What’s Lizzie Thinking? A 25-Year Look Back at "Lizzie McGuire"

“I know my life is taking me where I'm meant to be.” That lyric from “I Can’t Wait,” recorded by Hilary Duff for the Lizzie McGuire soundtrack in 2002, perfectly summed up the hit Disney Channel series’ optimistic viewpoint. While a sneak preview of the series was broadcast on January 12th, 2001, following the DCOM premiere of Zenon: The Zequel, the series officially began airing on January 19th, making today the show’s 25th anniversary.

Lizzie McGuire was originally pitched by creator Terri Minsky as What's Lizzie Thinking?, a series centered on a regular teenager whose inner thoughts and emotions would be revealed through narration, ala The Wonder Years. Producer Stan Rogow decided this concept should be achieved through animation, originally pitched as a talking head in a corner of the screen, which morphed into the idea of a miniature animated Lizzie interjecting into the live-action scenes. The only rule: animated Lizzie and live-action Lizzie could never talk to one another.

At the time of her 2000 audition, Hilary Duff had a lot of commercial and TV work under her belt, but her most well-known role was as the human star of the direct-to-video Fox film Casper Meets Wendy (1998). Adam Lamberg was cast as Lizzie’s oldest friend, Gordo, who had some film and TV work in New York before relocating to Los Angeles for the series. Lalaine had performed on Broadway and was one of the orphan girls in Disney’s 1999 TV remake of Annie prior to auditioning to play Lizzie’s other best friend, Miranda. The last core cast member to join the series, Lalaine recalled thinking she was going for a callback only to find that it was the pilot episode’s first table read.

The pilot episode, later named “Pool Party,” was filmed six months before the first season entered production. Since Disney Channel aired episodes out of order, “Pool Party” became episode 4, but eagle-eyed fans will spot different sets used for this proof-of-concept episode, as well as the core cast being noticeably younger. The animation is also of a lower quality in this episode compared to the rest of the series.

Filming took place in and around Ren-Mar Studios, which was once home to DesiLu Studios, the production company of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (most of I Love Lucy was filmed there). The series has an in-joke about the studio in the Season 1 episode “Here Comes Aaron Carter,” where the pop star is filming a music video at “Ren-Mar Warehouse.” Exterior scenes in this episode show the actual studio where Lizzie McGuire was filmed.

Stan Rogow wanted the show to look cutting-edge. This was achieved through a mixture of 16mm film, High-8 video, digital stills, and animation. The visual tone of the series was inspired by the 1998 German film Run, Lola, Run.

Due to budget constraints, animation was limited to no more than 2-minutes per episode. Animation was done by Tape House Toons in New York, who collaborated with the writers to storyboard concepts for animated Lizzie’s scenes. It took about 6-weeks to complete the animated portions of each episode.

It took five days to film each episode at Ren-Mar Studios, with child actors limited to 4-and-a-half hours of filming per day. The rest of the young cast’s day included 3 hours of schoolwork, an hour of recreation, and a lunch break.

At the time, Disney Channel had a 65-episode maximum for shows, under the belief that kids’ short attention spans wouldn’t benefit from more. While other shows of this era split the same number of episodes up into three seasons, Lizzie McGuire chose to make the series in two long seasons. Season 1 (31 episodes) was filmed between September 7th, 2000, and May 29th, 2001. Following a summer break (during which Hilary Duff filmed the DCOM Cadet Kelly), Season 2 (34 episodes) was filmed between September 10th, 2001, and June 21st, 2002.

Because of the runaway ratings success of Lizzie McGuire, Disney Channel chose to stretch the broadcast schedule of the show’s second season. The last episode to be broadcast, “Magic Train,” debuted on February 14th, 2004, two years after it was filmed. But diehard fans know that the true final episode, "Bye Bye Hillridge Junior High" (in which Lizzie and Gordo graduate middle school), aired a year prior on February 7th, 2003.

It would be impossible to do a look back at Lizzie McGuire and not acknowledge the absence of Miranda in the show’s final episodes and spin-off movie. At the time, rumors abounded that stars Hilary Duff and Lalaine had an on-set falling out. The rumors were partially confirmed in the 2024 book Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire by Ashley Spencer, with an audiobook narrated by Lalaine. Miranda’s absence from the final episodes and film was blamed on an ill-timed family vacation to Mexico that caused her to not only miss her middle school graduation, but also the class graduation trip to Rome.

