Hidden Gems On Disney Plus

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With a few months of lockdown under our belts, we know TV and Disney+ has become a go-to entertainment source. The No-Guilt Disney Podcast is sharing their hidden gems on Disney Plus that you don’t want to miss!

Hidden Gems On Disney Plus

We’re all inside, it’s going to be a super long Summer… so we’re watching a ton of TV. 

Hey, no-guilt in our shelter in place game!

And you know Disney+ is there to deliver the good stuff for us.

What We Loved On Disney+ The Podcast

We share a few of our favorite hidden gems from the streaming service.

And as always, the results are varied just like our taste in most Disney things. 

But – We’re All In This Together– one might say (sorry, Theresa! It had to be sung! Again!)

Spoiler: yes, we love High School Musical: the Musical: The Series

 

Find the No-Guilt Disney Podcast Team

by email at [email protected]

Patty

• noguiltdisney.com
• noguiltfangirl.com
• The No-Guilt Fangirls Podcast
• Now Streaming Disney Plus Podcast
• @noguiltlife on all socials

Theresa

• insightfulllife.com
• @gertiethedino on Twitter
• @in.sight.full.life on Instagram

Jane

• @realmousewifewdw on Instagram
• @realmousewifeFL on Twitter

Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Vivacity” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) 

Disney Plus Hidden Gems Transcript

Patty 0:07
To all who come to our happy place, welcome to the No-Guilt Disney Podcast – where we have no guilt about our love for all things Disney.

Jane 0:14
We are three Disney fan girls who probably know more about Disney Parks than most grown women should – and we are perfectly okay with that.

Theresa 0:21
Absolutely.

Patty 0:22
You know it

Theresa 0:24
Hello everyone, my name is Theresa and you can find me on Twitter at @GertieTheDino and blogging at InSightFullLife.com.

Jane 0:33
I’m Jane and you can find me on Instagram at @RealMousewifeWDW.

Patty 0:38
Hey I’m Patty Holliday from NoGuiltDisney.com and the No-Guilt Fan Girls Podcast, and you can find me on all socials at @NoGuiltLife. As we mentioned last week, when we were talking about ways to bring Disney into your home – which if you didn’t listen to that episode, you might want to go and check that one out as well because we are all at home, right? You’re all at home? You better be at home. <laughter> Since going to Disney is off the table right now, this is the Disney+ episode of your dreams. I’m sure there will be more of these, because Disney+ is going to be adding additional things, obviously, as we go. And we’re getting some surprises from Disney+, which I am so excited about that. We’ll talk about that I’m sure here in this episode, but if you don’t have Disney+, what’s stopping you guys? Jump in on this, it’s worth it. We are going to talk about all the hidden gems, or maybe some overlooked suggestions, or great shows that you have now time to revisit, or some of these first friend movies that were supposed to be in movie theaters for a bit longer and they are no longer there so they’re showing up on Disney+, and it’s kind of exciting. So that’s what we’re talking about today.

Jane 2:00
It is exciting. Each of us came with a list of shows that is bringing us some Disney joy at home and we just wanted to share them with everybody.

Theresa 2:11
And as we typically do on this podcast, we don’t really review with each other what we’re going to share. We like it to be a little bit of a surprise for our own reactions. So we have no idea what the others picked. I’m very excited to hear both of your choices.

Jane 2:28
Right? I mean, we might end up with three shows that we all agree on. As a must see on Disney+.

Patty 2:37
Yeah, I highly doubt that’s going to happen. <laughter> I mean, in theory, it could. But the three of us actually agreeing on stuff happens very rarely. So I don’t know. But let’s let’s see what we have here.

Theresa 2:51
And we’re going to be doing a Marvel movie marathon too, right?

Jane 2:55
We better be.

Patty 2:57
We totally are. We’ll talk about the details to that after we share a few shows, fair?

Theresa 3:05
All right. Sounds good.

Jane 3:05
That works.

Patty 3:07
All right. So who wants to go first?

Jane 3:09
I will go.

Hidden Gems on Disney Plus

Patty 3:11
Are we all in this together, Jane?

Jane 3:14
We are all in this together, Patty. Yeah.

