Trivia / Hannah Montana

• Acting for Two:
  • In the final season, when Miley fights with herself (literally) about revealing her secret.
  • Also true when she played Miley Stewart's evil lookalike cousin, LuAnn.
• Adored by the Network: The show comprised most of Disney Channel's schedule for the mid-to-late 2000s alongside The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Wizards of Waverly Place. And chances are it would always round out the hour after the once a week rerun of High School Musical around the same time.
• California Doubling: Inverted in the movie where Miley's California high school is actually Tennessee's Franklin High School.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: The show was this for Disney Channel in the mid-to-late 2000's, as it largely helped the network become the huge juggernaut it is today. Of course there was all the usual Disney merchandise for this series including, Hannah Montana toys, Hannah Montana CDs, Hannah Montana cereal, Hannah Montana clothes, Hannah Montana games for the Nintendo DS and Wii, Hannah Montana live tours that often sold out immediately, and even a theatrical movie.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Miley Cyrus had originally auditioned for what would have been the Lilly role, but Disney decided to give her the lead role. Also, Billy Ray had only come to offer Miley moral support at the audition and read the father's lines, but Disney loved his camaraderie with Miley and wrote his father character into the show.
• The Danza:
  • Miley Stewart is played by Miley Cyrus. Averted at first, as the lead role was named Zoe Stewart, later changed to Chloe Stewart because Zoe was thought to be too similar to Zoey 101, and the character was established well before Cyrus came in. In fact, she originally auditioned (yes, auditioned) for the role of Lilly. It was changed to Miley as all of the aliases were becoming confusing to her in Real Life. Still an odd subversion because Miley wasn't her real first name — it's Destiny Hope Cyrus, and Miley was a nickname she got as a baby — but then she had her first name legally changed to Miley.
  • Played straight in the case of Heather Truscott, played by Heather Locklear.
  • Aunt Dolly, who is played by Miley Cyrus' real life godmother.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Jason Earles, who plays Jackson, was a real-life example of Vague Age, his year of birth variably being reported as either 1977, 1985 (which was on his resume) or 1988, until it was finally confirmed to be 1977, making him almost 29 years old when the show premiered. That being said, he looked much younger than he was to the point of actually pulling the role off convincingly. He's actually only 15 years younger than his on-screen dad Billy Ray Cyrus yet genuinely looks young enough to be believable as his son.
  • Of special note: In the episode which teased a Lilly/Jackson pairing, Emily Osment was 16 and Jason Earles was 31, or almost twice her age.
  • Season 4's recurring guest character Siena, implied to be around Jackson's age, is played by 26-year old Tammin Sursok.
  • Traci Van Horn was 16 when the show started, even though her actress Romi Dames was over 10 years older.
  • Willis from Season 1 is 11, but is played by then 15-year-old Drew Osborne. However, this is justified as him looking way older than he actually is factors into the plot.
• Defictionalization: Miley Cyrus' early music career consists entirely of songs from the show, including performances as Hannah Montana in real life. Arguably, this wasn't the original intention. Disney Consumer Products failed to produce any official Hannah Montana merchandise for the first holiday season following the show's initial airing in March 2006, indicating that they did not anticipate the popularity it would garner nor the demand it would generate.
• Distanced from Current Events: The ending scene for the episode "Money For Nothing, Guilt For Free" where Robbie and Jackson have a water drinking contest was removed a couple of months after it originally aired, replaced with a music video of Hannah singing "Who Said". This was due to a woman dying in real life from a water drinking contest to win a Nintendo Wii, with Disney not wanting to potentially endanger kids watching the show by promoting that kind of imitable behavior. This change was kept in all reruns and on Disney Plus, though other streaming services have this scene intact.
  • After a few years of reruns the episode "Yet Another Side of Me" had all instances of characters mentioning the other female singers original name of Isis awkwardly dubbed to "Ice" instead in all future reruns and releases on DVD/streaming after the real-life terrorist group of that same name got in the news. This change is particularly clumsy as the subtitles still clearly say "Isis".
• Executive Meddling: The show's original ending was an All Just a Dream scenario. The show was revealed to be the dream of a young Miley Cyrus. Thanks to executive meddling it was thought to be too confusing for children and the ending was changed to Miley giving up the movie in Paris to attend college with Lilly...The original ending, however, was later added as an alternate ending in the Final Season DVD set.
• Fandom Life Cycle: It reached Stage 4 during the peak of its popularity in 2008, but is now sitting at Stage 2 with a significant cult following.
• Missing Episode: "No Sugar, Sugar" got complaints from parents group over it's depiction of diabetes and was later Retooled as "Uptight (Oliver's Alright)" and run at the end of the season rather than the beginning (though the original version of this episode did air overseas and can be found online). Since Status Quo Is God, Oliver's diabetes was never mentioned again. Reportedly, they actually had done the research needed to portray diabetes accurately, but they made it into a joke.
• The Other Darrin: The role of Mr. Dontzig has alternated between twin-brothers Paul and Peter Vogt.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: A popular rumor online is that the titular character was named Alexis Texas in preproduction and she was quickly renamed when Disney discovered an adult film star already went by that name. That's not true. The series was already named Hannah Montana for at least two years before Alexis Texas had her film debut.
• Real-Life Relative: Miley Stewart's father Robbie Ray Stewart is played by Miley Cyrus' father, Billy Ray Cyrus. (Yes, that Billy Ray Cyrus).
• Reality Subtext: The fourth season deals with themes such as whether Hannah's audience would accept the change and growth in her work, Miley and Lilly growing up and out of the tastes and fashions they had when they were younger, and whether her fans would stay with her even after Miley stops being Hannah Montana and appears in public as the real Miley. This seems to reflect Miley's Hotter and Sexier image change in Real Life, which began before the fourth season was filmed.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Big Damn Movie was due to be scored by Alan Silvestri, but because of schedules it ended up being done by John Debney (although "Butterfly Fly Away," written by Silvestri and Glen Ballard, remains in the movie). Ironically, part of Silvestri's score for The Mexican is tracked into the movie (in the scene where the British reporter eats peppers).
  • The show began as a That's So Raven spinoff called Better Days, about a child actor masquerading as a schoolgirl, and it was to star Alyson Stoner. Cory in the House became the spin-off instead.
  • The lead character was to be named Zoe Stewart, then Chloe Stewart as they felt "Zoe" sounded too much like the lead in Zoey 101. They settled on "Miley Stewart" so 13-going-on-14-year-old Miley Cyrus wouldn't have to remember so many names.
  • Before Miley, the lead role was offered to Jo Jo, who turned it down. Lucy Hale, Taylor Momsen, and Daniella Monet also auditioned, with the latter two being the front-runners for the role besides Cyrus. Miley herself originally auditioned for Lilly.
  • Toei Animation was going to produce an anime version of the series, but it wound up being cancelled.

---