From the late ’90s to the early 2010s, Disney introduced smart online gaming on the network’s most popular TV shows.
In August 1998, one could simply turn on the Disney Channel and watch an episode of the reality show Aladdin: The Bug Juice. But the biggest thing that happened on the children’s channel that summer revolved around an original organization of animated robots called Zoos.
Created to promote a new youth entertainment block called Zoog Disney (which would eventually come with Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens), the Zoogs existed in an area between television and the web called Zeether. “We’re swimming in the world of data, between TV and the PC screen,” the robots sang to a funky, commercial beat. It all made sense, in the ’90s, which is why the year 2000 was so important less than two years ago.
The only problem? If Zoogs were the connective tissue that connected Disney Channel and the internet, then Disney needed a lot of new content to fill DisneyChannel. com. Previously, Disney Channel’s presence on the Internet was limited to programming systems and screen and movie images, but the channel. . . The site-specific will soon be a place that tweens can simply stop by to enjoy the full delight of Zoog and much more.
“At the time we called it convergence,” says Mary Bourke, a senior producer at Zoog Disney and the third new media employee at Disney Channel in the late ’90s. “It’s an online, on-air experience. And the focus on television You do.
In other words, DisneyChannel. com is an interactive experience based on popular Disney Channel shows.
“It’s an online, on-air experience. And the TV concentrate You Do. “
From the late ’90s to the 2010s, DisneyChannel. com was the ultimate destination for Disney Channel enthusiasts. (At one point, enthusiasts visited ZoogDisney. com, but the basic concept was the same. )What started as a booth for uploading images and videos from new screens and watching TV systems has grown into a virtual hub filled with entertainment, artistic mini-games, and weirdos. It wasn’t the metaverse, but for Disney fans, it was pretty close.
Nearly three decades later, as Disney prepares for its biggest breakthrough in video games with a $1. 5 billion investment in Fortnite author Epic Games, Inverse looks at the rise and fall of DisneyChannel. com through interviews with 8 developers, producers, and designers who helped. Bring the DisneyChannel. com experience to life.
Their game Mighty Ducks is an imitation of Pong.
A year before the Zoogs, Larry Barber, a Silicon Valley tech executive, met Stephen Wang and Patrick Lee, the co-founders of a software startup called Design Reactor, in Las Vegas at the COMDEX PC exhibition in 1997. He put them in touch with his daughter Cara Barber Hamm, who worked as an online manufacturer at Disney.
“They were actually looking for new skills that would help them on the interactive side,” Wang told Inverse. Design Reactor took the lead and worked on Thanksgiving to expand the curtain displays. “We just designed some Internet sites according to the specifications. and some mini-games that Disney Channel could use during the holiday season. “
Fresh out of college, Wang and Lee were encouraged through the Nintendo and Atari games of their youth. Their game Mighty Ducks, an edition of Pong, designed with a set of rules so that the PC can compete with the player. They created a Lion King, downloaded official images from Disney’s online page and used audio clips from the film.
A skateboarding game based on the 1998 Disney Channel original movie, Brink!
Disney Channel and Design Reactor signed a one-year deal for 1999 under which the company would create two games per week. The need for weekly games on Disney Channel was strategic. With the launch of Zoog Disney in 1998, new systems were released. It aired every Sunday afternoon, but executives wanted a way to keep their audience engaged with reruns.
Interactivity key. Give the audience the equipment to connect with the characters they’ve seen on TV. David Fremont, who was working at Colossal Pictures at the time, created the designs for those characters. He gave the creatures human, robotic, and animal traits. Meanwhile, its main theme is taken from an unexpected icon from the ’90s.
“At the time, Beck’s Odelay album was a huge success,” says Fred Graver, a former executive producer for Disney and ABC Cable. The 1996 album represents a global panorama of the sound borrowing of technology. “All the sounds related to your computer that a child would hear on this song in the same way that all those other samples are on Beck’s album. Stay there at all times.
On Twitch’s Arcade, the character greeted visitors with the message: “Hey Zoogers!They might see your Zoog call and high scores on TV. Gatherer’s Warehouz had toys, images, sounds, and printables from Zoog. Zeether’s feature page showed a friendly and lively Joe Zoog points out Disney Channel showcases sites, adding The Jersey, Movie Surfers, Bug Juice, and more. So Weird star Fi Phillips had her own site called “Fi’s So Weird Webpage,” an extension of the show’s history. Disney Channel’s In Concert specials allowed enthusiasts to take a closer look at some of their favorite bands. NSYNC, Sugar Ray, 98 Degrees, and SHeDaisy participated in live chats with online enthusiasts.
Fi’s So Weird website expanded the content of the series.
Disney Channel and DisneyChannel. com worked in combination to keep enthusiasts engaged for as long as possible, says maker Mary Bourke.
“The kids would play on the website and then we’d put their pseudonyms (not their real names) and their TV scores on a ticker, and I was one of them,” he says.
“Well, let’s think about the TV You slogan Do. Es a very different concept in a very express era of history. Until then, television was very passive, except for telephone telemarathons,” says David Watson, a former senior manufacturer at Walt Disney Internet Group. Zoog Disney presented a “paradigm for influencing what’s shown on TV. “
The site went on to host animated games through Disney Channel original movies such as Alley Cats Strike and Cadet Kelly. These games were designed for “efficiency” and “speed,” Watson says, and coincided with the film’s release. Disney Online workers and the Design Reactor team provided games with mechanics that can simply be “revamped” for a new movie without having to start from scratch.
All that with the arrival of Brian Bowman.
