disneyland (and the moving of the Carousel of Progress to the EPCOT Center) were also mentioned, for audiences unable to make it to Europe.
The scene shifted again, and Walt was back in his office, this time with Rolly Crump. Crump shouldered this segment well, and walked Walt and the audience through the basics of the emerging art of game design, using
Breakdown as an example. They also teased a possible
Star Wars video game for later on in the year, to follow the summer's surefire hit,
Black Hole.
The final portion of the show brought Walt to the animation building at the studio. There, he and Don Bluth took a look at a variety of sketches and character designs for past movies and new shows that would premier on the network over the course of 1979. To close out this part, a rapid-fire montage teaser played, showing action-packed scenes from upcoming shows.
After the trailer, Walt returned to his office, and joked around with his characters for a little while longer, before bidding the audience farewell, and the promise that starting next week,
The Wonderful World of Disney would return to its regular Sunday night timeslot, this time exclusively on the Disney Channel.
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In the first year of the network (March 1979 to March 1980), six original shows appeared on the Disney Channel, alongside the weekly anthology series
The Wonderful World of Disney. In order of debut, these were:
Star Wars: The Animated Series,
Colorful,
The Discovery Bay Chronicles,
Hercules: Hero of Legend,
It's a Small World, and
Welcome to the Hundred Acre Wood. They were all popular, but
Star Wars and
Discovery Bay became runaway hits and ran well into the 1980s (till 1987 and 1985, respectively).
The Original Six Shows
Star Wars: The Animated Series (1979-1987)
This was the Disney Channel's longest-running show of all time, stretching across eight years and nine seasons as one of the longest-running animated TV shows of all time. There were many factors in its long lasting nature, including the extremely high-quality animation, the addictive and epic Queen-written and performed musical score, and the usage of the movies' actors in the voice acting for the entire run. But those were all drops in the bucket compared to the
Star Wars fever that overtook the entire decade. A general episode would focus on one of the main trio of characters from the films: Luke, Han, or Leia. Luke would often attempt to hone his fledgling Force powers, Han and Chewbacca would run covert operations for the Rebel Alliance, and Leia would be accompanied by C-3P0 and R2-D2 on diplomatic missions to planets thinking of joining the Rebels (which almost always ended in a shootout, and showed off Leia's badassery much better than the movies ever did). Usually, Darth Vader, the Emperor, or Jabba the Hutt would be controlling whatever conflict the heroes faced in a given episode from the shadows, and would always be foiled in the end.
The show, while having more than enough standalone aspects, definitely relied upon the viewer having seen all of the original trilogy of
Star Wars films. The first four seasons (1979-1982) all took place in between Episode IV and Episode V, the fifth (1983) took place between Episode V and Episode VI, and the final four (1984-1987) took place in the aftermath of Episode VI.
The show's finale--a made-for-TV two hour movie--has since embedded itself in
Star Wars lore with its final scene. Luke, Han, and Leia stand at the large window of a spaceship, gazing out over the planet Tatooine, where it all started. In a meaningful gesture, the usually distant Han puts his arms around both of his friends. Leia asks, "What's next?" Han laughs. And Luke, as the shot pulls back, says, "I don't know. But whatever it is... we just need to remember, the Force will be with us."
Colorful (1979-1983)
Colorful was Mary Blair's final contribution to the Disney legacy, as she passed away in 1978 due to a cerebral hemorrhage. The show (running for three-and-a-half seasons) put the spotlight on famous artists from throughout history, with the animation mimicking the art style of the artist. While this visual style was very unique and well-recieved, it was time consuming, and usually required Disney's top-tier animators to work on the drawings. That proved to be troublesome with the increasing demands of Disney's films of the 1980s, which eventually killed the show.
But during the show's run, it educated children and adults alike (there was no one demographic it targeted) in the works of great artists, from Da Vinci to Van Gogh and everyone in between. The episode "Starry Night" won many awards when it debuted in 1981, perfectly capturing its namesake's style.
