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9 Strange—but Great—Disney Channel Original Movies You Forgot About

Including mermaids, holograms, and aliens aplenty.

Movies

Photo by Geoffrey Moffett on Unsplash

Disney+ is trickling its way into our daily dependence on streaming services.

This means we've unlocked a whole new world (Aladdin pun intended) of movies to watch half-attentively while we also scroll on our phones. You probably already know of all the classic Disney Originals that are at your disposal, but what about the Disney Channel Originals?

It's probably a given that big hits like High School Musical, Zenon, and Camp Rock are now available for your adult self to stream and reminisce, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Name a DCOM, and it's likely available on Disney+, including all the strange, ridiculous low-fliers you might've forgotten about. Here are just nine to kickstart your nostalgia trip.

1. Alley Cats Strike!

Anything goes in the Disney Channel universe, including a bowling match to settle a basketball championship tie between rival towns. Why are both towns so invested in high school bowling? Why do the teenage winners get to pick the name of a new school in the area? We don't know, but we're still chasing the high of that final scene.

2. Stepsister from Planet Weird

In this sci-fi comedy from 2000, a literal alien refugee is immediately welcomed into the popular crowd at her new high school on Earth, despite thinking her human form is "grotesque." Not to mention that the emperor of her home planet is defeated by hair dryers and wind blowers.

3. Can of Worms

On the other end of the spectrum of Disney Channel's alien fixation, Can of Worms centers around Mike, who lives an entirely normal life besides believing he doesn't belong on Earth at all. After he accidentally sends a message to space, he's visited by an alien lawyer who deems Earth's living standards subpar. Strangely eerie 20 years later, isn't it?

4. The Thirteenth Year

Cody's birth mother is a mermaid who left him on a random boat when he was a baby. Now, as Cody approaches his teens, his merman features are beginning to present themselves, and he nearly gets accused for cheating during his swim meet. It's just fins, not steroids!

5. Luck of the Irish

There's little to take away from this film other than a white teenage boy finally embraces that he is both Irish and from Ohio, but leprechauns and river dancing will never not be amusing.

6. Motocrossed

Five years before Amanda Bynes posed as her own twin brother in She's the Man, Disney Channel offered their own adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. After Andi's brother gets injured, she decides to fill in for him in an all-male motocross tournament, chopping her hair off and all. The sexism is abundant, but—spoiler alert—Andi can totally take on the guys.

7. The Other Me

Poor Will. His grades are slipping, his dad is threatening to send him to military camp, and he just accidentally made a clone of himself who turns out to be way cooler and smarter than him, so they switch places. Kinda like the Parent Trap, but sciencey.

8. You Wish!

The lesson this film attempts to impart is: don't wish away your little brother, because he might instead become a child TV star and make your life even more of a living hell than it was when you lived under the same roof.

9. Pixel Perfect

The perfect pop star doesn't exist, until, of course, you make a hologram of her. Loretta Modern might have been programmed to become an overnight sensation, but she just wants to be a regular human, damn it! She ends up being helpful in more ways than one, but like all modern technology, she can't last forever.

Maybe they didn't all make total sense, but there's a reason DCOMs became such an integral part of growing up in the 2000s. DCOM creators conceived some of the strangest, most fringe ideas, and served them to a market that didn't mind how nonsensical they were; pair that with Disney Channel's omnipresence in the typical middle-class American household, and these oddly lovable films serve as a timestamp for an era.

From Your Site Articles

The "Lizzie McGuire" Revival Is Getting Closer, but Where's Miranda?

Will she rejoin the cast after her long absence, or will the show go on without her?

Lizzie McGuire, Disney

Lizzie McGuire, the classic Disney Channel series starring Hillary Duff, is officially being given new life on the Disney+ streaming service, to the delight of nostalgic fans.

More than 15 years after the original show's run, pictures of Duff reuniting with co-star Adam Lamberg—AKA Gordo—have sparked excitement across the internet, but the fanfare has tended to overlook one critical question. Where is Miranda?

— (@)

In the core series, you would not find Lizzie and Gordo hanging out at The Digital Bean without the third member of their group, Miranda Sanchez. That is, up until the last six episodes, from which she was entirely missing. Miranda's sudden absence was attributed to an indefinite family trip to Mexico; but in reality, Lalaine Vergara-Paras, who portrayed Miranda, was doing other work for Disney—touring with Radio Disney and shooting the Disney Channel movie You Wish! in New Zealand. Her absence extended to the 2003 Lizzie McGuire Movie, but will she still be missing for this long-awaited revival?

miranda annoyed

The answer is....unclear. She has previously expressed interest in the concept of a reunion show, but she hasn't yet been confirmed for the Disney+ project. Does her fraught legal past factor into Disney's plans for the show?

Like so many child stars before her, Lalaine's early fame and success led to some bad decisions in what she now refers to as her "dark years," culminating in a conviction for possession of methamphetamine in 2007. She and Hilary Duff lost touch during this time, leaving behind their real life friendship. Is that estrangement to blame for the fact that Miranda is still missing, or is Disney just protecting their brand? This is hardly the first time their squeaky-clean image has come into conflict with one of their star's personal lives—they are, after all, in the business of making child-stars—but with a reunion show starring the original cast now in their 30s, concerns about presenting good role models seem like a bit of a stretch.

Another possibility is that Vergara-Paras' recent comments about whitewashing in Hollywood were not well-received at Disney. When she wrote this April that throughout her childhood she was "forced to look as 'white' as possible," it was hard not to see that as a criticism of Disney, where she worked from a young age under the mononym Lalaine—having dropped Vergara-Paras as "too ethnic." If this was perceived as an accusation of misconduct, it may have ruffled some old white feathers at Disney.

Then again, all this scandalous speculation is overlooking a more innocent possibility. Maybe Hilary Duff and Disney are just teasing us. As recently as October, Vergara-Paras was sharing screenshots of texts from co-star Adam Lamberg. It's entirely possible that she is already signed on and getting ready to reprise her role, but we won't find out until they want us to know. If they think they can get some more press by spreading out their news and their cast reunion photos as they ramp up for the new show, then they will use our nostalgia against us and keep adding drips and drops of news until all of pop culture is consumed by the wild speculation of Lizzie McGuire fandom.

Will Clayton Snyder be spotted next week wearing Ethan Craft's signature surfer necklaces? Are Matt and Lanny going to perform "Long Tall Sally" at the Grammys? Are we doomed to get one step closer each and every day? Curse you, Disney! You have used me in your nefarious plots for the last time!