BACKGROUND
Nowadays, within the huge catalogue of Disney Channel Original Movies, the films that are generally remembered and treasured the most are the musicals.
Yet, if you are a true Disney Channel fan, you’ll know that there have been plenty of great DCOMs that are not musicals but are still just as memorable, especially if you watched them at a young age. Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off is just one of these for me.
Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off combines two things that adults like to force on all children if they can: cooking and sport, baseball in this case. Cooking, at least at a basic level, is necessary to ensure that kids grow up to be self-sufficient adults – even if that’s only being able to cook pasta or eggs; they will at least keep you alive. Sport teaches you about teamwork, as well as the importance of keeping fit and active.
I never liked sport and wasn’t any good at it since I’m only five foot tall now. I was even shorter whilst at school, so I was never going to excel in that area. Most of my P.E. teachers took pity on me, saw I was trying, and didn’t push me, which I was thankful for, but even in a game of rounders – the closest equivalent the British school system has to baseball – I couldn’t even run to first base before being told I was “out”. I showed some aptitude for cooking, however, I don’t like to touch raw meat, believing I’ll get e-coli or salmonella on the rare occasion I do, even if I wash my hands ten times in scalding hot water, so that avenue was blocked off to me as well.
With all that in mind, you’d think Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off wouldn’t interest me. Though the baseball portions of the film certainly don’t, I have always enjoyed Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off for its cooking scenes. Eddie Dogs, the lasagne, the soufflé, that weird purple barbeque sauce, all looked so good through the screen.
But Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off isn’t just about cooking and baseball. It has a much more important message at its heart and that is the importance of allowing people to be what they want to be.
PLOT
Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off begins with preparations being made for the new baseball season. The field is ready, the food vendors are ready, and the team, the Groundhogs, are warming up. It turns out the Groundhogs aren’t exactly the best team in their league though, as two twin players fight on the ground, another player trips on her untied shoelaces, and another hits a ball straight into a hot dog cart, destroying most of their food supplies. But the team has one hope: Eddie, the star player, who happens to be the coach’s son too. There is also Hannah, the best female player on the team, whose mother thinks she’s at the baseball field to be the Groundhogs’ cheerleader.
As expected, the Groundhogs lose their first game. But Eddie has perfected the best way to console the team after their defeats: by making his famous loaded hot dogs, Eddie Dogs. As Eddie and his friends, D.B. and Frankie, chow down, they are tormented by players from the rival team the Eagles. Eddie says they should do whatever it takes this season to finally beat them and win the playoffs.
At Eddie’s house, D.B. and Frankie plan to watch a baseball game on TV, but Eddie’s brothers want to make it difficult for them. As the others fight over the remote, Eddie becomes distracted by a cooking show. His father tells him that he needs to focus on baseball. A college scout has been spotted watching players from the Eagles so it’s only a matter of time before the scout comes to see Eddie. Eddie’s mother tells Eddie’s dad not to put so much pressure on him with his baseball career, and then slices her finger open as she’s making dinner. Eddie’s parents and brothers go to the hospital to get it taken care of, with Eddie being asked to put the food away. Instead, Eddie has the idea of cooking all of it, and, with the help of his reluctant friends, they successfully make fried chicken, surprising everyone when they get back. Despite the food looking strange – the fried chicken has sugary cereal on it and the gravy is pink – everyone loves it. But it’s not long before the teasing starts, with Eddie’s brothers calling him “Edwina” and “Eddie Crocker” …
The next day at school, Eddie’s year have to sign up for a new elective class. Eddie has been told by his brothers to sign up for Computer Science because it’s meant to be an easy class. It turns out that signing up for these classes isn’t going to be simple because the sign-up sheets are being crowded around. Eddie throws himself in to the sea of kids and grabs the Computer Science clipboard. He also grabs the Home Economics clipboard, having been amazed by the classroom earlier on. He covers up the class name and passes a clipboard to his friends to sign their names on. It turns out they’ve all signed up for Home Economics, much to Frankie and D.B.’s horror. To make matters worse, Hannah from the Groundhogs is also here, having chosen Home Economics to appease her mother.
Also in this class is the overly prepared and uptight Bridget, who takes cooking very seriously and warns the boys not to interfere with the class. Mrs. Hadley, the enthusiastic Home Economics teacher, welcomes the class and informs them all about the Million Dollar Scholastic Cook-Off, where students compete to win scholarships to culinary schools. Bridget is immediately interested and takes a flyer. Eddie appears interested but doesn’t take a flyer until after class when everyone has left. Hannah sees but says nothing.
