Before Broderick

Remember back when the Disney channel was one of those channels that you had to subscribe to? We never subscribed to it but I looked forward twice a year to when they would have their free preview week.  They used to show such good stuff.  GOOD shows and actual GOOD movies (as opposed to the moronic teenie bopper crap that's on now- the last good show was Lizzie McGuire and even that was sometimes borderline lame).  They showed all the of Anne of Green Gables movies, and in fact pretty much anything made by Kevin Sullivan (Looking for Miracles is awesome!) They had Vault Disney where later at night they would show old Disney movies and old episodes of the Mickey Mouse Club (I don't care what you say, Annette is awesome) and Zorro.

Occasionally there would be a non-Disney movie on.  There was one I always wanted to see a second time.  It came on once and usually they repeated movies every few months or so- but I never caught the name of it so I never saw it again.  There was a girl... a horse... a plane crash... and a ghost boy... but that's all I could remember.

Also, a movie called Seven Alone about seven kids who lose thier parents and cross the plains with the pioneers by themselves (I'm not sure if that was actually on the Disney channel or just a movie I saw as a kid).  If I remember correctly it was the first movie I ever cried watching (not counting The Lion King which was the first theater movie I cried at).

When I was home for Christmas, my mom and I were in a dollar store and out of boredom (you all know how I love shopping with other people) so I started leafing through the DVDs. I found a copy of Rankin Bass's Jack Frost (you know them, they're the ones who do all those stop motion holiday movies and the weird looking cartoons like The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn).  It's a super sad story and one of the lesser knowns, but I still like it.  I was happy to buy it, then go to Shopko only to see the same movie on sale for $14.  So since then I've occasionally searched the movie box at the dollar store just in case.

A couple of months ago I came across Seven Alone.  I knew that one by title, so when I saw it, I grabbed two copies- one for me, one for my mom.  Today, I was flipping through and found a movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker.  Intrigued, I picked it up and read the synopsis.  It was my mystery Disney movie! There it was! The girl... the horse... the plane crash... and the ghost boy!

It's called Somewhere, Tomorrow and it's one of her first movies.  Way before Sex in the City.  Way before Flight of the Navigator (remember, she had purple hair and went to a Twisted Sister concert... where I learned that Twisted Sister isn't a She... It's a Him... acutally, it's a They).  Even before Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.  In fact, it IS her first movie.  She did TV stuff before that but this is her first actual movie.  If I'd've known it was her in it- it would have made it a lot easier to find (what does an six year old know about celebrities that aren't on Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock or some other Jim Henson creation?) Even years later when the internet was first invented (yes, I'm that old that I remember when we first got the internet and emails still took a day or so to deliver. Heck- I remember life before MTV) I tried to find the title of the movie but was unsuccessful.

I can't wait to watch it. I'm sure after 25 years-ish I'll think differently of these movies, but I am just excited to have found them and if i dont like them, I'm only out a dollar each!