Trivia Tropes:
- Acting for Two: In The Movie, Isabella Parigi is portrayed by Hilary Duff, but some sources say Haylie Duff (Hilary's sister) provided the singing voice.
- Actor-Shared Background: Adam Lamberg is Jewish like his character.
- Cast the Runner-Up: Sara Paxton was in the running to play Lizzie before Hilary Duff was cast. She has a role in the episode "Election" as Nina.
- Contractual Purity:
- Hilary Duff naturally ended up with this, and after the show ended she said she turned down a lot of roles that might upset her teen fan base. As the years went on, she did do some raunchier stuff, such as Gossip Girl and War Inc (although she was parodying Contractual Purity there), though her squeaky clean image was never tarnished. She lampshaded this when talking about her pregnancy:
"Everyone thinks I'm a good girl, but I figured it out."- Lalaine later struggled with drug problems after she left the show (it was not because of those that she left; she says she wanted to pursue a music career).
- Dawson Casting:
- 16-year old Adam Lamberg as Gordo; because he hit puberty late, he is actually able to pass as a 12-year old pretty convincingly in the pilot, and he managed to remain shorter than Lizzie and Miranda all the way through to the end. note
- 17-year old Kyle Downes as middle schooler Larry Tudgeman. Made more Egregious by the fact that, in the previous series he was in (the Retroactive Recognition-palooza Higher Ground), he was cast as a troubled high schooler.
- Also comes up in Conversational Troping when Miranda acts in a school play:
Animated Lizzie: Wow, Miranda's officially in love with acting. Maybe when she's thirty years old, she can play a teenager on Dawson's Creek. - Defictionalization: In the episode "Mom's Best Friend", Lizzie was inspired to spend more time with her mother after reading a novel titled The Orchids and Gumbo Poker Club for a school assignment. Disney later published an actual novel with that title, with notes from Lizzie included in the margins. If you want to read the book, click here
. - Edited for Syndication: Every rerun or official online stream/download after its WGN America syndicated run loses the original music from the original run due to music license issues. That also includes the Disney+ streams.
- Executive Meddling:
- Disney execs apparently policed what Hilary Duff wore to judge whether it was appropriate or not. A t-shirt with holes in it was deemed fine as long as it didn't show her belly button for some reason.
- "Picture Day" had a scene altered after its original airing-originally Matt faked being sick by putting a penny in his mouth, but after someone attempted this in real life and choked, all repeat airings and releases of the episode changed it to Matt using a flashlight on the thermometer.
- Fake Nationality:
- Lalaine is actually of Filipino descent, while Miranda is Mexican-American. She said growing up that she often felt pressured to look "as white as possible" (which is why she didn't use her last name).
- Yani Gellman (Canadian/Australian) as Paolo (Italian) in The Movie. Also in the movie, Hilary Duff herself plays Isabella, with the result that Isabella loses her Italian accent whenever she's singing.
- Follow the Leader: Every single Disney Channel original sitcom owes its existence to this show's success.
- He Also Did: Elliot Lurie, who composed the show's theme song, was previously lead vocalist and guitarist for the Looking Glass, an early '70s pop rock band from New Jersey best known for their number one song, "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)".
- I Am Not Spock:
- Hilary Duff took a break from the spotlight for a while because of being seen only as Lizzie.
- Lalaine meanwhile is still best known as Miranda.
- Irony as She Is Cast: Hilary Duff was home schooled from the age of six and so never had to deal with the trials and tribulations of middle school that Lizzie does.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Four compilation DVDs and a box set, but no more.
- Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's sold fashion accessories and CD-ROM games for girls in early 2005. It ran opposite Dave the Barbarian for boys, despite Lizzie having aired its finale less than one month after Dave premiered.
- Meaningful Release Date: The episode "Last Year's Model" originally premiered on Hilary Duff's 14th birthday.
- The Merch: Fortune magazine estimated in 2003 that Lizzie McGuire merchandise had earned the Walt Disney Co. nearly $100 million! That's from Radio Disney's big CD promotion, books based on the episodes being sold, mystery books starring Lizzie (much in the same vein as the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen mystery books), Tokyopop manga adaptations, bed sheets, Barbie dolls, board games, and The Movie.