That night, Eddie starts to come up with ideas for his Cook-Off recipe entry. After many attempts that all taste horrible, Eddie gets the idea of making a peanut butter and jelly smoothie, but the blender lid comes off and the mixture spills out everywhere. That’ll take forever to clean up… He’ll have to figure something else out another day instead.
In their next Home Economics class, Eddie tries to secretly talk to Bridget about the Cook-Off but is overheard by D.B. To change the subject, Eddie throws batter at D.B. which results in a food fight taking place. The principal comes in to give them all detention and the students are told to clean up the room. As they are doing this, Frankie, Eddie, D.B., and Hannah come across a bowl of purple sauce. Frankie immediately tastes it, disgusting the others, but apparently, it’s good. The others all try it and agree; it is good. This gives Eddie a new idea for his Cook-Off recipe, and that night, he recreates this sauce.
But just when Eddie thinks he’s got his recipe sorted, he hears Bridget stressing about the measurements in her Cook-Off recipe. It turns out the judges will need precise measurements, something Eddie hasn’t done. He rushes home to fix it, and his mother arrives home at the same time. He tells her all about the Cook-Off and she is happy to help him with the recipe, though they both agree to keep this a secret from Eddie’s father.
At school the next day, during Home Economics, Mrs. Hadley announces that both Bridget and Eddie are finalists in the Cook-Off. D.B. is annoyed that Eddie wouldn’t tell him, with Eddie lying to say he entered as a joke just to keep the peace. Eddie’s father and brothers both find out about the Cook-Off after Mrs. Hadley calls them to congratulate Eddie. The brothers tease Eddie and his father is clearly confused. At school, things don’t get better for Eddie as he is mocked by others in his year group. To make matters worse, he is also called into extra lessons with Mrs. Hadley and Bridget to prepare him for the Cook-Off, which takes him away from his baseball commitments, making him late to games, distracted during games, and even told to go home during a game by his dad.
Eddie later finds out that should the Groundhogs make it to the playoffs, he’ll have to choose between the game or the Cook-Off because both are on the same day. This leads to an argument with D.B., which causes another food fight, in the school cafeteria this time. Eddie then reaches breaking point; he’s sick of being made fun of and doesn’t want to waste his time in Cook-Off classes anymore, so he quits and rejoins his baseball team. At the same time, the team have revolted against their coach, Eddie’s dad, for his constant sexist remarks, with his jibes about the Eagles coach being a nurse, and telling the players not to run or hit “like girls”. Coach says he’ll change his ways. Good for them for speaking up!
The Groundhogs unexpectedly do make it to the playoffs but as the team celebrate at Eddie’s house, Mrs. Hadley arrives to try and convince Eddie to go to the Cook-Off tomorrow. He says he’s committed to the team, but clearly has some regrets about his decision as he stays up all night cooking because he can’t sleep. The next day, Eddie goes to the Cook-Off venue and meets Bobby Flay. Bobby tries to convince Eddie to stick around, promising to teach him how to crack eggs with one hand if he does, but Eddie has to go.
At the playoff game, the Groundhogs play well initially, however, Frankie decides to put the Cook-Off competition on his mini television that he has in the dug-out. This puts Eddie off the game, and irritates D.B. Frankie tells D.B. he shouldn’t have made Eddie choose between cooking and having friends, making D.B. feel guilty. He tells Eddie that they don’t need him in the game, and that they can win by themselves, leaving Eddie free to compete in his competition. His mum drives him there, but he only has about an hour of time left and no-one to help him; Eddie thinks he can manage.
Back at the game, Hannah’s mum arrives with the pom-poms that Hannah “forgot”. Hannah has to tell her mother that actually she isn’t a cheerleader, but a good baseball player. Hannah’s mum is completely onboard with this but tells Hannah she didn’t need to lie to her about it, as long as baseball makes her happy. Eddie’s dad overhears this and decides to get himself thrown out of the game. He then goes to help Eddie.
At the Cook-Off, Eddie is surprised to find his dad there to help, and even more surprised to learn he can crack eggs with one hand, a skill Eddie has yet to master. However, events do not go well. Some of Eddie’s dishes have been overcooked or not set properly. He rushes to get a plate of food up to the judges and manages with a second to go. The judging begins and the result is soon announced. The winner is… Bridget.
