After 5 Years, 'Bunk’d' Is Finally On Disney+…Through Hulu
Disney Channel’s longest-running live-action series is still streaming on Netflix, but now it has made it home, mostly
Bunk’d, Disney Channel’s longest-running live-action series, wrapped up its record run of seven seasons and 161 episodes this past August. Having premiered as a Jessie spinoff in 2015, the streaming world was very different. Before Disney+ launched in 2019, Disney Channel streaming was split between Netflix and Hulu, with shows like Jessie, Girl Meets World, Good Luck Charlie, Best Friends Whenever, and Phineas and Ferb streaming on the former. Bunk’d was one of them, but because it ran for nearly a decade, it was still beholden to Netflix all this time. It was therefore one of the most glaring absences on Disney+ and has been in the 5 years since it launched. However, December 1 marks the day it starts to change. Not only does its Netflix departure countdown begin with the addition of season 7, but all 7 seasons are being added…to Hulu?
That’s right, Hulu, not directly to Disney+. Strangely, it’s been designated as Disney XD, possibly because it’s the only Disney-branded channel category that remains on the service. Now, I don’t have the complete list of what Disney Channel and XD shows were on Hulu that migrated to Disney+ for its launch. Most of the search results that come up are about the bundle formations or the merger of Hulu into Disney+ that make Bunk’d’s arrival an accomplishment by technicality. There are also circumstances like Girl Meets World spending 7 months in completion on DisneyNOW before Disney+ launched after expiring from Netflix so it therefore wouldn’t be on an equivalent list. However, I did find a likely partial list from June 2016, where the newest deal landed the streamer Gravity Falls, K.C. Undercover, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Dog with a Blog, and Austin & Ally, as well as Junior fare Sheriff Callie’s Wild West, Doc McStuffins, Henry Hugglemonster, and Handy Manny. It will still probably be several years, three according to What’s On Netflix’s understanding, before Bunk’d actually leaves Netflix.
According to Nickandmore, Bunk’d has never aired on Disney XD but is the closest thing to an original the channel label has on Hulu. It currently holds Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens, Beyblade Burst QuadStrike, the first season of the next series Beyblade X, and Roman to the Rescue, an artifact of when Disney XD experimented with National Geographic programming.
Created by Pamela Eells O’Connell, Bunk’d premiered three months before Jessie actually ended. The spinning-off was for three of the Ross children: Emma played by Peyton List, Ravi played by Karan Brar, and Zuri played by Skai Jackson. They become counselors in training at Camp Kikiwaka and meet the true main character of the series, camp counselor Lou Hockhauser, played by Miranda May, who stays with the series to the end. When Kikiwaka is abandoned after a fire between seasons 2 and 3, the Ross family buys the camp, putting Emma, Ravi, and Zuri in charge until the end of the season, leaving to follow their career aspirations. Lou became head of the camp in season 4 with the trio’s departures. By the end of the series, Mallory James Mahoney had become the second-most senior series regular. She played Destiny Baker, a former pageant girl who enrolled as a camper in season 3 as part of the first group of “next class”, eventually ascending to become a counselor.
The other series regulars by the final season included Israel Johnson as Noah Lambert, Shiloh Verrico as Winnie Webber, Alfred Lewis as Bill Pickett, Luke Busey as Jake Jacobs, and Trevor Tordjman as Parker Preston, whose family bought Camp Kikiwaka in season 5, and opened Kikiwaka Ranch for him in season 6 because he and Lou weren’t gelling. It is with this that the show gained the subtitle Learning the Ropes. The series had many main and recurring campers over its run, such as Once Upon a Time’s Raphael Alejandro and Lucifer and Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion‘s Scarlett Estevez, and staff including Mary Scheer and Kevin Quinn.
O’Connell served as executive producer for the first three seasons. Phil Baker and Erin Dunlap took over as showrunners for Season 4, but Dunlap went solo as executive producer and showrunner starting the following season and for the rest of the series. Netflix uses a Learning the Ropes banner while Hulu uses season 1 key art.
Source: What’s On Netflix, Variety, What’s On Disney+