Have you noticed that many Disney series changed names after the third season? Find out why!
For years, the original series of disney channel were responsible for marking the childhood of thousands of children around the world. However, something curious is that, after three seasons, some famous programs on the network ended up changing their titles, such as “Zack & Cody” which went from “Twins in Action” to “Twins on Board”. But, have you ever wondered why this happens?
name change
The answer came during an interview with the actor. Joey Bragg, who played Joey Rooney in “Liv and Maddie”, on the Cash Cuties podcast. As echoed by DailyMail, the 27-year-old star revealed that the change of titles happens so that Disney does not have to pay fees to the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the union of screenwriters in the United States.
Joey explains that there was an agreement, where in the first three seasons they would be paid 88% of the scale, basically a minimum wage for the team. According to him, “The idea is, you work on a show, it becomes popular, you go four, five, six seasons and you get 100 percent, or whatever”.
“But then in season three, even though the show is popular, they reboot it as a whole new show. So, we were ‘Liv and Maddie’ for the first three seasons, and the last season was ‘Liv and Maddie: Cali Style,’” concluded Bragg.
During the conversation, one of the presenters, Fumi Abecommented that the idea of a “new program” would basically be an excuse to go back to paying a low amount for the team. Joey agreed, and even revealed that, by contract, they could not renegotiate the value.
“Yes, exactly. But it is in our contracts that we cannot renegotiate unless everyone decides to renegotiate,” she said.
Bragg even confirmed that it is exactly for this reason that, after three seasons, series like “Hannah Montana” and “Zack and Cody: Twins in Action” were renamed “Hannah Montana: Forever” and “Zack and Cody: Twins on Board” in its fourth seasons.
The DailyMail even claims that, a few years ago, Disney Channel had an unofficial rule that none of its programs could exceed 65 episodes, totaling approximately two or three seasons. It would be exactly for this reason that “Lizzie McGuire”, for example, would have been cancelled, even with its resounding success.
However, some productions ended up being exceptions to this rule, such as “That’s So Raven”, which lasted 100 episodes and four seasons with the same name, and “Wizards of Waverly Place”, known as the channel’s longest series, with 106 episodes.
Source: Recreio