Eddie is devastated, but his dad is there to console him, telling him to keep working at it if cooking is what he wants to do. The Groundhogs then arrive with some better news – they finally beat the Eagles and won the playoffs, making Eddie feel a bit better. As they go off to have some celebratory Eddie Dogs, Bridget follows, saying she’s hungry too. Eddie has Bridget join them as evidence that Eddie is still more of a winner than Bridget, even without a trophy!
CHARACTERS & CAST
Eddie believes that he will be a Major League baseball player one day. Eddie never thought that cooking might make him reconsider this, but it does as Eddie finds he has a natural talent for it. This isn’t considered to be a “manly” profession though, despite many celebrity chefs being men, so Eddie is teased by his friends, his brothers, rival baseball teams, and spends much of the movie torn between what he wants to do, and what he feels he should do. He finally stands up for himself though, and says that he wants to see where he can go with his cooking. There wasn’t actually a reason why he couldn’t be interested in cooking and baseball; he never really needed to make a choice, other than on that one competition day. It’s a shame Eddie didn’t win the Cook-Off, but sadly, it did make sense having this “twist” ending. He didn’t have enough time, he didn’t make anything particularly impressive, and the use of the four “mystery” ingredients wasn’t anything special. It was also important to show that sometimes it’s worth working hard for something, and that it may take a few attempts to finally succeed at it.
Taylor Ball was chosen for the role of Eddie, after playing the part of Brian Miller in the sitcom Still Standing (2002-06). In recent years, Ball has stepped away from acting but seems to be a member of the band Tragic Forms.
For Eddie’s dad and baseball coach, Hank, Eddie’s love of cooking couldn’t come at a worse time. He believes that Eddie will be seen by a college scout soon, get a scholarship, and then have a long baseball career, however, Eddie soon becomes distracted from baseball. Hank doesn’t think it’s normal for a teenage boy to be interested in cooking and tries his hardest to steer him back to their baseball plan. It does take a while for Hank to be convinced that perhaps letting Eddie choose for himself is the best thing for him. Eventually, he sees that cooking makes Eddie happy and Hank wants to support that.
Hank Ogden was played by Mark L. Taylor, who may look familiar to DCOM fans as he played Mr. Fulton, manager of the Lava Springs Country Club, in High School Musical 2 (2007) and was also the dad in The Other Me (2000). Outside of this, Taylor was cast as Don Forrester in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) and as Dr. Niles in Innerspace (1987).
On the opposite side, Eddie’s mother, Sarah, is supportive of Eddie’s love of cooking and even helps him properly measure out the ingredients for “Eddie’s Incredible Edible Barbeque Sauce” for the competition. Her and Eddie decide to keep this a secret from Eddie’s father as they don’t believe he’d be very understanding of it. It turns out they were right, and in fact, he seems annoyed that his wife wouldn’t tell him about Eddie’s cooking. Eddie’s mother is proud of Eddie regardless of what he’s doing and doesn’t like how much pressure Hank was putting on him to be a professional baseball player. To be honest, she probably liked being able to talk about something other than baseball at home! Susan Brady was cast as Sarah Ogden, having previously played the part of Astrid Kar, Zenon’s mother, in the DCOM Zenon: The Zequel (2001).
Eddie has three best friends in this movie: Frankie, D.B., and Hannah. They all go to school together and they all play baseball together as part of the Groundhogs. D.B. is the one who is the most against Eddie for liking to cook; he seems to find it weird and thinks cooking is “for girls”. D.B. takes the longest to come round but does eventually realise that he’s been an idiot, basically making it seem like he won’t be Eddie’s friend anymore if he keeps up with his cooking. Frankie, although he hates Home Economics, actually doesn’t seem to care that Eddie likes cooking; he accepts it quite quickly. Frankie likes to eat, so he is probably just looking forward to getting to be the chief taste-tester of Eddie’s new recipes!
Reiley McClendon was cast as D.B., having previously appeared in Disney’s The Kid (2000). McClendon went on to play one of the leads in the DCOM Buffalo Dreams (2005). The part of Frankie went to Orlando Brown, who had a long career with Disney Channel as a child and teen actor, being cast as Eddie in That’s So Raven (2003-07) and voicing the roles of Sticky Webb in The Proud Family (2001-05) and Cornelius Fillmore in Fillmore! (2002-04). In recent years, Brown was cast in Season 2 of the reality show Bad Boys (2022-23).
