Disney+ Is More Impressive Than You Might Realize!

Friends, when I began this site one of the things I wanted to change from my days on The Retroist was to not just tackle retro subjects but pop culture on a whole too. Granted most of what I and my fellow writers share are our memories of rather cool things from the recent past and in some cases with my Toon In offerings – quite a ways back. I hope that Pop Culture Retrorama strikes a happy medium with what we all decide to discuss… but really… when talking about pop culture in general there is absolutely no way I cannot share with you my thoughts on the arrival of Disney+. Because as the title of this article states – it is more impressive than you might realize. I am positive that many will sign up for this new streaming service on the allure of the new Star Wars series The Mandalorian and let me tell you that it is totally worth the $6.99 a month for that series alone. Seriously it might be far better than you expected and while I’m not going into ANY spoilers – I was left slightly numb with amazement when the credits rolled on the first episode of that series. Disney+ has also provided Star Wars Episodes 1 through 7 in addition to the likes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and the Star Wars Resistance series plus various shorts and documentaries. The Star Wars offerings I think a lot of us figured would be made available when they flipped on the power switch for Disney+ – however I don’t believe anyone thought they would be seeing the likes of 1967’s The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, 1974’s Castaway Cowboy, 1954’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or 1969’s The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes on Day One!

That really is just the tip of the iceberg, there are animated films from the Vault such as Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion King – which yet again you probably expected. But there is also an impressive collection of vintage Disney theatrical shorts – featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy to name a few. Various Disney Channel series are available as Disney+ is obviously designed to appeal to all manner of ages which might explain why on Day One of the streaming service they have made available The Rocketeer, The Black Hole, Pirates of the Carribean, Adventures in Babysitting, The Princess Diaries, and all but one of the Muppet films. What I was incredibly suprised by was the addition of TRON, TRON: Legacy, and Season One of TRON: Uprising!

Disney+ has a pretty darn easy menu system with five categories reachable from the main menu – those being Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. So not only can you choose from 30 seasons of The Simpsons but thanks to the Marvel menu you can watch 1979’s Spider-Woman, 1967’s Spider-Man, 1994’s Spider-Man, 1992’s X-Men: The Animated Series, as well as the short lived 1998 Silver Surfer series. This will probably not come as a shock to you but among the many Spider-Man animated series offered up on Disney+ – the one that caught my eye was the STILL excellent Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends from back in 1981!

So in closing for this article, I think you see why I personally believe Disney+ is more impressive than you might realize… and this is just Day One… I’m looking forward to seeing what the streaming service will be providing in the near future.