More than two years after goals of a Lizzie McGuire revival have been dashed, Hulu’s How I Met Your Father is revisiting the long-lasting Disney Channel property by way of flashback.
During Tuesday’s episode, appropriately titled “A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Valentine’s Day,” Sophie & Co. recount their worst Valentine’s Day experiences to be able to cheer up Ellen. What follows are glimpses from the gang’s previous — all newly created apart from one. Rather than rent a teenage actress to play 13-year-old Sophie, the sequence cuts to a clip from Hilary Duff’s early-aughts sitcom.
“[The idea] came from the writer of the episode [Amy-Jo Perry], and then we very quickly got a temperature check from Hilary via text, asking, ‘How do you feel about this?’ And she was immediately game,” sequence co-creator Elizabeth Berger tells TVLine. “Hilary thinks it’s funny. She did not hesitate for one second. Then it was a matter of combing through episodes and being, like, ‘What’s a great, dramatic, angsty middle school moment?’”
They in the end settled on the Season 2 opener/Valentine’s Day episode “First Kiss” (streaming on Disney+; enroll right here), throughout which Lizzie experiences a sequence of firsts — her past love, her first kiss and, in fact, her first heartbreak — with paperboy Ronnie. But there was an uncomfortable second on the HIMYF desk learn the place it appeared like Duff was not recreation. “In the script it said ‘Young Sophie,’ and she didn’t realize she was supposed to read that line, the Lizzie McGuire line, live at the table read,” fellow co-creator Isaac Aptaker recollects. “So, she just sat there, and we thought, ‘Did she change her mind? Is she taking a stance that she doesn’t want to do it anymore?’ And then she went, ‘Wait, sorry! That’s me!’”
Adds Berger: “The people in the room who didn’t know we had discussed it with Hilary were very nervous that she was stonewalling it, but that wasn’t the case at all.”
A Lizzie McGuire revival, with its authentic creator and most of its authentic solid returning, was initially greenlit by Disney+ in August 2019. But as manufacturing obtained underway, creator Terri Minsky departed over artistic variations, and manufacturing in the end shut down for good. Duff pleaded with Disney to maneuver the sequence to Hulu to be able to precisely replicate Lizzie’s life as an grownup, however nothing ever got here of it. A 12 months later, Duff signed on to star in Hulu’s How I Met Your Father.
Along with Duff returning within the title function, it had additionally been confirmed (with photographic proof) that followers would’ve been reunited with Adam Lamberg as Gordo, Hallie Todd as Lizzie’s mother Jo, Robert Carradine as Lizzie’s dad Sam and Jake Thomas as Lizzie’s brother Matt. Per the official synopsis, the revival would have picked up “as Lizzie McGuire is just about to turn 30. She seemingly has it all – her dream job as an assistant to a fancy New York City decorator, her dream guy and a picturesque Brooklyn apartment – but things aren’t always as they seem. With a little help from her friends, her loving family and her 13 year-old alter-ego in animated form, Lizzie navigates the ups and downs of adulthood,” the logline learn — however alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
Asked in the event that they’re anxious the HIMYF flashback will lead to a barrage of tweets asking them to revive Lizzie, Aptaker laughed and answered, “Hilary gets those every single day. If we get a little taste of it, that’s just life!”
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