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Lizzie McGuire

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For the title character, see Lizzie McGuire (character).
Lizzie McGuire
File:Lizziemcguireintro.jpg
Lizzie McGuire title card
Created byTerri Minsky
StarringHilary Duff
Lalaine
Adam Lamberg
Jake Thomas
Hallie Todd
Robert Carradine
Country of origin United States
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes65 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersStan Rogow
Susan Estelle Jansen
Running time23 minutes (approx.)
Original release
NetworkDisney Channel
ReleaseJanuary 12, 2001 –
February 14, 2004

Lizzie McGuire is a Disney Channel Original Series that aired on the Disney Channel from 2001 till 2004.[1] Its target demographic was preteens and adolescents. The TV show was created by Terri Minsky. The show's creatively offbeat, mixed media format stood out from the rest of the Disney Channel's programming of the time and, in essence, became the channel's flagship and definitive show of the early 2000s. The show's producer Stan Rogow says the visual look of the show was partly inspired by Run Lola Run.[2] Production was completed in 2002 after the show fulfilled its 65 episode order. Reruns for Lizzie McGuire are now premiering on Disney Channel which began on September 12, 2009, each two times a week.

Characters

Main characters

  • Lizzie McGuire (Hilary Duff): Lizzie is the main character of the show. She is portrayed as a caring, rational and cooperative, although her animated alter ego displays her true feelings from time to time including becoming rebellious, disrespectful and rude in the episode "Bad Girl McGuire". Lizzie constantly gets into arguments with her younger brother Matt but is well-aware of what is right and wrong.
  • Miranda Sanchez (Lalaine): Miranda is one of Lizzie's best friends; She, Lizzie, and Gordo form the main triumvirate. Miranda is the most self-conscious of the three as is evident in an episode in which she skips meals to get an "anorexic" look, but Lizzie and Gordo always see through her crisis. Her family is Hispanic, but she speaks very little Spanish. Miranda's middle name is revealed to be Isabella in the episode, "Rated Aargh". She did not appear in the last six episodes, nor in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. During this time, her character was said to be vacationing with her family in Mexico.
  • Gordo (Adam Lamberg): Gordo is one of Lizzie's best friends and has been since they were two days old. He usually offers sarcasm and good advice. He is portrayed as being very intelligent and always got good grades. He was revealed to be Jewish, as shown in one episode where he had a Bar Mitzvah. In the episode "The Untitled Stan Jenson Project," it was revealed that Lizzie had a crush on him in the fourth grade. In The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Gordo was pulled into a lip-lock with Lizzie after she realized what a big mistake she has made. In the episode "Dear Lizzie", it is revealed that Gordo has a crush on Lizzie.
  • Matt McGuire (Jake Thomas): Matt is Lizzie's younger brother. As a stock character, he was often destroying something. He had a best friend named Lanny, who did not speak on-screen. Matt was clever and wily and had a reputation for getting into trouble. Matt and Lizzie shared a typical brother-sister relationship. They fooled around, annoyed each other, but were always there for each other at the end of each episode. He was rather intelligent and creative and knew how to humor people.
  • Jo McGuire (Hallie Todd): Jo is Lizzie and Matt's mother. She cared deeply about Lizzie but was still trying to figure out how to raise a teenager. As a result, she sometimes tended to "mess up" situations in Lizzie's life while trying to help make them better. At the end of each episode, Jo and Lizzie tend to come to an understanding and portray the unfaltering love of a mother-daughter relationship.
  • Sam McGuire (Robert Carradine): Sam is Lizzie and Matt's father. He could be best described as a bit goofy and quite clueless about raising his kids. However, he always tried his best to help Lizzie out and understand her and was always available to lend a helping hand.