Theresa 3:19
I thought I’d be able to get through 20 minutes without hearing that line and getting the song stuck in my head.

Patty 3:25
<singing> We’re all in this together.

Theresa 3:27
I should have known. I should have known any conversation with Patty and Jane that would come up. Let’s be real.

Jane 3:34
So for the folks at home, I spent my weekend having a High School Musical marathon, and I didn’t regret it.

Theresa 3:46
Was this your first time watching them or were you a fan previously?

Jane 3:50
It wasn’t. I’d seen them years ago when they first came out and thought they were adorable, but I have a really hard time watching movies. I’m always trying to get distracted and trying to do 100 things at once. But I was like, “Okay, well, what am I watching?” And I knew that I’d seen them before, but I was like, “Oh, let me revisit them because Patty loves them so much.” And sure enough, there was last night watching High School Musical. And I was, of course, multitasking on my computer. I was doing something, and all of a sudden I was dancing in my chair. And I was like, I am ridiculous. But guys, High School Musical.

Patty 4:29
High School Musical! I love it. I love it. So so much. So did you just watch the the original three movies?

Jane 4:37
Wait, there’s more than three?

Patty 4:39
Oh, girl. So there’s the three movies, but then there’s also the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Have you watched that?

Jane 4:48
Oh, I watched that. Yeah, I watched that when Disney+ first premiered, I watched the series all the way through.

Theresa 4:54
Didn’t they also put out some specials to go with that, too?

Jane 5:01
I think there was a sing-along special.

Patty 5:03
Yes, there was a sing-along special, there absolutely was. Sing-along, dance-along, like they taught you the moves to the dance, which I clearly did not pay attention to because I still don’t know the moves of the dance.

Jane 5:16
This is what we’re going to do over Zoom! We’re gonna we’re going to all learn this dance.

Patty 5:26
Yep, definitely necessary. We do need to learn the dance. One other thing I wanted to throw in, this was on my hidden gems list. I follow the whole cast of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series on Twitter –

I’m glad you specified “on Twitter.” <laughter>

Not in person. But they the creator/show runner/head cheerleader is Tim Federly, and he is awesome. And on Twitter…oh gosh, it was last week sometime, I was gonna try to find his thread where he did it. But he did a behind the scenes tweet-along with the whole series. And he gave us a whole behind the scenes, Twitter thread. And it was awesome. So if you are revisiting High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, or you hadn’t watched it in the first place – A) do so, please and thank you. And B) you also probably want to pull up Tim and check him out on Twitter, because he’s got this great little thing. It was just so cool to hear some of the comments and some of the things that happened behind the scenes as the taping of the show went on. And yeah, I was digging it.

Theresa 6:53
And I did look it up really quick, because I knew I saw this – there is a special that they released in December. It has behind the scenes footage from the production of the original High School Musical film with film director Kenny Ortega and cast member Corbin Bleu. They talk about their experiences and they also meet the cast of High School Musical the musical the series. Oh, yes. And I did see that one. Yes. Okay. So yeah, if you if you are just getting into High School Musical or if you love it there is there is clearly many, many hours of High School Musical content to get you through this time.

Patty 7:26
I’m so glad that Jane watched it and she was the one that brought it up.

Jane 7:30
That’s right. And I personally would like to see a new reunion movie like Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, but High School Musical, because that’s what’s missing. I want it.

Patty 7:45
I’m down with it. Make it happen, Disney+. All right. What do you have Theresa?

Theresa 7:51
Alright, so I want to add in for all of the choices that I am putting on this list, they do all have audio description available for anybody who is blind or visually impaired listening to this and on my blog, InSightFullLife.com, I do have the full list of everything with an audio description track available, so I wanted to mention that. The first one I’m going to suggest is a documentary that came out in 2009, I think. It’s called Waking Sleeping Beauty, and it details the timespan of the mid-80’s when the Disney Animation Studio was not going through their best of times, all the way up through the Disney Renaissance of the early 90s. It’s narrated and directed by Don Hahn, who he was basically within that entire decade. He was an assistant director on the Fox and the Hound and then he produced Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. He does interviews, they have Michael Eisner with an interview in there, Roy E. Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, it’s a ton of people, and it’s just a fascinating behind the scenes view of what was happening in the animation studio at that time. So if that was when you were really getting into Disney movies like I was, it’s really interesting to see where they were when that started and how they found that that big resurgence for all the films that we all grew up with and love.

