There are a number of Disney Channel Original Movies revolving around basketball. The thrill of the sport makes for great television, even if it’s fictional. In the early 2000s, Disney Channel saw the draw of teamwork, friendship, and dramatic family pressure in the context of school sports.
For as many sports movies as there are, Disney has just as many films about singing. High School Musical melds the athletic and musical genres into one, but it wasn’t the first DCOM to do so, and it certainly wasn’t the last. Check out some of High School Musical’s cousins on Disney+.
Inspired By: Motocrossed (2001)
Motocrossed has been compared to She’s the Man countless times, but the speedy DCOM also looks like a great blueprint for High School Musical. Andrea’s dad won’t let her race, but when her brother gets hurt, she disguises herself as her brother and gets in the game anyway. This movie is a big deal when it comes to breaking down gender roles, something kids’ programs would continue to wrestle with for the following two decades.
Inspired: Camp Rock (2008)
Coming shortly after High School Musical and High School Musical 2, Camp Rock was Disney Channel’s next big music franchise. Though the movie’s setting and story differed from that of East High, Camp Rock still presented teenagers struggling to find themselves while using songs as a powerful outlet. Mitchie hides who she is in order to achieve popularity, but her dilemma starts to lessen when she sings about it.
Inspired By: The Luck Of The Irish (2001)
Ryan Merriman, DCOM king, was the original Troy Bolton (at least, that’s what Ryan says). Merriman makes a good point. He and Troy both have secrets, and they each have an overachiever love interest and a best friend with a basketball as a prop. The real clincher is that The Luck of the Irish included music, too. The school’s Heritage Day closes the movie with “This Land is Your Land.”
Inspired: Hatching Pete (2009)
This Jason Dolley and Mitchel Musso movie is the first DCOM to pick up with a setting heavy on high school athletics after High School Musical (Minutemen, another Dolley film, is more about time travel).
The leads in this movie aren’t playing in the game, but they work with cheerleaders. A secret switch puts one friend in the other’s chicken suit, and the mascot’s true identity is a secret for awhile.
Inspired By: Double Teamed (2002)
“Your future’s in sports. It’s not some school play.” Where would those lines come from but a DCOM? The dad in Double Teamed must have called up Coach Bolton. Based on a true story, this movie finds Heather and Heidi Burge forced into teenage basketball careers. Heather loves it, but Heidi has a passion for drama club. Unfortunately, she’s not as lucky as Troy Bolton; Heidi’s father shuts down her involvement in the play. At least the twins go on to play in the WNBA in its beginning stages.
Inspired: Radio Rebel (2012)
Radio Rebel is the DCOM where Debby Ryan plays a shy girl named Tara. Six years after High School Musical, this film adds to the pattern of high schoolers being afraid to be themselves. Tara ditches her mousy persona whenever she privately takes the mic to host her revolutionary radio show. This must be the station Troy Bolton listened to on the weekends after graduation to continue a career juggling singing and basketball.
Inspired By: Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off (2003)
Though it’s a baseball movie, Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off is ready with the sports-hungry dad trope found in many Disney Channel Original Movies. Like Troy, Eddie’s dad is a coach. Also, like Troy and Gabriella, Eddie needs to be in two places at once. He goes through with the home economics course he made his friends take with him, and Eddie is set to compete in a cook-off on the same day as his big baseball game. It all works out for Eddie in the end, and it’s one of the best DCOMs to follow a “competing interests” formula.
Inspired: Teen Beach Movie (2013)
Mack and Brady aren’t exactly the same as Gabriella and Troy. Unlike the High School Musical teens who create a musical as they go, Brady and Mack find themselves stuck in a movie musical called Wet Side Story. The 1960s-inspired romp takes all the flair of earlier music-related DCOMs and mixes it with a wacky take on time travel.
Inspired By: Go Figure (2005)
Cue the double-booked schedule–Go Figure is an ice skating DCOM where the figure skater must play hockey to secure her boarding school scholarship…even though she has no experience playing hockey.
Premiering on television just months after Ice Princess’s theatrical premiere, Go Figure managed to give viewers a unique perspective on two thrilling winter sports. Katelin has to make it to the hockey game and the figure skating competition on the same day.
Inspired: Zombies (2018)
Zombies is one of Disney Channel’s most recently successful franchises. Addison is a human cheerleader, and Zed is a zombie who plays football. The zombie students are being transferred to Seabrook, the human high school. Zombies proved to be a unique choice for Disney Channel, and fans appreciate that the film brings two different groups of people together and allows love to prevail.