- Money, Dear Boy: Hilary Duff had been promised a $500,000 bonus if the movie made over $50 million. When Disney would not pay this - but they did offer Hilary $4 million and 1/4 of the profits of a second film - Hilary's mother insisted it be paid, and the offer of a second film was withdrawn.
- Out of Order: "Pool Party" was pretty clearly intended to be the first episode, but it aired fourth. Disney Channel has always tended to air their shows out of production order, and this one was no exception (especially towards the end).
- Reality Subtext:
- Aaron Carter guest stars As Himself and shares a kiss with Lizzie under the mistletoe. Carter dated Hilary Duff for a while.
- Gordo's squeamishness when Lizzie and Miranda want to get bras reflects that the network was unsure about the episode's content — afraid it would alienate boy viewers.
- Real-Life Relative: David Carradine appeared as himself in one episode and Sam comments that he's like a brother to him. Of course, Sam was played by Robert Carradine who is David's brother.
- Screwed by the Network:
- The show ran for three years on Disney Channel, but was cancelled in June 2002 after all 65 episodes were produced.
- Terri Minsky and Hilary Duff wanted the Disney+ revival to explore some mature issues Lizzie would face in adulthood, such as sexual infidelity in the Pilot. Unfortunately, this sparked Creative Differences between Minsky and the Disney+ executives, the latter of whom wanted a younger target audience.note Consequently, Disney+ decided to halt the revival, even after all the publicity they gave it. Minsky and Duff pushed to get the series moved to Hulu, but it didn't happen.
- Technology Marches On:
- In an earlier episode, Matt and Lanny try to raise the money to buy ninety-dollar walkie-talkies. A floppy disk and a VHS tape make appearances in the same episode.
- Throughout the series, Lizzie, Miranda, and Gordo have landlines in their bedrooms rather than cell phones.
- In Rumors, Lizzie and Miranda are chatting on a fake ICQ client while using Windows 98!
- In "Lizzie and Kate's Big Adventure", Lizzie and Kate have to go to an Internet café in order to get DSL.
- What Could Have Been:
- They seemed to be building up to a romance between Larry and Miranda before the latter left the show. The storyline where he hooks up with a minor recurring character was most likely originally for her.
- There were plans to spin off a "Lizzie in high school" sitcom onto ABC, but never got to be produced, due to Hilary Duff leaving after the show's completion.
- A pilot for an unaired spinoff series called "What's Stevie Thinking?" was shot (or at least written), concerning the adventures of Miranda's sister Stevie. Stevie was to played by a very young Selena Gomez. Disney ultimately decided to pass on the show in favor of Hannah Montana
- Towards the show's end, there was a contest for three girls to have animated versions of themselves to have a cameo with the animated Lizzie. The show ended before this could have happened.
- Disney Channel originally considered producing an animated spin-off, likely based off the Animated Lizzie segments from the show, but never happened for unknown reasons.
- Ethan Craft was originally written to be the school bully. Danny Kessler was intended as the love interest, but his actor became unavailable. Ethan was changed to a heartthrob and any of his bully qualities were given to Kate.
- Plans were made for Hilary Duff (with Terri Minsky's involvement at first) to revive the show on Disney+, with Hilary playing an thirtysomething year-old version of the character, but the show was ultimately scrapped when Hilary and the network disagreed on the direction the show was to go in. Posts and photographs taken from the making of the episodes produced for the abandoned series and posted by Hilary on social media hinted that Robert Carradine, Hallie Todd, Jake Thomas and Adam Lamberg were to have reprised their roles in the new series.
- Word of Gay: The writers said that the two men who owned Fredo were imagined by them to be a couple, but of course nothing was said on TV.
- Working Title: What's Lizzie Thinking? The original title can even be seen on the clapper board during the Hilarious Outtakes.
Additional Trivia:
- After the 9/11 terrorist attack, the clocks in Lizzie's school are set at 9:11 for the episode directly after it.