“Brian, the wonderful champion of Flash animation,” Watson says. “It’s huge and allowed us to do a lot of original animations online to create a delight with that that’s just phenomenal. “
Bowman, who was hired as Disney Channel’s director of new media, remembers facing an uphill war to transition Disney Online to what was then a new invention.
“You can believe the fear of the control team when we said, ‘Oh, we’re going to control the whole site with a generation that, if parents don’t download it for their kids, they may not be able to access it. ‘Bowman “I had confidence in that product, and then once we saw what it could be, it exploded in a clever way because the core user experience was absolutely interactive. “
Pizza Party Pickup, a Pac-Man-inspired game based on Disney Channel’s The Suite Life of Zack screen
In the early 2000s, Dawn Boughton was executive producer and program director of Smashing Ideas, a Seattle-based arts company that helped shape DisneyChannel. com.
“The Disney Channel team had a very transparent view of what they wanted to do,” Boughton told Inverse. “But as everything evolved, I would say there wasn’t a grand strategy at the time. It was completely iterative and dependent on the funcionalidad. de everything that was going to happen.
Boughton says his team “ended up doing the front-end design of DisneyChannel. com,” as well as new promotions and features released weekly. This included titles such as Raven Pinball, which combined elements of the That’s So Raven series (such as Raven’s Baxter’s Psychic Abilities) with an undeniable mini-game format.
Raven Pinball the psychic powers of the protagonist of the series.
Another Seattle-based developer, Jet City Studios (now Cricket Moon Media), has also contributed to a steady stream of games and sites for Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney. She has developed comprehensive interactive content about Lizzie McGuire, adding web pages dedicated to Lizzie. , Miranda, Gordo and Matt, plus mini-games.
“I can’t tell you how many dance games created for other brands,” says Nate Conlan, former host and lead artist at Jet City Studios.
At Lizzie McGuire Outfit Design, enthusiasts can dress up Lizzie and Miranda in platform flip-flops and clogs that fit their 2000s wardrobe. Other games such as Lizzie McGuire’s Dance Party and Master Matt’s Kung Fu-Rama featured characters with enlarged faces (copied from Disney Channel-licensed assets) placed on smaller animated bodies.
Clothing design by Lizzie McGuire
This “bobblehead” look also made the impression in Pizza Party Pickup, which features characters from The Suite Life of Zack.
John Say, CEO of Say Design, had been creating Flash games since 1999. His company had two weeks to create Pizza Party Pickup.
“On this project, I’m a game designer and producer,” he says. “I had another backup game designer and producer, and I think we had a coder and an artist, and then someone who did the sound, and that. In addition to trying to keep everyone focused, in Photoshop I put pepperoni and peppers on the pizzas.
Like their live-action counterparts, Disney’s animated exhibits also have their own spin-off mini-games. This included games with characters from The Proud Family, as well as many animated interactive reports through the popular spy action comedy Kim Possible.
Nate Conlan has worked on two Kim Possible games: Ron’s Freefall and Kim Possible: Shopping Avenger. There’s also a multi-part narrative game released to coincide with the 2003 film Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time, in which players can take Kim through her past, present, and future.
“You just wanted to be there,” Conlan says of the trendy taste of mid-century games. “You live and breathe this world for so long and you get so familiar with the characters. “
In Lilo and Stitch: 625 Sandwich Stacker, players had to catch meat, cheese, condiments, and boots that fell from the sky.
By the late 2000s and early 2010s, Disney Channel stars like Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and the Jonas Brothers had become virtual Disney Channel figures. Story-based and maze-based games, plus Camp Rock’s Rock ‘N’ Run and Wizards. of Waverly Place’s Labyrinth of Destiny, flooded the website.
Boughton says the Disney Channel team “deserves credit for creating more inventions in user-generated content than anything else. “
His agency, Smashing Ideas, has worked with the network on occasional systems such as the annual Disney Channel game contest and Happy U Year 2007. This WebAward-winning New Year’s Eve event featured Disney Channel stars in webcam-style windows while encouraging kids to vote. to watch your favorite episodes online and download home videos that maybe show up on TV.
The site also began to move away from its memorable character designs, though Boughton claims it had more to do with generation than aesthetics. “Keeping the photo assets low and the frame vector would mean that the length of the record would be shorter, just move faster and it won’t interrupt the game. It’s more of a game design resolution than a logo resolution.
Boughton has become Senior Director of Product Strategy, Emerging Platforms and Partnerships at Disney. For the global launch of the Disney XD network in 2009, he led the Hero Rising project, turning a fictional game in the Aaron Stone series into a true online exchange. A real game where players can take on the invincible Aaron Stone.
As always, the goal is synergy between TV and the web.
“The codes were transmitted on-air to the site’s content,” Boughton says.
While new games were still being produced in the 2010s, a structural update at Disney turned the entire online experience upside down.
“Probably a year after I was there, the company transitioned and moved all virtual production of games and websites to Disney Online,” Boughton says.
The day-to-day work of the site is no longer handled by the Disney Channel’s production department. Eventually, DisneyChannel. com ceased to exist. The deal redirects to Disney Now, which offers a handful of games based on Disney Channel’s newest properties, most of which are similar to Disney Junior.
But more than two decades later, Boughton is still proud of the paintings she made for the Disney Channel and how they shaped the internet, creating a “collective cultural experience” that continues to this day.
“This painting has impacted millennials and beyond in terms of their expectations of interactivity and user-generated content and what can be expected from interacting with a screen or with a channel,” says Boughton.
While we didn’t fully master the philosophy of “TV You Do,” that’s precisely what we did, and that’s the point.