Today is the fourth year anniversary of Save Disney Shows. The past four years have been quite a journey, and much more than I would have ever imagined.

Four years ago, I was a college freshman about halfway into my first term. I had been helping and then running SaveKimPossible.com for the past several months, and was already in awe of the contacts we had made (Bob & Mark), and the number of members MKP had (at the time, maybe 150). But this new project was to expand my world in ways I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

A lot of people don’t know it, but the ideas of SDS was really Tucsoncoyote’s idea. Before that point we where focused exclusively on KP, but Tuc to his credit saw the need to work for more than just KP. But we’ll get to that later.

Four years ago, Kim Possible was squarely the goal. And between Adam and myself, we established the SKP section of SDS and formed much of the navigational structure we still use today. Sometimes I wish we had planned it all out a little more, but the site grew as ideas for it where made, and plans weren’t really applicable.

I know that for myself at least, the fight for KP really rekindled my love of the Walt Disney company, which might sound strange considering the fact that we where “fighting” against it. In actuality, any successful campaign is not really a fight. It is much more a persuasion, perhaps even a seduction. In order to get more KP we had to convince them they wanted to continue it, not that we’d boycott them if they didn’t.

Our high point came in 2005 when our primary purpose was fulfilled. Namely, KP was renewed for a fourth season. Unfortunately, saving the show caused some real problems on the site! For only days later, we learned that Phil of the future had been canceled. My reaction was to quickly spring into action, organize fans, and try to quickly mount a campaign to save the show. Adam, well, didn’t much care. I mean, yes he cared about the fans, but he didn’t want to directly help as it was up to the Phil fans to save their show (paraphrased). It was the start of a major rift, and everyone knows how that ended.

Today, on it’s fourth year anniversary, Save Disney Shows is at a cross roads and when I think about it, so am I. Our mission statement has been laid out on the main page ever since SDS’s founding. And while it had been revised over the years, the basis stays the same. We’ve never been able to get Disney to acknowledge the 65 episode rule, but we’re fairly sure it’s time is over. And while DC still doesn’t play any of the classic 90s shows, they are being released on DVD. And while some fans continue to fight for Phil, or Jake Long, or even Stitch it is apparent that this site has always been focused around the fight for KP’s fourth will have to further evolve as the Disney Channel and Disney company evolve.

I for one look forward to helping guie fans of current and future Disney shows, not simply when programs end, but before that time, as a sort one one stop destination for information about the status of all Disney shows. And perhaps we can help the hard core animation lovers get over their loathing of High School Musical. And maybe we can get the Hannah Montana fans to appreciate American Dragon Jake Long. If there’s one thing the past four years have taught me, it’s that the Internet is a very powerful tool for bringing people together.

We’ve done a lot in four years, but really, we’re just getting started.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Disney News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.