With Lalaine’s Broadway background woven into the character of Miranda, who sang “Reflection” from Mulan in the Season 1 episode “Random Acts of Miranda,” the issue reportedly stemmed from Disney’s interest in developing Hilary Duff into a pop star, starting with the song “I Can’t Wait,” recorded for the show’s first official soundtrack in 

Miranda’s disappearance from the show coincided with Disney developing Hilary Duff into a full-fledged pop star. In the series, Lalaine’s Broadway background and music ambitions were woven into the character of Miranda, who dreams of becoming a singer and even performed the song “Reflection” from Mulan in the Season 1 episode “Random Acts of Miranda.” As Season 2 was wrapping production, Disney had Hilary Duff in the recording studio, making a song for the show’s final episode and soundtrack (“I Can’t Wait”), a Disney cover for the first Disneymania album ("The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room"), and a Christmas album (Santa Claus Lane). Lalaine was absent from the Season 2 cast photo shoot.

While it would be a stretch to say that the character Lizzie McGuire never had pop star dreams, it wasn’t an obvious character arc. However, that idea would become central to the plot of the spin-off film, appropriately titled The Lizzie McGuire Movie, which was filmed from October 16th to December 11th, 2002, in Vancouver and Rome. The film’s release on May 2nd, 2003, helped serve as promotion for Duff’s debut non-Christmas album, Metamorphosis (released August 26th, 2003), which included a variant of one of Duff’s original songs from the film, “Why Not.”

Because of Disney Channel’s 65-episode limit, the cast and creative team of Lizzie McGuire were free agents when, following the success of the film and continued high ratings for the show’s reruns, Disney tried to assemble a spin-off series. The pitch would’ve seen the show jump from cable to broadcast, an ABC sitcom following Lizzie McGuire’s high school years. But Hilary Duff’s star was shining brighter than ever, with a successful music career on Disney’s record label, plus a string of box office hits that included A Cinderella Story, Agent Cody Banks, and Cheaper by the Dozen. Disney had made her one of the biggest stars of the aughts, and to have committed nine months of the year to another TV series would’ve been a bad move on her part.

Next, Disney Channel tried a Lizzie-less spin-off, with a title that went back to the original pitch — What's Stevie Thinking? The series would’ve centered on Stevie Sanchez, Miranda’s younger sister, and, just like Lizzie McGuire, Stevie had an animated counterpart. A pilot episode was filmed in February 2005, with Lalaine reprising her role as Miranda. The starring role, Stevie Sanchez, was cast with Barney alumna Selena Gomez. Disney Channel passed on the project, but kept Selena Gomez around, later casting her in Wizards of Waverly Place.

Lizzie McGuire fans came close to getting a long-awaited sequel series in 2020. Announced at the 2019 D23 Expo, Hilary Duff took the stage at the Anaheim Convention Center to share the exciting news that Lizzie was coming back! Set for streaming release on Disney+, the follow-up would find Lizzie McGuire returning home at the age of 30 after calling it quits with her fiancé and job in New York City. The original series creator, Terri Minsky, was attached as showrunner, and much of the original cast was set to return, including Jake Thomas as Lizzie’s brother Matt, Hallie Todd and Robert Caradine as Lizzie’s parents, and Adam Lamberg as Gordo. Lalaine had even teased on social media that she might be returning as a guest star.

Sadly, Disney and Terri Minsky had creative differences over the direction of the revival while it was in production. After two episodes were filmed, Minsky left the show in January 2020, and filming was paused so the series could be retooled into something more family-friendly. Hilary Duff campaigned for the sequel series to go to Hulu instead of Disney+ (Disney had already moved another Disney+ Original, Love, Victor, to Hulu where it could keep a TV-14 rating), but by the end of the year, Disney had made the decision to not continue work on the show. 

For now, fans will have to just imagine what life was like for Lizzie McGuire and her friends after middle school. But this 25th anniversary feels somewhat heightened by Hilary Duff’s long-awaited return to making music. Her new album, Luck... or Something, is scheduled for release on February 20th from Atlantic Records. Taking a cue from Taylor Swift, the album’s variant bonus tracks include Hilary’s version of some of her earlier hits, including “What Dreams Are Made Of (Mine)” and “Why Not (Mine)” from The Lizzie McGuire Movie.

Lizzie McGuire and The Lizzie McGuire Movie are available to stream on Disney+.

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