Colorful also inspired World of Color, an attraction that opened with the rest of the Imagination Pavilion at the EPCOT Center in 1982.
The Discovery Bay Chronicles (1979-1985)
Born from the mind of Disney Imagineer Tony Baxter,
The Discovery Bay Chronicles was a live-action show (the Disney Channel's first) following the legends of Jason Chandler, member of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. The stories tied into the plot of 1974's
The Island at the Top of the World, taking place in Discovery Bay, a steampunk metropolis hidden away on the far side of the San Francisco Bay, sometime in the late-1800s. Frequently, the show would cross over with other steampunk figures and stories, like Captain Nemo and the
Nautilus or Captain Brieux and the
Hyperion, but it also introduced new characters, such as his levelheaded cowgirl love interest straight out of Rainbow Ridge, Melanie Ravenswood.
The show's production value, compared to other live-action shows on the network, was off the charts, using elaborate miniatures to show airships soaring and submarines diving and movie-quality costume design and set dressing. The consequence of this was that episodes came out only once every month or so, in forty-five minute blocks.
The Discovery Bay Chronicles also later inspired the very first cinematic universe, which would return to Discovery Bay with 1990's
The Society of Explorers and Adventurers. The show was more popular with teens and young adults than anyone else, as it was a bit too mature for a parent to let their younger children watch.
Hercules: Hero of Legend (1979-1984)
Hercules: Hero of Legend took the Greek hero, added a twist of modernity, and shook well, producing an engaging animated series the whole family could enjoy. Unlike the other two animated shows,
Hercules was handed to Tokyo Movie Shinsha, a cheap-but-effective Japanese animation company that would grow close to the Walt Disney Company over the years, regularly taking on television projects for them.
This show was also more formulaic than the others. It centered around a Hercules fresh from being trained by Chiron and attempting to make a name for himself by completing impossible tasks. The only problem was, other heroes, more well-established than he, were attempting to do the same thing. Nearly every episode began with Hermes coming down from Olympus to deliver a letter to Herc. The letter would direct the hero to go take down the monster of the week. Occasionally, other Greek gods and heroes would show up, most often Atalanta or Jason, and either save Herc or be saved by Herc from a tight situation the monster had gotten them into. There was also a "B" plot, where Hercules would try (and fail) to ask out Megara, his love interest. Loose ends to all the plotlines were tied up on 1985, with the made-for-TV movie
Hercules Faces Titanomachy.
It's a Small World (1979-1983)
It's a Small World may share its name with the beloved Disneyland attraction, but this one isn't about singing dolls. Each episode of this show (geared towards children) was shot on-location in a different nation and city, to teach the audience about the regional culture there. But each episode was unique in how it pulled that goal off. For instance, there may be an episode focusing entirely on Moroccan cuisine, or Argentinian football, or Japanese technology. One controversial episode looked into the lives of the Vietnamese boat people, those who left the country to escape Communism and the war. Despite relatively high ratings, Disney ended the show in 1983 after coming to the conclusion there were no other places to travel to, having almost visited every free nation on the globe.
Welcome to the Hundred Acre Wood (1979-1983)
The final new show of 1979, coming in the fall, was by far the worst of the Original Six. By no means bad, it just couldn't hold a candle to the others and was swathed in mediocrity. The show was aimed at small children, and featured Winnie the Pooh and his friends as puppets. Rather than using a traditional set, the entire background was bluescreen, which had a tendency to cast a blue light on the puppets during filming. To begin each episode, the narrator would welcome guests to the Hundred Acre Wood and relate to them an event that happened with Pooh or a pal, launching into a story.
Middle-of-the-road from the getgo,
Welcome to the Hundred Acre Wood was cancelled in 1983 to make room for other, more popular ideas.
While new shows were continually added to the Disney Channel, reruns of classic films and cartoons made up a large portion of the network's broadcasting library until the late-1980s, when it shifted in favor of original content.