Patty 9:22
Oh, I totally cosign that one. I watched that with my mouth hanging open the entire time going, “Wow, who knew?” Is this is the one, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is this one where they talk about how basically at one point all the animators were moved off the lot, and kicked off to some yeah random place, and they even talked about – imagine if you will – not having animation in the Disney Studios at all. It was a real concern.

Theresa 9:50
Yes. It was a very low point. They clearly got themselves out of it, as we are all very thankful for. But it’s great, and I also really appreciate that it doesn’t sugarcoat some of those things, which you would imagine that in something that Disney’s putting on their platform, it’s all sunshine and roses. But no – they face some of the real struggles that were happening at the moment and some of the interviews, you can just feel some of the tension and animosity between people. It’s really good. It starts off with Elton John, so can’t really go wrong there.

Jane 10:28
I love Elton John.

Theresa 10:31
So if you haven’t watched that yet, and you love the Disney animated films, Waking Sleeping Beauty is my first pick.

Patty 10:39
That was really a great one. And after bingeing The Imagineering Story, it showed up under my “If you liked this, you might also like this” suggestions. So pay attention to those, if you are watching something you really like, that’ll give you a real good hint on where to go next. And I went to that one. I don’t wanna say I liked it more, but it was also cool because there’s all these babies of all these guys that are now like the old men of Disney animation. And I say old men, but you know, they’re not old old. But these guys were in their 20s working so young and so fresh. Big, huge names of all of your favorite movies right there when they were going through all this. It’s really good. So yeah, I totally, totally love that one too. Lucy and I were sitting on the couch and flipping channels, and I said, “Let’s check out Disney+,” and the thing that jumped out at her was something that was called Disneyland Around The Seasons.

Theresa 11:41
Yes, I’m very excited. I almost started to clap then realized the mic would pick that up, and that wouldn’t be pleasant for anybody.

Patty 11:48
Did you just gasp?

Theresa 11:51
It’s so good.

Patty 11:53
Yeah! So what this is, is it’s an episode of The Wonderful World of Color, which guys – I’m so excited that this is on Disney+! Picture if you will, all right, my little mini-me, my little eight year old daughter sitting next to me, and who comes on the screen first but Walt Disney himself. And here I am getting emotional but she went, “Oh, this is Walt Disney, Mom! Look, it’s Walt Disney! Hi Walt!” She’s talking to him. And I’m like, “Oh, I love you. I love you and your Disney heart.” But she was so excited because she absolutely has never lived in a time that had Walt Disney in her life. I didn’t live in a time that had Walt Disney in my life. So Lucy got so excited so we started watching it. We stopped it because I was like, “I gotta go record a podcast.” So we are literally in the middle of it. But what is so cool about this is they’re talking about 1965 and it covers the year at Disneyland from all four seasons. They start with Happy New Years there. And this is when it’s a small world came to Disneyland.

Jane 13:05
For the first time?

Patty 13:06
Yes! And so for those of us that really like and get excited when there’s a new attraction, and all the pomp and circumstance that goes into the Disney attractions now, well, you’re getting to flip back in time and see when it’s a small world came, and see the Opening Day ceremony for that and see everything that they did from there. Obviously they’ve been doing this since Disneyland was born, but it was really exciting to see that – and that’s as far as we’ve gotten. So Theresa, you can’t spoil it for me any further. But, but that’s as far as we got was into It’s a small world but obsessed and my daughter again, obsessed and so that makes me so happy that I am raising this little Disney-loving heart, loving the nostalgia just like I am. That was my first pick, The Wonderful World of Color episodes that are out there.

Theresa 13:57
I do want to add two quick notes about that. This isn’t a spoiler necessarily, but just so other people know what to look forward to: they do show a Disneyland parade that existed around that time. It’s really wild to see what the parades were like back then and some of the things that they would do that they would never get away with now. I’ll leave it at that. But if it’s a small world is not your thing, watch this for the parade. The other thing that I think is really notable about this episode is this is one of the very, very last things Walt Disney ever filmed. And I think when it premiered, it premiered within the week after he passed away in 1966. So it’s significant for that moment of seeing some of the final moments of Walt on camera.