Hannah is the most accepting of Eddie throughout the movie and that’s because she has a similar problem with her mother that Eddie has with his dad. Hannah lies to her mother that she is a cheerleader because her mother was a cheerleader and Hannah doesn’t want to disappoint or upset her by saying that she is a baseball player. Hannah also says that she only took the Home Economics class so that her mother didn’t get annoyed that she’d chosen Field Hockey yet again. Hannah seems to have decided that her mother wouldn’t be accepting of her without even talking to her about it. It turns out her mum just wants her to be happy, so she had it a little bit easier than Eddie, whose dad basically wanted to disown him for choosing baseball over cooking!
Hannah is played by none other than Rose McIver who, since her teen acting days where she also appeared in the DCOM Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board (2007), has gone on to have a very successful acting career. McIver was cast in the recurring role of Tinker Bell in the ABC series Once Upon a Time (2011-18) and went on to star as Liv Moore in the series iZombie (2015-19). McIver also starred in the Netflix Christmas movie trilogy A Christmas Prince (2017-19) as Amber Moore. Currently, McIver is playing the lead role of Sam Arondekar in the US version of the British sitcom Ghosts (2021-present).
Finally, we have the characters of Bridget and Mrs. Hadley. Bridget is, honestly, quite irritating and full of herself. She thinks she’s the best Home Economics student there has ever been and even has her own cooking utensils. She’d rather have all of Mrs. Hadley’s attention on her but she has to share it with Eddie. Bridget is not a nice girl, saying that Eddie’s baseball career is over and not being at all supportive during these after-school cooking lessons they have together, despite the fact Bridget clearly has more knowledge than Eddie does. She’d just rather keep it to herself because she feels threatened by Eddie. I am shocked at the end of the movie when Bridget thinks she should be invited to have Eddie Dogs with the Groundhogs just because she won the Cook-Off – hello, you weren’t nice to any of them so why should they be nice to you? But Eddie takes pity on her, clearly. Mrs. Hadley also has one of the best lines in this movie that knocks Bridget down a peg. Bridget asks Mrs. Hadley if she’s bullied by other kids because she likes to cook. Mrs. Hadley says “oh no, there are plenty of other reasons”, which is so true.
Mrs. Hadley was played by Nancy Lenehan who had roles in movies such as Catch Me If You Can (2002) as Carol Strong and Battle of the Sexes (2017) as Billie Jean King’s mother. Lenehan has had various roles in television series, including recurring roles in series like Veep (2012-19), as Mrs. Ryan, and Bless This Mess (2019-20), as Deb, as well as a main role, Sandy Kelly, in the sitcom Married to the Kellys (2003-04). Bridget was played by Kylie Leydon, who seems to have moved away from acting, but did appear as herself in the miniseries Ben & Kylie’s Brave New Build (2014-15), building a house with her partner.
There is also a cameo appearance by chef Bobby Flay, who first appears on television and then in person when he turns out to be the host of the Scholastic Cook-Off. Flay is a well-known American celebrity chef, restaurateur and food writer, yet I first heard of him from watching Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off because I’m British; we have Gordon Ramsay, Delia Smith, Mary Berry, Jamie Oliver, people like that on our screens. I think I saw Bobby Flay randomly on a Food Network show or something years later and was like “that’s the guy from Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off”! I’m sure it’s one of Bobby Flay’s proudest TV moments still to this day…
MUSIC
Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off is not a Disney Channel musical, but that doesn’t mean that it is devoid of music; you just might not have heard of the songs before.
One piece that should be recognisable to most is an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite”, specifically “Waltz of the Flowers”, which randomly appears during the first food fight scene in the Home Economics class. I guess the pretty music is meant to be in contrast to the absolute mess the kids are making in the room!
Outside of this, I personally had not heard of the other four songs that appear during Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off outside of watching the film, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like them. In fact, I very much like the song “Grow”, performed by April Start. This song appears when Eddie is struggling to balance his new Cook-Off classes and baseball games. I think “Grow” has a nice message about not giving up on your dreams and to keep going even when things get tough. This song was popularised because of its inclusion in this film.
Then there is the song “Soul Food”, performed by Leon Russell and Marc Benno. This takes place during the scenes of Eddie waiting for his response from the Cook-Off people to see if he got in. It’s got a bit of a country feel to it that I don’t like so much. This track featured on the 1990 CD re-release of Russell and Benno’s album Asylum Choir II.
