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Saturday Disney flashes back

In the lead up to its 1000th ep, this week Saturday Disney looks back on former hosts including Sofie Formica, Shelley Craft, and Sara Groen.

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Saturday DisneyNext week Saturday Disney will celebrates it’s 1000th episode, so to celebrate this week hosts Shae, Sally and Jack look back over the past 19 years. Once again that’s 19 years!

They’ll revisit former hosts including Sofie Formica, Marc Buhaj, Shelley Craft, Daniel Widdowson and Sara Groen.

There will also be some retrospective highlights (and hopefully some bloopers?).

And there’s  includes a sneak peak and interviews with the creators of the soon to be released Disney movie UP!

The following week sees the team at Disneyland -of course.

It kicks off 6:30am this Saturday on Seven.

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  1. I’m really excited about this – wish they’d had flash-backed earlier than this! I’ve grown up watching this show… it hasn’t been the same since Shelley and Mel left, but before that it was great, especially with all the classic Disney cartoons, not the crappy live acion tween comedies today.

    David Franken, I am so interested in hearing more from you! Wow! That’s exactly what it felt like. Maybe thats why when they ‘moved house’ to the second set in 2000 it felt different. When did the show move to Sydney? 1999? As that was the end of the first house.

    Can’t wait for tomorrow! It’s gonna be a trip down memory seeing Jeniene, Lisa, Mark, Shelley, Mel and the others again. I recently re-did their Wikipedia page.

  4. @Ryan – those are the unajusted figures, due to Today not airing in Brisbane on that day. 9 Brisbane received alternative programming that day. Since then, Today has pulled away with big wins over SD.

    Saturday Sunrise is definately starting up soon. 7 won’t allow 9 any news advantage, since 7 now dominates all other news slots across the week.

  5. If a Saturday version of Sunrise is created (which I hope to God that it is not), Saturday Disney wouldn’t be axed> it’ll most likely move to 9am to compete with Kids’ WB.

  7. @Ryan – Today has been beating Saturday Disney for the past month.

    After an initial slow start, Today is growing and SD is falling.

    We will be seeing Saturday Sunrise either later this year or at the start of next years ratings.

  9. @ Selma – That’s not quite true… Saturday Disney isn’t always beaten by Today and it airs at a different timeslot. It does quite well considering the 6:30am start!

  10. I was the Program Director at Channel Seven Brisbane when part of the Network’s output deal with Disney was that Seven was required to create a children’s show featuring their new animation series [Ducktales and others] as part of an international series of local productions named The Disney Club[s]. Brisbane was chosen as the location for the national show because our Sunday Night’s Wonderful World Of Disney was the highest rated in the network, and the then Network head of programming, Glen Kinging, called Channel Seven Brisbane ‘The Disney Channel’.

    The Disney Executive from Burbank, David Snyder, wanted the new show to be called The Disney Club – as elsewhere in global markets. I persuaded him that we needed a ‘hipper’ title for Australia than a variation of ‘The Mickey Mouse Club’, which was somewhat old-fashioned. We spent a very funny day playing around with alternate titles, and during one car trip back to the city, in frustration, we fell about in hysterics when I suggested ‘Mouse Vomit’. Eventually I persuaded him to the title ‘Saturday Disney’. And also the concept of a tiny clubhouse/cubby house built with a verandah and corrugated iron roof to reflect the Queenslander syle of architecture, with a front yard and picket fence where guests could gather.

    The concept was that young viewers would feel like they were visiting a friend’s house on a Saturday morning. The network also asked me to program the cartoon content, which I did for years to come. I also played a major role in the selection of the original hosts.

  13. I loveddddd this show!! bak in the day 🙂 Its not the same now, like the shows they put on now and diffrent hosts.. but still 1000 eps they have prac been around for 2 genrations of kids, I stoped whachin around the time Shelly left not cause of her leaving it was just around the time I grew out of it and never got up early anymore hahaha.

  14. Mel, Shelley, Dan and Sara were all lovely. In fact everyone who was on the show at any point Shelley was on were great.

    Loved Dan, he was sooo gorgeous and I don’t get to see him on TV anymore.

  15. I hope they catch up with original hosts (alongside Sofie Formica) Janine Mapp and James Sherry.

    @Tepee that would be Mel Symons

    @Kuttsywood Do you mean the Super Saturday Show with Agro, Gibbo, Crikey The Clown et al? That show was national (and, yes, shot in Brisbane). I still remember the theme song – I really love my S S S, oh yes, yes, yes …

  16. @ franz: the team visited Hong Kong Disneyland last year, but the show was not shown live. The early starting time of Saturday Disney, the logistics and the time difference between HK and east coast of Australia mean a live telecast is not possible.

  18. I remember about ten years ago watching Saturday Disney with Shelley, Daniel and that other woman (the name escapes me!) who ended up as a presenter on Seven’s short-lived Ground Force. Good entertainment as a kid.

  23. Well done Saturday Disney on a fantastic 19 years. It’s great to see that you’re revisiting the past presenters. Afterall, they made SD what it is today. No doubt the show will be here for many more years to come. I’m guessing it’ll never get axed! Hopefully they can bring back some good cartoons such as Tarzan and Disney’s Recess. I remember waking up to those shows every saturday morning, and my parents yelling at me to stop watching cartoons and go to bed!

  25. I think it would have been better, to run the 1000th ep out of BTQ’s Studio 1, as a tribute to where Sat Disney was first produced in 1990, shared with the 1990’s 7 version of Family Feud.

    But will Seven Brisbane use this as a idea for a clever flashback on Sunday night, incorporating not just Saturday Disney, but it’s Brisbane-only predecessor, Seven’s Super Saturday?

    Now, how many trips have they made to Disneyland, in that entire run?

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