Patty 14:46
Yeah, goosebumps. So good. Jane, you got anything else?

Jane 14:50
I do. I mentioned it last week, and I’m going to bring it up again, because I still love it. And there’s something called Disney Family Sundays, and it’s crafts. It’s all these Disney crafts. So there’s all these episodes where they show you how to make things and they bring in different families with their kids. And they make flower pots, bracelets, maps, an obstacle course, and every episode is obviously Disney-themed. But there’s so much that you can choose from. You don’t have to watch every episode, but I love it because I love crafting and gluing things together makes me feel stable. <laughter> So I highly recommend it.

Patty 15:41
Awesome. Awesome. All right, what else we got, Theresa?

Theresa 15:44
I mentioned this in our Dapper Day episode, but I pretty much grew up in my house with Turner Classic Movies on television at all times. Sometimes it was on multiple televisions and so you could just walk through the house and hear whatever classic film was playing that day. So I did have to mention one of my favorites is on Disney+, and it’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It’s Kirk Douglas and Peter Lorre, it’s based on the novel. If you if you’re not familiar with the story, if you never went on the attraction when it was in Walt Disney World or Disneyland, it’s essentially the crew of the Nautilus, they are going out in search of this giant sea creature that is making all of these other ships and sailors disappear. The movie came out…I want to say it was 1954, and for being something that’s almost 70 years old, it’s amazing. I can’t get over some of the the visuals, watching how they accomplished this. It’s really, really impressive to watch. And I think if you watch The Imagineering Story, they actually do show behind the scenes in one of the first episodes of filming 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But the score is amazing. It’s a very, very engaging movie. I think even if you’re not somebody who typically is drawn to older films, this is one that everybody can enjoy and get into.

Patty 17:12
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that. I mean, a really long test I’ve seen that. I think that’s a good one. That’s a good one. Something else that we started watching was the Disney Insider series. This is a new series that is coming out, a docuseries. They only have one episode out right now, and what it is described as is “Peeling back the curtain of The Walt Disney Company like never before. Tune in each week as the series takes viewers behind the movies, theme parks, destinations, music, toys and more.” So they’re going to give three unique stories for each episode that capture the magical moments and heartfelt storytelling that is Disney. I mean, hello. We have to love this one, right? This first episode is talking about American Idol, and it’s got Katy Perry; it’s got Grace VanderWaal from Stargirl, which is a movie that premiered in March, so it’s been out for a couple of weeks now; and then inside Pixar’s Onward. Now, two things to note on this: Lucy and I had started Stargirl. We haven’t finished it yet, she has not seen Onward yet. But we started watching this, and she came running in the other room at me – I had left to go get a drink of water and I came back. She’s like, “They’re ruining it for me”

Yeah, exactly, Theresa. She’s got a little bit of you in her. And I was like, “What do you mean?” She’s like, “I saw something on Stargirl where they showed a clip from the movie. I don’t know, I guess that I figured that was gonna happen, but then I saw it happen.” I’m not gonna tell you what it is, just in case you don’t want to be spoiled. But that’s the only tip that I’m going to give you on this one. We haven’t gotten to the Onward section of it yet, so I have no idea how much discussion of the plot or visuals. They’re usually really good about not putting that out there until the movie has been released. However, times are weird right now, so I’m not sure if this was always meant to be released at this time or what’s going on. But in connection with Onward I wanted to point this out for folks on Disney+: y’all Onword is coming to Disney+ April 3rd.

Theresa 18:40
I feel you, Lucy!

Which I’m super excited about because I didn’t have a chance to go see it in the brief period that it was in theaters, so I am really looking forward to that coming out.

