Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a total throwback! Some of Disney Channel‘s most iconic series — like Austin & Ally, Suite Life on Deck, Hannah Montana and That’s So Raven, among others — have premiered love-themed episodes over the years.
When Lizzie McGuire was on the air from 2001 to 2004, Hilary Duff‘s title characters had tons of ups and downs when it came to finding love — and the Valentine’s Day episode was no different. Titled “First Kiss,” this particular installment was the first episode in the show’s second season. Lizzie’s best friend Gordo is harboring an enormous crush on her, but since she’s in the dark, the teen decides to go on a date with Ronnie the paper boy. After they share a smooch, the two consider themselves boyfriend and girlfriend. Eventually, Ronnie breaks Lizzie’s heart, and she find herself being consoled by her BFF Gordo.
Since the show came to an end, Hilary has spoken in depth over the years about how she related to the character and the situations she went through during the series.
“I was too young to do a character dive on Lizzie,” the “With Love” songstress told Bustle in January 2022. “I think I was just playing myself. And I really related to that girl. She was me, and I was her, and that was that.”
Hilary continued: “I’ve obviously had to think about [Lizzie] a lot. The lines get so blurry between me and her, and I think they are for the world, still. And they probably always will be. I think just accepting that has brought me a lot of peace. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a backbone, and I don’t have a drive, and I don’t have a vision. I have all of those things.”
Fans will remember that Lizzie had a crush on her classmate Ethan Craft throughout the show, but he always saw her as just a friend. When the camera’s stopped rolling, Hilary was close to the actor who played him, Clayton Snyder.
“My mom thought it’d be a great idea to invite her [to a school dance],” the actor recalled during an interview with Vice from January 2021, noting that they went as friends. “It ended up being all my fellow classmates just forming a giant circle around her and staring at her the whole night. I can’t say she had a great time, but she’s a great sport for going.”
While the actors may have been friends in real life, Hilary told E! News in November 2019 that the now-defunct revival series may have featured a story line between her character and Ethan.
“He is hot. He’s very hot,” the actress teased at the time. “I’m pretty sure there’s going to be, there’s going to be a thing.”
Here’s to our favorite Disney Channel characters finding love! Scroll through our gallery to look back at the Valentine’s Day episodes of these throwback shows.
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