“Centerfield” is quite rightly used during the scenes of the Groundhogs successfully winning their games so that they can get to the playoffs. This song is all about baseball so it fits in great with Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off. Again, this song is a bit too country for my tastes but I don’t dislike it. This track featured on singer John Fogerty’s third solo album, released in 1985 and titled Centerfield.
One more song is listed in the End Credits of this film and that is “Now We’re Cookin’”, performed by GBonafide and J-Hi, however, I cannot find this song anywhere online and I’m not sure where it appears in the movie. It’s possible it is the music that plays as Eddie makes that fried chicken meal early on in the story, but I’m not sure. There is also a song that is played during the scenes of Eddie being teased at school after getting in to the final of the Scholastic Cook-Off, but I’m not sure what song it is. It has lyrics like “I’m left on the outside, wondering why…”, but I can’t find it anywhere. This is just one of the difficulties of looking into a barely talked about Disney Channel movie; research is hard to do.
I also quite like some of the score within Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off, particularly the music that appears during the opening scene, the Cook-Off scene, and some of the scenes of Eddie’s late-night cooking at home. Since Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off did not have a CD soundtrack released, and the score has not been split into named tracks, I cannot be any more specific than that with this music. David Kitay is credited as the composer of the music here though. At Disney Channel, Kitay also composed the music for other DCOMs, like Cadet Kelly (2002) and Camp Rock (2008), and co-composed for Stuck in the Suburbs (2004) with Jeff Vincent. Away from Disney, Kitay has worked on the music for such non-Disney movies as Clueless (1995); Scary Movie (2000); and Over Her Dead Body (2008).
PRODUCTION
I was surprised to learn that Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off was filmed in New Zealand, specifically West Auckland, not in the US or even in Canada, as many Disney Channel movies seem to be made. I’m not wrong that not too many DCOMs have been filmed in New Zealand, but there have been a few others, such as Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior (2006); Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board (2007); and even Zenon: The Zequel (2001). ZOMBIES 4: Dawn of the Vampires (2025) was also filmed in New Zealand.
I’m not a producer, I’m not a director, I’m not an actor, so I don’t know why New Zealand specifically was chosen as the primary filming location of Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off. California must have decent enough weather to accommodate the filming schedules, and there are no special sets here, just school buildings and baseball fields. It was most likely for budgetary reasons but who knows. The good thing about filming in New Zealand, or outside of the US generally, is that it can open up the casting pool. In this case, Kylie Leydon and Rose McIver are both actresses from New Zealand, as is Susan Brady.
Some of the most memorable and enticing scenes within Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off obviously involve baseball. I’m just kidding, baseball’s boring. Some have commented that the baseball scenes here aren’t even very realistic. As I know nothing about baseball, I have no further input on that, but I can judge the food and cooking scenes. They are the best scenes in the film. For some reason, I can’t get enough of seeing people throw random condiments on hot dogs, or layer lasagnes – Eddie even makes his own pasta from scratch -or see blenders explode all over the kitchen! If you’re a fan of cooking shows, but don’t want to hear any of the instructions for how to cook it yourself, then Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off is perfect. But no problem if you do want to know how to cook some of these dishes for yourself because there are recipes online for Eddie Dogs and the barbeque sauce.
In amongst these beautiful culinary creations though, we get lots of wasted food as Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off has not one, but two food fights. I love how American TV likes to use food fights as key moments in children’s series and films because apparently it almost never happens in real-life! Yet all of us outside the US have been brought up to believe that these are regular occurrences. Some kids seem to love food fights, others hate them. Bridget and Mrs. Hadley seem to be the only two not having fun in the movie, but in behind-the-scenes footage, it looks like nobody is! The actors were excited to film the scenes initially, but by the time they’d filmed it and were covered in food, they said they just felt gross as the food stuck to their clothes and skin. It sounds disgusting. All the cameras and crew members got to be covered up in boiler suits so they were the lucky ones here[1].
Paul Hoen directed Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off. Hoen began his over two-decade career with Disney Channel by directing The Luck of the Irish (2001) back when Disney Channel were experimenting with their new way of making television movies. After Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off, Hoen went on to direct many more musical and non-musical DCOMs, including Jump In! (2007), Cloud 9 (2014), and all of the ZOMBIES movies[2].
Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off’s teleplay came from Dan Berendsen, who had previously written the teleplays for the movies Sabrina Down Under (1999) and Sabrina Goes to Rome (1998), movies that add to the series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1996-2003). For Disney Channel, much like Hoen, Berendsen has a long history of writing for their movies. Some of his other Disney writing credits include Twitches (2005) and its 2007 sequel, Stuck in the Suburbs (2004), and Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010).
RECEPTION
Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off first aired on Disney Channel on 18th July 2003, as one of their regular Friday Night Premieres. In the realm of Disney Channel fans, Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off is generally considered to be one of their better non-musical movies. Some call this movie “wholesome” and “heart-warming”, which I certainly agree with. Taylor Ball and the performances of many of the young actors has also been praised by audiences. Many say this movie is underrated.
Others, though, do not enjoy this movie, saying that it is cheesy and clichéd, dismissing it because it is a Disney Channel movie. That could be because these particular people watched it when they were not the target audience. Sometimes adults watching movies intended for children and teenagers take them too seriously and look at them too critically so their opinions are biased to some extent. Some also said that they knew plenty of boys at school that were interested in cooking and were not teased. I’d say those people were very lucky, because I knew boys at school who were teased for this interest or for being interested in music. There were also girls I knew who were teased for wanting to play rugby, showing that harmful stereotyping goes both ways.
There were plenty of comments on the message within Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off. Looking into it, there are two schools of thought on it. The first is that this is in fact a “coming out” story, all about Eddie feeling confused about his identity. Director Paul Hoen stated this was the case[3]. I like that idea if you purely use Eddie’s story as a metaphor. The trouble comes if you take that metaphor and apply it literally to the events of the movie, because then I feel like the messaging gets confused. What this coming out story would seem to say, in this literal case, is that sure, men can like cooking, but straight men don’t. That’s not the case or the point of Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off.
That brings me to the other way of looking at this movie and that is all about challenging gender stereotypes. This is not only seen with Eddie’s love of cooking, but also with Hannah’s love of baseball instead of cheerleading. It is also shown when the Groundhogs rise up against their coach and tell him to stop making sexist remarks, about the Eagles coach being a nurse, this being an honourable profession regardless of gender, and that using the term “you run like a girl” is not helpful, when you could just say that someone is running badly. I sit within this opinion more so than the coming out story and that is just because I feel it is important for everyone to feel comfortable to pursue the hobbies or activities that interest them without fear that their sexuality will be questioned.
LEGACY
Unfortunately, since Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off is over twenty years old, and is unlikely to be popular enough now to be re-run on Disney Channel particularly frequently, it exists only in the minds of people who have already seen it, for the most part. Of course, there are always people that want to watch movies they missed out on during their childhoods and will go back and see though – thank you, streaming.
With those who do remember Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off, many of them continue to love it and it has since made many lists ranking the Disney Channel Original movies. For example, it was ranked at No. 16 on The Ringer’s list of Top 40 Disney Channel Original Movies[4]. It also reached No. 32 on Vulture’s ranking of all the DCOMs that had been released at the time[5].
FINAL THOUGHTS
This shows that Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off may only have a place in the hearts of a few Disney fans, but that it continues to be one of the more popular ones because of its important message.
Eddie is bullied by his peers and disappoints his own father for his love of cooking. Although this is quite a specific example, pretty much everyone will have been bullied or felt weird just for liking something that perhaps other people of the same age did not. When I was at university, I was mocked by my flatmates for liking Disney because it wasn’t “normal” for adults to still be interested in Disney movies. It hurt a bit, and I did keep quiet about it around these few people for a while, but in the end, I decided I didn’t need to change myself – I didn’t have anything in common with them and knew that once I graduated, I wouldn’t be keeping in touch.
Nobody needs people like that in their life and if Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off taught me anything, it’s to never change yourself for anybody and feel free to like what you like. The ones judging you are the weird ones.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Disney Channel, ‘Behind the Scenes DCOM: Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-off’, Meredith_Vintage YouTube Channel, 28th February 2023.
[2] Credit: DCOMers!, ‘A Conversation with the Disney Channel’s Paul Hoen’, Medium.com, 24th July 2020.
[3] Credit: DCOMers!, ‘A Conversation with the Disney Channel’s Paul Hoen’, Medium.com, 24th July 2020.
[4] Credit: The Ringer Staff, ‘The 40 Best Disney Channel Original Movies’, TheRinger.com, 18th April 2023.
[5] Credit: Rebecca Alter, ‘All 105 Disney Channel Original Movies, Ranked’, Vulture.com, 4th May 2020.
The Disney Purist 