Patty 19:55
Disney+ has done this with two of their big movies. One was Frozen II. It came out in November, but it wasn’t scheduled to be on Disney+ until June or July. It was a summer Disney+ arrival is what we were expecting. They popped that out much, much sooner because the quarantine situation. So you can now watch Frozen II on Disney+, woohoo! And then they kind of did the same thing with Onward. Basically Onward was set and ready to be released, they went ahead and and did it. It didn’t have great box office – and I’ve seen the movie, it’s not because the movie’s bad. It was just the timing of it. People were starting to pay attention and starting to take a step back and not go to movies, especially with their kids. So what does Disney do? They don’t want it to be total loss. You can purchase it right now; I think it’s $19.95 Video On Demand, on Amazon, you can go on your through your cable provider, you can go through Fandango Now; there’s a lot of different options out there. But you can go ahead and buy it now if you want to go ahead and have something to watch over the next couple of weeks, but if not, if you wait until April 3, it’s coming to Disney+.

Theresa 21:25
I’m definitely gonna be watching it that day. I’m waiting and ready.

Patty 21:32
Jane, anything else that you’ve got that you want to cover?

Jane 21:35
I do. For the runners that are out there, we have on Disney+ a documentary called Breaking Two. It’s covering the story of trying to break the two hour marathon. I watched this last week and it was really interesting. It’s only about an hour long; it’s not a full you know movie length or anything. But for it to hold my attention, that says a lot. It definitely gives you a whole other perspective on running, and I just thought it was really great. So I highly recommend that. I know we have a big runDisney following, so if you’re a runner out there, if you’re not a runner and you’re still interested, go have at it. Just hearing the stories of these athletes is pretty impressive.

Patty 22:32
I have heard about that one but I hadn’t seen it yet, so thanks for the reminder because that also sounds like a good- I’ll start watching it and I’ll feel like, “Get your butt up on the treadmill, Patty” because if they can run a marathon in two hours then you could at least be walking. Theresa, do you have any more?

Theresa 22:53
I will put in one that I actually have not watched yes, but I put out this question. I asked people what they were watching on Disney+ that they were rediscovering and surprised them, or just something that they came across. And the one that so many people brought up that kind of threw me was Pollyanna. I have never watched it and I’ve always been aware of it but so many people told me that they watched Pollyanna and how much they loved watching Pollyanna. So that is pretty high on my list of things for that I will be watching during this period at home.

Jane 23:30
I haven’t seen that since I was super young.

Patty 23:33
I think that would be a good Lucy show, so I might have to pull that one up for her. So good tip. The other one that I was going to throw out there is- have you guys seen everybody that is jumping on the Christmas in March bandwagon?

Theresa 23:56
I actually have neighbors who still haven’t taken down their outdoor Christmas lights yet. It makes me so happy. But yes, I have seen some people have been putting their trees back up. I’ve debated it.

Patty 24:13
Yeah, I mean, do what you got to do to make yourself happy, I get it. I fully get that. And if Christmas makes you happy y’all, lean into that. But I was gonna throw out that there is a Decorating Disney: Holiday Magic episode if you want to see how they decorate the Disney parks, and I think the cruise ships are on there as well. That’s a really fun episode to go and pop on if you just need a little little Disney happy in your life, and you need to see some Christmas, then I would say go and try that one. All right now, Jane.

Jane 24:51
Is it time to talk about Marvel yet? <laughter> I’m just ready for this. I’m just ready for the Marvel.

Theresa 24:58
Yeah, I’m ready for this, too. So I know y’all had kind of set up…we sort of have a plan for how this is gonna go? I know you took control of that.

Patty 25:09
Yeah, so we do have a little bit of a plan, we think. So this is what we’re gonna do. I have a list – and I will include it in show notes and I will put it in the Facebook group as well. But I have a list of all the Marvel movies in order. And this is the list we’re going to use. So don’t come at me with, “But I use this list” and “I watch it this way.” No, no, no, we’re just gonna go with this list, guys, because I got it. I got you. We’re all going to be on the same page for this. And we are going to start on April 1, that’s a Wednesday. And we’re going to watch one movie a week, beginning April 1. There’s a lot of different orders that you could choose from, and I actually can give you a different reason why you would go for this order versus that order, depending on who you are. But for simplicity sake, and because this is the order that they were made for a reason, which will become clear as you start watching the movies – if you’ve never seen the Marvel movies before, this is really speaking to you. We are going to watch it in release order. So we’re going to go in the order that everybody else saw these movies when they originally came out in the movie theaters, okay? Which means we are starting with…

Jane 26:16
Iron Man!

