Sometimes, the things that mark you as a spectator and as a person they come from where you least expect it: an advertisement created with care, a movie that you watch to pass the time and end up falling in love with, a series that no one had told you about… Or, as in this case, an hour and a half investigative YouTube documentary about the smallest and most specific thing a priori possible in pop culture: the anonymous composer of the four notes that sound on the bumpers to go to Disney Channel commercials. What a trip.
I’m Miley Cyrus and you’re watching Disney Channel
You may think that I am playing a joke on you. That nobody would be interested in 92 minutes of such a rare and specific search. That there is nothing attractive in the story of the composer of an advertising jingle. And yet, Kevin Perjurer, its author, takes it as seriously as possible, spending minutes and minutes explaining and investigating the evolution of the Disney Channel, the exact moment when those four notes first sounded and the reasons why there is no specific record of the composition anywhere.
The result is a journey through the most underrated artists on the audiovisual scene: Those in charge of the bumpers and the contents created specifically for the breaks of a channel. For understanding us, “what nobody sees”. And yet, they are small pieces of history through which we can see the change in the aesthetic, visual and even auditory tastes of each era. perjurer values all those who protect this type of material so that it is not lost: blocks of announcements, bumpers, short documentaries and even curiosities about the topics that will be covered in the next films of the house.
And, along the way, between calls to each other, fruitless investigations and exhausting searches on YouTube, ‘Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery’ it is revealed as an ode to minor art. Perjurer wonders why, despite fulfilling the dream of his life making documentaries like this or his Defunctland saga, a small part of him longs to be called a “filmmaker” or “documentarian” instead of settling for the simple “YouTuber”, in the same way as the composer of the Disney Channel jingle would like to be remembered as something else. Yes. But.
“Only” four notes?
“Any one of us, artist or not, would be lucky, even blessed, if we were remembered for a single note. What a monumental achievement it is to be remembered by four“, reflects the film near the end of the footage. Of all the tones this documentary could choose, Perjurer hits the mark by taking the least ironic detour: it doesn’t avoid humor, but It is neither a parody of a documentary nor does it detract from what it is telling. Instead, he decides to honor a hitherto anonymous hero.
I admit that I cautiously entered to see a YouTube documentary, despite the fact that the series on Jim Henson created by this director seemed fascinating to me. But the visual invoice is above anything you expect, and condemning it to a niche curiosity in the freakiest part of the Internet is unfair: this is a film that has nothing to envy to many of those that end up being shown in theaters. It is an exciting individual effort that ends in style and that asks for attention and respect from the viewerContrary to most of the videos on the platform, which are aware of being simple entertainment to have in the background or, directly, for teenagers.
Kevin Perjurer’s work is joyously adult without falling into absurd nostalgia, fun without ceasing to be respectful: He knows how to spread his passion for the tiniest things in pop culture and make you feel like an expert too. It is a documentary that makes you participate in the search, talks about you to the viewer and manages to reveal the secrets behind the scenes of some things that did not even reach Spain (like the chats between Disney stars talking about 9/11) but that, no matter how little interest you have, they open up like treasures before you.
On YouTube there is no rival
‘Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery’ is somewhat reminiscent of the fabulous series ‘The toys that made us’, on Netflix: not because of its tone or its production, which are radically different, but because of his obsession with small details and going all the way in little pop culture facts which probably do not interest the vast majority of people. But the YouTube documentary ends up adding layers on the pure and hard detective fun becoming an essential that transits more between emotional and vital self-reflection than cheap nostalgia.
It is true that if you’re looking for an outspoken critique of Disney, it’s not expressed in a direct way. You will be the one who has to draw your own conclusions: Why doesn’t Disney credit its authors? Why is there a need to turn the internet upside down to get a clue as to who invented four of the most iconic stories on television? If at the end of the video you expect me to bring the colors to the company, it will not happen: It is a documentary made from love, and love blinds for better and for worse.
Personally, the Defunctland channel It seems to me essential to understand and coldly analyze the ins and outs of audiovisual culture understood as broadly as possible, so it came as no surprise that an hour and a half of fruitless searching to find the author of the Disney Channel jingle enthralled me. You may think that this is a frikada. That you are not interested in the slightest. Which is not for you. I tell you to give it a chance: it’s free, it’s one click away, you can always remove it… If it is that curiosity does not catch you until an end in which it is difficult not to let a tear escape. And I promise you, I didn’t expect to end up in tears over a documentary about a Disney Channel jingle.
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