What was the Disney Channel 65-episode rule?

[hewontgo]

Here's the history of Disney Channel's controversial 65-episode rule, which took fan-favorites like 'Lizzie McGuire' and 'Even Stevens' too soon from us. https://t.co/ETwkqAVTs5
- Entertainment Weekly (@EW) July 20, 2024
If you watched Disney Channel a lot in the 1990s or early 2000s, they provided a variety of original shows from memorable live-

Comments

[sassandthecity]

Isn't this also why a lot of series would be get weird mid-run reboots of sorts? Like you would have the Suite Life and then Suite Life on Deck as a way to keep their pay lower?

[lamppost1911]

So weird, I went down a “That’s So Raven” rabbit hole this morning. During that time I learned Kyle Massey’s (Cory) brother has a child with Shar Jackson’s daughter.

[lamppost1911]

Also sad Flash Foward never got the 65 episode treatment. My elementary school bff and I were obsessed and she named her hamster Tucker. Though I’m still confused on that show. It’s a Disney channel original but a Canadian production so maybe it doesn’t fall under the same guidelines.

[pseudonygma]

It's not Disney but I will never get over 90s Spider-man getting cancelled before they found Mary Jane. That whole storyline with The Spot blew my mind as a kid and I've been wanting that multiverse storyline for the live action movies ever since they started making them. I'm so glad we got it in animation instead because Into The Spider-verse raised the bar for the entire industry.

[imnotasquirrel]

i was just rewatching So Weird earlier today, it deserved so much better than what it got on Disney. but tbh if we were just going to get more of that awful season 3 instead of seasons 1 and 2, i guess i can't complain about the show falling victim to Disney's 65 ep rule lol.

In the Darkness is still one of the best opening theme songs imo.

also, i haven't read mackenzie phillips' memoir, but per reddit she says it was her favorite acting job and one of the most stable/positive environments she had been in up to that point. i'm glad that the show seems to have had positive vibes behind the scenes.

[naturesluzzer]

That's nice to hear considering how rough her early life was.

I couldn't decide if I enjoyed So Weird because it unsettled me but it was kind of cool to watch a show designed for kids that was strange in an X-Files way. I think kids need shows like that and I can't think of anything else quite like it.

[murphyboy11]

Joey then replied, “Yeah, like Hannah Montana Forever and Suite Life On Deck. They have a deal with, I don’t know if it’s the unions or the AMPTP, but they had a deal where the first three seasons of a show, you get paid 88% of scale. So it’s 88% of like minimum wage, pretty much, for the crew, and then the idea is, you work on a show, it becomes popular, you go four, five, six seasons, and you get 100%, or whatever that is.”

“But then, by the third season, even if the show’s popular, they reboot it as a brand new show,” he explained. “So, we were Liv and Maddie for the first three seasons, and the last season was Liv and Maddie: Cali Style.”

https://www.etalk.ca/tv/2023/8/liv-and-maddie-star-joey-bragg-reveals-the-loophole-disney-used-to-pay-the-actors-less-than-minimum-wage.html