Recurring characters

  • Kate Sanders/Saunders (Ashlie Brillault): Kate was the most popular girl at Lizzie's school. Originally one of Lizzie and Miranda's best friends, Kate became popular because she got a bra after summer camp was over; as a result of her new-found popularity, Kate became Lizzie's enemy. Kate enjoyed trying to make Lizzie's life miserable, but Lizzie always managed to outsmart Kate and come out on top. References in episodes are inconsistent about her last name. While Kate was mean to Lizzie in the series, she helps out Lizzie in The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
  • Ethan Craft (Clayton Snyder): Ethan was the boy who Lizzie, Miranda, and the rest of the girls at school had a huge crush on. He did not appear to be very bright, but he was kind and friendly to everyone. In season one, he was portrayed as more of a bad boy or a class bully. For example, he used to force Gordo to do things against his will.
  • Larry Tudgeman (Kyle Downes): Referred to as "Tudgeman" (or simply Tudge), Larry was the school dork. He was treated like an outcast by everyone except by Lizzie and her friends (with exceptions). He also had been known to wear the same shirt since the fourth grade. Larry had a huge crush on Lizzie (that she did not return) and even asked her out to go to the science museum. Lizzie accepted his invitation to make him feel liked.
  • Claire Miller (Davida Williams): Claire was Kate's new best friend. She was not very kind to Lizzie. She could sometimes even be unkind to her friends, including Kate, as shown in the episode "The Rise & Fall of The Kate Empire." She represented the stereotypical popular girl portrayed on many TV shows.
  • Lanny Onasis (Christian Copelin): Lanny was Matt's best friend. He never spoke on-screen, but Matt seemed to have no problem communicating with him. Apparently, he was a direct descendant of Crispus Attucks.
  • Melina Bianco (Carly Schroeder): Melina was Matt's friend who loved getting Lanny and Matt into trouble and eventually became Matt's girlfriend. She was first introduced as Matt's enemy, but they both began to have feelings for each other.
  • "Mr. Digg" Digby Sellers (Arvie Lowe Jr.): Mr. Digg was Lizzie's cool, laid-back substitute teacher. In his lessons he often implied that he had educated celebrities like Frankie Muniz and Christina Aguilera. He befriended Lizzie's dad in one of the episodes and dated Matt's teacher, Miss Jasmine Chapman.

Minor characters

  • Eduardo and Daniela Sanchez (Armando Molina and Dyana Ortelli): They were Miranda's parents and appeared in a few episodes, including one in which they played a prank on Kate.
  • Howard and Roberta Gordon (Michael Mantell and Alison Martin): They were Gordo's parents, who were both psychiatrists.
  • Parker Mackenzie (Chelsea Wilson): Parker was a girl in Lizzie's class. In an episode, Gordo had a crush on her. She was a vegetarian, as shown in the episode "Obsession". In an episode, Gordo asked Parker for a dance. She refused because in her opinion he is too short for her. Parker disliked Lizzie because she sneezed on her Macaroni Art in the 2nd grade and sat on her Titanic lunch box in the 5th grade.
  • Danny Kessler (Byron Fox): Danny was Lizzie and Miranda's first heart-throb. He appeared in the first few episodes. He was mentioned in the episode "My Fair Larry" and in The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
  • Veruca Albano (Rachel Snow): She was a nerdy girl who appeared once in Season 1 and more often in later seasons when Lizzie enters the eighth grade.
  • Amy Sanders/Saunders (Haylie Duff): She was Kate's 19-year-old cousin, who acted like an older version of Kate. Plus, Kate and Amy had a rocky relationship. In the episode "Party Over Here" when Amy first appeared, Kate is shown to have a softer, slightly self-conscious side.
  • Coach Kelly (Dot Jones): She was the gym teacher at Hillridge Junior High.
  • Principal Tweedy (Phill Lewis): He was the principal of Hillridge Junior High.
  • Mr. Escobar (Daniel R. Escobar): He was a teacher at Hillridge Junior High who taught Lizzie's class in junior grade.
  • Jeremy and David: They are Sam's best friends who own a pet chimp named Fredo. Lizzie also saved one of their lives in "Rated Aargh!".

Animated Lizzie

Animated Lizzie was an animated character who represented the title character's inner thoughts, addressing the audience directly in the manner of a Greek chorus. The show was not the first series to use animation to reflect a live-action character's innermost thoughts. McGee and Me and Student Bodies, two syndicated program about the struggles of a cartoonist for a school newspaper, often used the artist's surrealistic caricatures of himself and his friends to visually illustrate his interior monologues. Animated Lizzie was voiced by series star Hilary Duff.

Spin-offs

The show was completed after 65 episodes, which was reportedly a Disney policy for all of its series, although that has changed now due to the popularity and success of That's So Raven, Kim Possible, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, and Hannah Montana. Disney considered continuing the franchise in further films and a prime-time television series with Lizzie, Miranda and Gordo attending high school which was to be broadcast on ABC, but the plans never took off because Duff's representatives claimed she was not being paid enough for the proposed series.[3] There was also a spin off planned called "What's Stevie Thinking" about Miranda's younger sister, Stevie Sanchez. Stevie was to be played by Selena Gomez but this spin off never aired.

Syndication

It was announced in late May 2006 that Superstation WGN (now WGN America) would carry Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens in syndication; this began on September 18, 2006. As a result, Disney Channel stopped airing both shows except for their holiday episodes, but Disney Channel will begin airing reruns of Lizzie McGuire in a multi-episode blocks two afternoons each week starting on September 12, 2009, thus making it the first Disney Channel series to air between 1998 and 2002 to be added back on the schedule after being removed from the channel's lineup. The first episodes to re-air were Pool Party, Picture Day, Rumors, and I've Got Rhythmic in that chronological order.

