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I'm still salty they never gave Keke Palmer her due!
From That's So Raven to Wizards of Waverly Place, our favorite Disney Channel shows pretty much defined our childhoods. However, a lot of them actually started as a totally different show, and there were even more cool-sounding shows that never made it to air.
Here are 14 Disney Channel shows we almost got:
1. In 2005, Aly and AJ Michalka were cast in Haversham Hall, a Parent Trap–inspired show about two sisters who were separated during their childhood but reunited as roommates at their New England boarding school.
Donato Sardella / WireImage / Via Getty
The show also featured iCarly's Mindy Sterling.
Nickelodeon / Via Netflix
2. Wizards of Waverly Place showrunner Todd J. Greenwald wrote Aly and AJ a pilot called The Odd Cousins, which was "about two cousins, one was a sunny, bright, cheery Southern California cheerleader, and then her emo Portland, northwestern grungy cousin got into trouble and was sent to live in sunny SoCal with her cousin."
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"When the Michalka sisters couldn’t be in it, Disney still wanted to do it, so they go, ‘Hey, we have this musical movie, called High School Musical, and Vanessa [Hudgens] read for it,'" Greenwald told the International Business Times.
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"But then High School Musical blew up and then that’s when everything went crazy for Disney Channel, for good," he said.
3. In 2007, Disney filmed a pilot for a Selena Gomez–led The Suite Life of Zack and Cody spinoff called Arwin!, which followed the hotel engineer as he moved into his sister's smarthome to help her raise her three kids.
Disney Channel / Via youtube.com
Another working title for the show was Housebroken.
It also starred Samantha Droke, who costarred in Princess Protection Program with Selena.
4. After Lizzie McGuire ended, Selena Gomez was cast in a spinoff series as Stevie, the little sister of Lizzie's BFF Miranda.
Patrick Mcmullan / Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
The pilot was pitched to Disney Channel alongside Hannah Montana, which they decided to greenlight instead.
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5. In 2019, Disney announced a Disney+ reboot of Lizzie McGuire, but after show creator Terri Minsky left only two episodes in, the show was doomed for cancellation.
Phillip Chin / WireImage / Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for Disney / Via Getty
Creative differences ultimately led to the decision to end the show. Disney wanted the show to keep a PG rating for Disney+, but both Terri Minksy and Hilary Duff wanted to show a more authentic and "grown-up" version of Lizzie. For example, the script for the first episode included sex and a storyline about cheating.
Hilary Duff told The Jess Cagle Show, "I think they are really trying to figure out what kind of content they want living on Disney+, and that doesn't totally align with, like, where I see Lizzie right now."
Walt Disney Enterprises / Courtesy Everett Collection
She continued, "The one thing for me was just the way that she could connect with what was going on in people that were watching the show. ... And so for me, it only makes sense to me to shoot a show where she's acting like a 30-year-old in a modern world."
6. When Keke Palmer first moved to California, she landed a pilot for Keke and Jamal, which was loosely based on her real life.
Disney Channel / Via instagram.com
On Instagram, she said it was about "a little girl named Keke with big dreams of being an entertainer and her [tight-knit] family."
Keke shared a clip of the show — which also featured Vanessa Hudgens — on Instagram.
7. In 2014, Disney greenlit a pilot for Growing Up and Down, which starred Raini Rodriguez and Adam Irigoyen as parents who'd been transformed into teenagers again.
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Noah Centineo was cast as one of their teenage kids...
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...with Ceci Balagot playing the other. The siblings would have to navigate high school with their own parents as their classmates.
8. In 2016, Disney ordered Forever Boys, a supernatural pilot starring boy band Forever in Your Mind as brothers who were bitten by a vampire in 1957 and reemerged as a band after decades in hiding.
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The pilot was part of a 360 deal that band members Ricky Garcia, Emery Kelly, and Liam Attridge signed with Disney.
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While their Hollywood Records deal led to success, the pilot wasn't picked up.
Ricky told The Zach Sang Show, "They decided they wanted to go younger with the channel. We're cool with it, we're here making our music."
9. The That's So Raven episode that Alyson Stoner guest-starred on ("Goin' Hollywood") was a backdoor pilot for a spinoff that competed against Hannah Montana during pilot season.
Disney Channel / Via Disney+
On the episode, they played Ally Parker, a child star who began attending public school.
Disney Channel / Via Disney+
10. In 2010, Disney began developing its first musical series, the High School Musical spinoff Madison High, which centered on students in the high school where Ms. Darbus took a new job.
Fred Hayes / © Disney Channel / Courtesy: Everett Collection
The original cast included G. Hannelius, who went on to star on Dog with a Blog.
Disney Channel / ©Disney Channel/courtesy Everett / Everett Collection
Other cast members included Katherine McNamara, Luke Benward, and Mark Indelicato.
The idea for a High School Musical spinoff eventually became High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
11. Originally, JONAS was supposed to be about a trio of spies living a double life as a boy band.
Eric McCandless / © Disney Channel / Courtesy: Everett Collection
However, the show was reworked to center on the band of brothers "dealing with normal things like trying to take out the trash and not get hounded by fans."
Eric McCandless / © Disney Channel / Courtesy: Everett Collection
12. In 2011, Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder was set to produce and star in the Disney XD show Gulliver Quinn, which followed a 28-year-old who had to enroll in seventh grade after his family spent 15 years living in a cave while making a documentary about a rare tortoise.
The show was eventually released as a TV movie featuring Liv and Maddie's Joey Bragg and Girl Meets World's Sabrina Carpenter.
13. In 2011, Disney greenlit a Maia Mitchell–led pilot for Zombies and Cheerleaders, which was about a high school zombie trying to fit in with the popular cheerleaders.
Jeffrey Mayer / WireImage / Via Getty
The concept was reworked into the 2018 TV movie Z-O-M-B-I-E-S, which starred Milo Manheim and Meg Donnelly.
Disney Channel / Via Disney+
14. And finally, Dove Cameron was originally cast as Alanna in Bits and Pieces, which was supposed to be the story of a blended family told through vignettes rather than traditional episodes.
David Livingston / WireImage / Via Getty
However, after the show was picked up, Dove got a call that she was actually going to be playing twins and "we'll figure it out as we go" — which led to Liv and Maddie.
Craig Sjodin/©Disney Channel / courtesy Everett Collection
"I literally sat in an office for three months with my director, writing out every difference I could think of. One is left handed, one is right handed, their voices are different. ... There are backstories that nobody will ever know except for me — but because I knew those, they were fully fledged people in my mind," she told BBC.
Later on, the final episode of Liv and Maddie revealed that the "confessionals" the characters gave were actually for the Rooney family's reality show, Bits and Pieces.
Disney Channel / Via Disney+
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