Things Only Adults Notice In Lizzie McGuire

While Disney Channel was gaining popularity with young audiences, a new series, Lizzie McGuire, premiered on the network in January 2001, immediately taking viewers by storm. Created by Terri Minsky, the show starred fledgling actress Hilary Duff as Lizzie, a girl just trying to navigate middle school alongside her best friends, Miranda (Lalaine) and Gordo (Adam Lamberg), and her close-knit family.

Years later, Lizzie McGuire — which ultimately spawned a feature film in 2003 — is still a beloved classic for an entire generation of Disney Channel fans, and now that the series is available to stream on Disney+, new and old fans can discover (or rediscover) the show. Despite the fact that a recent reboot, announced in 2020, ended up scrapped, Lizzie McGuire lives on, though most of its audience is years older than Lizzie by now. In fact, if you rewatch the show as an adult, you might have a totally different perspective on the series you once loved. Here are just a few things that you might only notice when you watch Lizzie McGuire later in life.

Kids who watched Lizzie McGuire in the early 2000s probably didn't pay much attention to characters that weren't Lizzie, Miranda, or Gordo, but any parents watching the show likely felt like they'd seen Lizzie's dad, Sam, before. As it happens, he starred in a pretty huge 1980s movie franchise, which is why Robert Carradine looks so familiar.

The son of famous actor John Carradine — and the brother of the late David Carradine, known for his work as the title character in Kill Bill — Carradine got his cinematic start in the 1970s starring with John Wayne in The Cowboys. After a string of successes, including Oscar winners like 1978's Coming Home, he booked Revenge of the Nerds, cementing himself as a comedy star in 1984. Ultimately, Carradine appeared in the film's three sequels and took on a new role as an executive producer for a few of them. Though younger Lizzie McGuire fans likely weren't familiar with Carradine's work, adult viewers probably were.

Throughout the series, Lizzie, Miranda, and their rival, Kate (Ashlie Brillault), pine after the school's most popular young bachelor, Ethan Craft (Clayton Snyder), who's blessed with luxuriously floppy hair and a seemingly effortless charm. Unlike the rest of the school's popular kids, Ethan is kind, friendly, and warm, often bonding with Lizzie and her friends, but there's one big red flag about Ethan — he's a complete dolt.

In pretty much every scene that features Ethan, it's obvious that he's the least intelligent person not just at this middle school but potentially at any middle school. After all, he constantly forgets what class he's even in and zones out during lectures. Lizzie's internal monologue even acknowledges Ethan's apparent lack of brain cells, but she also seems not to care, asking him out multiple times (though he turns her down due to their lack of "chemistry," forgetting the word outright). Ultimately, Ethan would've made an awful boyfriend. He and Lizzie would never have anything to talk about, and Lizzie, who's quite intelligent, would get bored of him pretty quickly.

Gordo might be one of Lizzie's two best friends — and eventually, her love interest — but the truth is that he's actually kind of a judgmental creep. Even as early as season 1, Gordo constantly talks about how much disdain he has for his classmates, considering himself completely above them. And in "Gordo's Video," he very nearly humiliates his two best friends with a homemade movie, as well as releasing embarrassing footage of other people in the class. Though he's eventually shamed into blurring faces and changing voices, it's still pretty cruel.

Beyond that, Gordo's crush on Lizzie probably seems sweet to a 13-year-old viewer, but his outright refusal to ask her out — and subsequent guilt-tripping, like when he writes into Lizzie's advice column and confesses his crush under the guise of anonymity in "Dear Lizzie" — is actually incredibly frustrating in all the wrong ways. Gordo eventually gets the girl in The Lizzie McGuire Movie, but it's questionable whether he really even deserves to be with Lizzie.

Part of the central conceit of Lizzie McGuire — and a feature that definitely set it apart from similar shows — is the fact that the audience can see all of Lizzie's internal dialogue in the form of a small cartoon character, typically clad in a hot pink tank top, orange sandals, and blue jeans. In the first season, the cartoon is a bit scrappier, but by the second season, the drawing has become much more refined. With that said, the quality of the cartoon isn't really the issue.

So what's the main problem here? Well, while the artists may have had Duff's wide eyes down pat, the real Duff doesn't look anything like the animated character, who has a short blonde bob and barely looks like Lizzie at all. Since this cartoon is supposed to be the inner version of Lizzie's psyche, it feels like the cartoonists on the show probably could've worked a little harder to make sure it actually resembled Duff, and by extension, the main character of the series.

Lizzie might be the star of the show — after all, it's named for her — but the truth is that the real standout of the series is her younger brother, Matt. A troublemaker at heart, Matt is always getting into various scrapes and cooking up schemes, whether he's starting a smoothie bar in the McGuire family backyard, trying to become a stuntman in the least safe way possible, fighting with a chimpanzee, or letting a small part in the school play go to his head. 

However, the fact is that Matt, as played by a young Jake Thomas, is probably the single funniest character in the show. Thomas' comedic timing is insanely good for such a young performer, and Matt's obviously above-average intelligence means that Thomas gets some pretty great lines throughout the series.

As if that wasn't enough, Matt's best friend, Lanny (Christian Copelin), is a perfect sidekick to Matt — especially since the joke about Lanny is that he never says a word. The resulting running gag means that Matt has to carry on one-sided conversations, putting his comedic chops to perfect use. The show might be called Lizzie McGuire, but a series centered on Matt might've been a hit, as well.