Episodes

Main article: List of Lizzie McGuire episodes
Season Ep # First Airdate Last Airdate
Season 1 31 January 12, 2001 January 18, 2002
Season 2 34 February 8, 2002 February 14, 2004

Film

Main article: The Lizzie McGuire Movie

A movie based on the show, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, debuted on May 2, 2003 at number two at the box office behind X2: X-Men United. It earned $42.7 million at the US box office[4] and eventually grossed $55.6 million worldwide.[5] It received mixed reviews with one critic calling it, "an unabashed promotion of Duff’s image, just as Crossroads was for Spears".[6] Other reviews were generally positive and encouraging.[7][8][9]

Merchandising

The character of Lizzie continues to be merchandised by Disney, especially through a large set of Lizzie McGuire books, which include novelizations of the episodes, original Nancy Drew-style stories in the Lizzie McGuire Mysteries series, and "Cine-manga" pictorial adaptations (published by TOKYOPOP) with still shots from the show presented in manga style.

A Lizzie McGuire doll was released in 2002 by Dakin Toys. The 10" doll featured many of Lizzie's outfits. A plush doll of the Cartoon Lizzie was made by Dakin in 2002.

Fortune magazine estimated in 2003 that Lizzie McGuire merchandise had earned the Walt Disney Co. nearly $100 million.[10] In the show's heyday, Radio Disney continually promoted Lizzie McGuire and regularly gave away the show's CD.

File:LizzieMcGuire BoxSetV1 Fina.jpg
The Volume One DVD set of Lizzie McGuire. The only full-length DVD release to date, in the U.S.

Several home video and DVD versions of the show have been released in various countries. In the United States, some thematic episode collections were first released and later a DVD box set consisting of 22 episodes from the first season (mostly, but not entirely, corresponding to the first 22 episodes in production order). It is designated as "Volume 1", but no plans are known for the release of volumes 2 and 3 of the series, and poor sales of the first box set may prevent further releases. As of April 2006, a box set of 12 DVDs with all the 65 episodes of the show is available in Spain, and box sets (grouped into three 22-episode "seasons") Ireland TG4 are available in Australia and the UK.

Lizzie-themed toys were included in a 2004 McDonald's Happy Meal series, which included CD-ROM discs containing Lizzie-related games and graphics and audio versions of Lizzie (not voiced by Duff) reading stories based on episode plots of her show.

There is a Lizzie McGuire bedroom set offered by furniture stores as one of several Disney-themed children's bedrooms and a What Would Lizzie Do? board game where players must judge Lizzie's likely response to various situations. Three Lizzie McGuire video games have been released for the Game Boy Advance: Lizzie McGuire: On the Go (2003), Lizzie McGuire 2: Lizzie Diaries (2004), and Lizzie McGuire 3: Homecoming Havoc (2005).

Both seasons of Lizzie McGuire are now available on iTunes.

DVD releases

Title Episodes DVD release dates Discs
Lizzie McGuire: Fashionably Lizzie 4[11] December 9, 2003[11] 1
Lizzie McGuire: Growing Up Lizzie 4[12] December 9, 2003[12] 1
Lizzie McGuire: Star Struck 4 March 16, 2004 1
Lizzie McGuire: Totally Crushed 4[13] March 16, 2004[13] 1
Box Set (Volume 1) 22[14] November 23, 2004[14] 4

In pop culture

  • In Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog's song "I Keed", there's a reference to Fred Durst checking out the cast of Lizzie McGuire: "And yet you're too old for Fred Durst to desire, he's checking out the cast of Lizzie McGuire"

See also

Preceded by Disney Channel Original Series Succeeded by

References

  1. ^ Lizzie McGuire episode list at the Internet Movie Database
  2. ^ "Producer Stan Rogow". LukeFord.net. 2002-01-16. Retrieved 2009-08-01. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ "Cable Tv talk". Retrieved December 11 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  4. ^ "Yahoo!Movies". Retrieved December 11 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Box Office Mojo. "Lizzie McGuire Movie". Retrieved 2007-12-02.
  6. ^ "Filmcritic.com Review". Retrieved December 1 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  7. ^ "Roger Ebert review". Retrieved December 11 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  8. ^ "Variety.com review". Retrieved December 11 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  9. ^ "BBC review". Retrieved December 11 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  10. ^ 'Disney's 'Tween Machine: How the Disney Channel became must-see TV--and the company's unlikely cash cow.' Fortune, 2003-09-29, accessed 2009-04-19
  11. ^ a b "Lizzie McGuire - Fashionably Lizzie DVD information". Retrieved 2008-05-07.
  12. ^ a b "Lizzie McGuire - Growingup Lizzie DVD information". Retrieved 2008-05-07.
  13. ^ a b "Lizzie McGuire - Totally crushed Lizzie DVD information". Retrieved 2008-05-07.
  14. ^ a b "Lizzie McGuire - Box Set Volume 1 DVD information". Retrieved 2009-09-10.
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