6 Original Shows That Disney+ Removed Forever

It turns out that not even original shows are safe from streaming library purges.

Since launching in November 2019, Disney+ has removed several original series from its streaming catalog. Many of the series were axed as part of cost-cutting efforts in 2023, with some beloved titles now no longer available to stream in a legal capacity.

Here are six Disney+ original series that no longer stream on the platform.

Big Shot

Big Shot was one of the earliest shows to get the ax from the Disney+ library.

The series, which averaged a 78% Rotten Tomatoes score, aired for two seasons from 2021 to 2022 and followed John Stamos’ Marvyn Korn, a temperamental college basketball coach who takes a job at an elite all-girls private high school after he gets fired from his job. It was removed from the Disney+ library alongside several other original titles in May 2023 amid a tax write-off.

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers

Despite being considered one of the best scripted-originals from Disney+, the streamer’s spinoff series of the 1992 hit film The Mighty Ducks, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, was pulled from Disney+ over two years ago.

Created by Steven Brill, Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, the hit show centered around Brady Noon’s Evan Morrow, a 12-year-old who fails to make the cut to join the now powerhouse Mighty Ducks junior hockey team. With the encouragement of his mother, and the help of Emilio Estevez’s Gordon Bombay, the original Ducks coach, Evan sets out to form a new team of underdogs.

Also starring Lauren Graham, Maxwell Simkins, Swayam Bhatia, Luke Islam, Taegen Burns, and De’Jon Watts, the series ran for two seasons before it was canceled in 2023, just months before it was removed from the streamer, causing plenty of upset.

Prop Culture

While the removal of several shows had been reported in the days leading up to their axings, giving subscribers some time to fit in final watches, fans of Prop Culture were not as lucky. The documentary series, which ran for one eight-episode season in 2020 and uncovered how props helped to shape and create classic Disney titles, was quietly removed amid the May 2023 content purge, leaving fans wondering where the show had gone.

Following the show’s abrupt removal from the Disney+ platform, its host, Dan Lanigan, spoke out and told fans that he was “certainly upset that they removed it.” Amid discussions that the series may have been removed due to its production costs, Lanigan added, “It didn’t have any residual requirements, outside of the short film clips, and some of the music used. PC was a very inexpensive show to keep on Disney+ (relatively speaking) compared to anything else out there… I still don’t understand why they removed it, as it was a great promotion for their older films.”

Meanwhile, movie critic Dave Lee said the series was one “that NEEDS to be on Disney’s platform,” adding that its removal was a “HUGE disservice to their history [and] viewers.”

The Mysterious Benedict Society

Just months after its shocking cancellation after just two seasons, the star-studded adventure series The Mysterious Benedict Society vanished from the Disney+ library, another casualty of the 2023 tax write-off.

Created by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, and based on Trenton Lee Stewart’s children’s book series by the same name, the show centered around four gifted orphans who are recruited by an eccentric benefactor to go on a secret mission. The series, starring Tony Hale as Mr. Nicholas Benedict, was well-received by critics and took home numerous awards.

Amid news that it would be among the long list of shows removed on May 26, 2023, writer Chelsey Lora said it was “infuriating,” while James Earl called it “some of my proudest work… Now it will be gone forever.”

Willow

One of the most upsetting original shows to be removed from Disney+ was arguably Willow.

Airing for just a single season beginning in November 2022, and earning an 84% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, the series served as a sequel to the iconic 1988 film of the same name and saw Warwick Davis reprise his role as Willow Ufgood, a Nelwyn sorcerer. Set 20 years after the original film, the show centered around an unlikely group of six heroes as they set off on a dangerous quest to places far beyond their home where they must face their inner demons and come together to save their world from the Gales.

Willow was taken off of Disney+ in May 2023, much to the upset of both fans and those attached to the series. Davis called the removal “embarrassing,” while John Bickerstaff, one of the show’s writers, said it was “absolutely cruel.”

Earth to Ned

Just over two years after it premiered on Disney+, Earth to Ned vanished from the streaming service. Featuring puppets and animatronics from The Jim Henson Company, the one-of-a-kind talk show, one of the streamer’s most unique originals, centered around the blue-skinned alien Ned, who is sent to Earth by his father to destroy the planet. Instead, he buries his shop below the crust and abducts celebrities, including Eli Roth, Bindi and Robert Irwin, and Raven-Symoné, among others, to interview them for a late-night talk show.

Although the series only aired for a single season before it was quietly canceled in late 2022, it not only cemented itself as one of the more unique original series Disney+ released, but also praised for its “imaginative puppeteering” and as “weird, funny and actually heartwarming, a formula that’s right in the Henson wheelhouse.” Ending its debut season with a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score, Earth to Ned also earned 2020 Art Directors Guild Awards nomination and was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the “10 Best TV Shows of 2020,” making its removal from Disney+ especially tragic.