Patty 26:17
Iron Man. Yes. We’re going to start with Iron Man and that’s gonna be the first one on April 1. What our plan is, is that we are going to post a thread each Wednesday in the Facebook group, and you can chime in when you watched it. You can give us your thoughts on it. You can say what you hate about it, what you love about it, whatever nerdiness you want to cover in that thread. We’re going to do one movie a week until we’ve run through all the movies. And I’m pretty sure almost all of these are on Disney+. Jane, I think you knew a couple that are not. Which ones are not on Disney+ at this point?

Jane 26:58
As a this point, Avengers: Infinity War is not on, as well as Ant Man and The Wasp, but both of those are available on Netflix if you have a Netflix subscription. And then the Spider-Man movies – Homecoming and Far From Home – those are also not on Disney+. Those are also not on Netflix, but I did not get a chance to check Hulu or Prime, but you can rent them. There are definitely available for rental on Amazon or if you just want to buy them, I highly recommend it. I watch Far From Home once every other week or so. But it’s up to you how you want to watch it.

Theresa 27:46
I wanted to add in there quickly: you said Avengers: Infinity War and Ant Man and The Wasp. At the time we’re recording this, they are not on Disney+ but they are coming to Disney+ this summer. Avengers: Infinity War is coming, at the moment, it’s coming on June 25, and Ant Man and The Wasp is coming on July 29. And we haven’t done the math yet in terms of what date we will be watching each movie. So we will update in the Facebook group to let you know if we come to a movie that’s not on Disney+, we will tell you where you can find it.

Patty 28:19
Well, I think if they’re coming this summer, we’re golden. I think by the time we get there, I’m doing my real fast head math, which I’m not good at, but I think that we’re we should be good. So that’s awesome. We’ll be able to see everything on this Marvel movie marathon right there on Disney+. So hey, look at that. We did that on purpose.

Theresa 28:42
And to put in my note, because I mentioned the audio description earlier. Almost every single Marvel movie that is on Disney+ at the moment does have an audio description track that you can put on. Avengers: Endgame is the only one that doesn’t. And luckily Disney has been really good about going and adding that audio description. Every week, they add some new ones even for content that’s already on the platform. So again, by the time we get to Avengers: Endgame, fingers crossed it will be there. But I’ll make sure to update that also in the group, whether or not it has audio description when we’re watching it.

Patty 29:17
Perfect, perfect. Yeah, I know, I’m super excited about this. I’ve been wanting to go through all of them again. As it turns out, we probably just timed this perfectly. And I’m sure that Disney and Marvel are listening to this podcast and agreeing 100% that this is going to line up with their plans to release Black Widow at the same time that we finish this Marvel movie marathon, because that only makes sense, right?

Theresa 29:41
Yeah, absolutely.

Jane 29:42
I agree.

Patty 29:44
We’ll have to see how that happens. But Black Widow was supposed to come out in May, and that has definitely been pushed back. They have not given us a date as to when that is, but I think it’s pretty safe to say it’s probably going to be after we finish up this Marvel movie marathon. I have in my head that they’re going to aim more for a holiday release, like November. Maybe they’ll put it out this summer if we get the all clear this summer, but I just know right now we don’t know. So while we’re waiting for Marvel, let’s bring a little Marvel into our lives by doing this movie marathon at home on Disney+. Sound good?

Theresa 30:24
Yeah, I’m always a big fan of rewatching things when something’s coming out. It’s been a while since I’ve watched some of the older movies and I love doing a big rewatch before continuation in a series comes out. So this is perfect for me.

Patty 30:40
Awesome.

Jane 30:41
And if you guys have any other suggestions, Disney+ hidden gems, anything you want to talk about – you want to talk more about Marvel? We’re here for you. Come join us in our Facebook group, No-Guilt Disney.

Theresa 30:55
And make sure you keep joining us each week on the No-Guilt Disney Podcast, because as Patty likes to say:

Patty 31:02
It’s no fun to fangirl Disney alone. Bye!

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