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Lizzie McGuire

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Lizzie McGuire
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Lizzie McGuire title card

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Genre Children's television series/Sitcom
Running time 22 minutes (approx.)
Creator(s) Terri Minsky
Executive producer(s) Stan Rogow
Susan Estelle Jansen
Starring Hilary Duff
Lalaine
Adam Lamberg
Jake Thomas
Hallie Todd
Robert Carradine
Country of origin Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States
Original channel Disney Channel
Original run January 12, 2001–February 14, 2004
No. of episodes 65
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Lizzie McGuire was a popular American children's television series aired on the Disney Channel from 2001 to 2004. Its target demographic was preteens and adolescents. The TV show was created by Terri Minsky. The show's creatively offbeat, mixed media format stands out from the rest of the Disney Channel's programming of the time - and in essence, it became the channel's flagship show of its time, and a 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.

Contents

[edit] Characters

[edit] Main Characters

  • Elizabeth Brooke "Lizzie" McGuire, played by Hilary Duff: Lizzie is a self conscious seventh grader, and an eighth grader in the second season. She deals with everyday issues, such as what to wear to make Ethan Craft notice her, or how to deal with enemies like Kate. Gordo has a crush on her throughout the course of the show.
  • Animated Lizzie, voiced by Hilary Duff: a.k.a. Toon Lizzie or Cartoon Lizzie, she represents Lizzie's psyche.
  • David Zephyr "Gordo" Gordon, played by Adam Lamberg: Gordo is Lizzie's best friend since she was one day old. Usually, he offers sarcasm and good advice. He is very intelligent and always gets good grades. He is also revealed to be of the Jewish faith as shown in one episode where he has a Bar Mitzvah.
  • Miranda Isabella Sanchez, played by Lalaine: Miranda is Lizzie's other best friend who rounds out the main triumvirate. She's also the rebel of the three. But in the end, Lizzie's always there to have her back. She does not appear in the last six episodes of the show, or in the Lizzie McGuire Movie.
  • Matthew "Matt" McGuire, played by Jake Thomas: Matt is Lizzie's younger brother. As a stock character, he often is destroying something, and has a best friend named Lanny, who doesn't talk (on screen). Matt is clever and wily, and has a bad reputation for getting into trouble.
  • Jo McGuire, played by Hallie Todd: As a mother to Lizzie, she is always trying to make Lizzie's life better but the results come out as trying to make Lizzie's life worse (to her) and far more embarrassing.
  • Samuel "Sam" McGuire, played by Robert Carradine: Sam is Lizzie's father. He's goofy and tries to make everyone feel better.

Image:Gordo in 'And the Winner Is'.jpg

[edit] Secondary Characters

  • Kate Sanders/Saunders (Ashlie Brillault) is the most popular girl in Lizzie's school. Once one of Lizzie's best friends, Kate became Lizzie's enemy after she became popular because she got a bra after summer camp was over. Kate likes trying to make Lizzie's life impossible to live, but Lizzie always manages to outsmart Kate and always comes out on top.
  • Ethan Craft (Clayton Snyder) is the boy who Lizzie, Miranda, and the rest of the girls at school have a huge crush on. He's not so bright but he's kind and friendly to everyone. In Season 1, he was portrayed as more of The Bad Boy. For example, he used to force Gordo do things against his will.
  • Larry "Tudgeman" (Kyle Downes) A school nerd who is basically treated like an outcast by everyone except by Lizzie and her friends. He has also been known to wear the same shirt since the second grade.
  • Claire Miller (Davida Williams) Kate's new best friend who is also not very kind to Lizzie.
  • Lanny Onasis (Christian Copelin) Matt's best friend who has never spoken on screen, but yet he communicates with Matt without any difficulties.
  • Melina Bianco (Carly Schroeder) Matt's friend who loves getting Lanny and Matt into trouble and eventually becomes his girlfriend. She is first introduced as Matt's enemy, but they both begin to have feelings for each other.

[edit] Animated Lizzie

Animated Lizzie holding a globe (i.e., "The world on Lizzie's shoulders")

Animated Lizzie is an animated character in the show. She represents the title character's inner thoughts, addressing the audience directly in the manner of a Greek chorus. The show wasn't the first series to use animation to reflect a live-action character's innermost thoughts, however; Student Bodies, a 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 is also voiced by series star Hilary Duff.

[edit] Synopsis

Main article: List of Lizzie McGuire episodes

As the title would suggest, the show is about Lizzie McGuire and her middle school adventures with her two best friends, Miranda and Gordo. Their adventures range from light humor topics such as dealing with crazy teachers to serious issues such as anorexia nervosa. While the show usually depicts a rather equal relationship between the threesome, Lizzie and Gordo have always felt a certain attraction towards each other. However, since they have known each other for their entire lives they prefer to keep their relationship at a friendship level. However in the last season Gordo finally admits to liking Lizzie, in which Lizzie responds with a kiss.

