As “Hannah Montana” Celebrates 20th Anniversary, Michael Poryes Tells the Making-Of

Qerhaps the solely individuals who know (or, frankly, care) that Hannah Montana is having its 20th anniversary this Tuesday—an event Disney is marking with a live-interview-concert particular with Miley Cyrus, the present’s star, hosted by Call Her Daddy podcaster Alex Cooper—are “zillennial” girls. This micro-generation, of which I’m a card-carrying member, was born between the early Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. We arrived in a world re-shaped by tragedy and the Internet growth, got here of age throughout a monetary disaster, and selected as our standard-bearer—ask your twentysomething niece or daughter however, good God man, hopefully not your girlfriend, lest you be pulling a Leo DiCaprio!—a 13-year-old pop star in a platinum-blond wig.

It all began as the brainchild of show-runner Michael Poryes, who had beforehand co-created That’s So Raven, a sitcom starring Raven-Symoné a couple of teenage psychic that ran on Disney Channel from 2003 to 2007. Now Disney needed Poryes to make a brand new present—this one a couple of pop star. With a pilot secured, he got here up with the dual-identity concept that will turn out to be Hannah Montanas trademark: a small-town lady dwelling in Malibu who, at evening, places on a blonde wig and transforms right into a pop star. It was Clark Kent and Superman for tween zillennials. “My feeling was that I want to write about a real person, and the fact that she’s a pop star is a complication to real things,” he tells me.