The show often has a subplot involving Matt, and his friends Lanny Onasis and Melina Bianco. Lanny is something of Matt's sidekick, and is never heard to speak as part of a running gag. Melina is less of a friend, and is constantly critical of Matt. Towards the end of the season, however, she became Matt's girlfriend.

The show has had many special guest appearances, among them Aaron Carter, Frankie Muniz, David Carradine, Doris Roberts, Shelley Berman, Steven Tyler, Erik Estrada and Haylie Duff, Hilary 's sister.

[edit] Spin-offs

A movie based on the show, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, was released on May 2, 2003. It was second at the box office in its opening week behind X2: X-Men United.

The show was cancelled after 65 episodes, which is reportedly a Disney policy for all of its series, although that has changed now, benefitting shows such as That's So Raven. Also, Duff's representatives have said she wasn't getting paid enough for a proposed spin-off taking Lizzie into High School on ABC. It is said that Duff's mother was impossible to deal with, demanding huge increases in pay from the original episodes.

There have also reportedly been proposed plans to launch a cartoon series based on Lizzie's animated alter ego, but no such thing appears to be under development at the present time. There were also proposed plans to launch a spin-off based on Miranda's sister, known either as Stevie Sanchez or What's Stevie Thinking (starring child actor Blake Foster), but despite persistent rumors it was never scheduled to air; sources differ on whether a pilot or other episodes were ever made.

It was announced in Late May that WGN Superstation will carry Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens in Syndication which begun on September 18, 2006.

[edit] Trivia

In order to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article's trivia section requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.
  • Sara Paxton was considered for the role of Lizzie before Hilary Duff auditioned. She later made a guest appearance in "Lizzie for President". Lindsay Lohan, as well, was considered for the role, and both she and Sara Paxton, were both proudly presented to Disney as their top choices.
  • Lalaine, the actress who played Miranda, stopped appearing on the show towards the end of the final series. Rumor has it that she began concentrating on her music career and left the show. Miranda, however, was still mentioned in the show storylines as going to Mexican high school or "out sick" even though she never was on the screen.
  • In the episode "When Moms Attack", the teams are Tagi and Pagong. These are the same team names as the tribes in Survivor: Borneo.
  • There is a montage in every episode.
  • Danny Kessler, whose family owns a water park, plays an Ethan Craft type character in the first several episodes but is never seen again, although he was mentioned later in the episode "My Fair Larry" and The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
  • The house set in the pilot "Pool Party" is different from the one in the rest of the series.
  • Hilary Duff's sister Haylie Duff appears in the episodes 'Clue-less', 'Xtreme Xmas' and 'Party Over Here' as Kate's cousin, Amy. This is similar to Emily Hart's portrayal of Sabrina's evil cousin Amanda in the series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, in that the title character is played by her sister, Melissa Joan Hart.
  • Ethan Craft was first portrayed as a gangster wannabe but later changes into a Junior High heart-throb.

[edit] Merchandising

The character of Lizzie continues to be merchandised by Disney (see Lizzie McGuire books), especially through a large set of books, which include novelizations of the episodes, original Nancy Drew-style mystery 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 even released in 2002 by Dakin Toys. The 10" doll featured many of Lizzie's outfits for the doll. A plush doll of the Cartoon Lizzie was also made by Dakin in 2002. Fortune magazine estimated in 2003 that "Lizzie McGuire" merchandise had earned the Walt Disney Co. nearly $100 million. Radio Disney continually promotes Lizzie McGuire and regularly (although not as often as when the show was still running) gives away the show's CD in giveaways.

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). This is designated as "Volume 1", but no current 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") 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 also a Lizzie McGuire bedroom set offered by some 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).

[edit] References to this show elsewhere

  • In another episode of the Simpsons Marge and Homer were seen leaving the Lizzie McGuire movie.
  • 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' ")

[edit] The Lizzie McGuire Movie

Main article: The Lizzie McGuire Movie.

[edit] Music

[edit] Books

See Lizzie McGuire books

[edit] Online games

[edit] External links

Disney Channel Original Series
(2000 - present)
Television series:
American Dragon: Jake Long • Brandy and Mr. Whiskers • The Buzz on Maggie • Cory in the House • Dave the Barbarian • The Emperor's New School • Even Stevens • Hannah Montana • Kim Possible • Lilo & Stitch: The Series • Lizzie McGuire • Phil of the Future • The Proud Family • The Replacements • The Suite Life of Zack & Cody • That's So Raven
de:Lizzie McGuire

es:Lizzie McGuire fr:Lizzie McGuire id:Lizzie McGuire it:Lizzie McGuire he:ליזי מקגוויר nl:Lizzie McGuire pl:Lizzie McGuire pt:Lizzie McGuire fi:Lizzie McGuire sv:Lizzie McGuire zh:新成长的烦恼

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