The Week in: Ashley Spencer
An interview with Ashley Spencer, author of Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire!
“For all the dreamers who once held imaginary wands.”
So is the dedication of Ashley Spencer’s Disney High, the new oral history of (the) Disney Channel, released by St. Martin’s Press on September 24th. Weeks and weeks before the release of this work, I saw my mutual Instagram pal Ashley post about her incredible achievement and in a flurry of found confidence pitched an interview with her about the book. She could not have been more gracious, and connected me right away to her wonderful marketing team, led by Kathryn Hough Boutross. I received an advance issue of the book and flew through it in five days or so. It’s compelling. If you think you know everything about Zac Efron and Cole Sprouse, you don’t! If you are the type who reads Deadline each day like I do, you’ll appreciate the perspectives and journeys of the creative heads at Disney and their ascent, regrets, and bright ideas. And as a backseat casting agent, I loved learning who almost got which part on Disney’s biggest hit shows, which allowed me to imagine dramatically different takes on these characters and trajectory for their would-be portrayors. Here’s one that shocked me:
“And after testing Jane Lynch, Debbie Gibson, and Taylor Dayne to play Zack and Cody’s mom, Carey, they decided to cast Shakespearean theater actor Kim Rhodes.”
The Suite Life of Zack & Cody would have been such a dramatically different show with the one and only Sazz Pataki herself, Jane Lynch, in the role of the twins’ mother. Would she have continued on her path to greatness, donning her red tracksuit as Glee’s Sue Sylvester? My mother certainly would not have nearly tackled her that one time she was filming a belVita Breakfast Biscuits activation at The Grove, that’s for damn sure.1
You can buy Disney High here, and attend one of Ashley’s book tour stops, as shared on her Instagram. Disney High is sold wherever you buy and find your favorite books!
Personally obsessed with your inclusion of Myra, the singer of “Miracles Happen” from The Princess Diaries. What a queen. That song is incredible and I would accept a flashmob proposal set to that song even in the year 2024. How did you decide to give her an extended mention in the book, over similar artists?
I too was a huge fan of Myra and "Miracles Happen" growing up! I even met her once as a tween when she opened for Aaron Carter. But, more importantly for Disney High, Myra holds the valuable role of being a "first." She was the first attempt by the Disney record labels at making a 2000s solo teen pop star, and she served as the immediate precursor to Hilary Duff's mega-success. Disney took the lessons they learned from Myra and rejiggered their strategy with Hilary.
What can you tell us about the release timing - was the book released to correspond to a Disney drop, back to school, anything specific?
The timing is actually a year later than planned because I had too much reporting that I wanted to do and not enough time to do it by my original deadline. I'm told that fall is the big season for books, hence the fall release, but, otherwise, there was no specific event that intentionally coincided with the release date. 2023 marked the 40th anniversary of Disney Channel, so if I had been done in time that could have been poignant. But, alas!
How did the intent of the work emerge and evolve? The book would have been of public interest whether it was a Quiet on Set-style expose around representation of lack thereof and the fates of several Disney stars, or whether it was a Hubba Bubba-length pull of gummy nostalgia, but the work is intricately balanced betwixt the two, offering quite an objective report. Did you expect one or the other tack to be inevitable when you set out to write the book?
When I first started reaching out to sources for interviews they would often ask some version of, "So, what's your angle here?" and, honestly, my angle was always to go in as objectively as possible and report back on what I learned.
I set about interviewing as many key figures as I could to get the most accurate retelling of that era, while providing broader cultural context and insights where possible. I wasn't interested in doing a fluffy fan-service book, but I also wasn't out to make this an opinionated takedown. I really wanted to let readers make up their own minds about how they feel about some of the more complicated issues and characters they encounter in Disney High.
The book could have been written under so many lenses: the specific pressure of teen girls as cast or consumer, a crackling tell-all, a devotional text with notations from fans on what this work meant to them. What prompted you to offer a deeply balanced biography instead?
In my work as a journalist, I've done quite a few oral histories and other in-depth features on TV series and movies over the years, and I really love showing the behind-the-scenes, nitty-gritty details of how individual productions come together at both the creative and business level. There are so many players involved in getting something made, and their various roles and memories always make a fascinating collage to assemble.
With Disney High, I relished the idea of being able to show both the building blocks that went into a number of these shows and movies as well as the overarching story about how each success and failure shaped the trajectory of a network and mega-corporation — and how that affected the people involved.
This book could have tackled Disney and Nickelodeon: both the kids’ fare space race, and the era of rocker girls, sk8er bois, frosted tips, and butterfly clips that defined and deified these films. How did Disney emerge the victor?
Disney vs. Nickelodeon was never really a question for me in terms of which to cover with this book. When I first pitched the idea in 2020, Nickelodeon already had an oral history book and a documentary about their '80s and '90s rise called The Orange Years. Disney Channel had absolutely nothing. No documentaries. No books. Nothing more in-depth than short articles over the years.
Additionally, Disney Channel has this really indelible intrigue of being part of the Disney brand and all that it entails. In the 2000s, Disney Channel managed to transcend beyond just a kids' cable network into a billion-dollar behemoth with related merchandise, albums, concerts, theatrical movies, and more. For the stars at that time, the expectations and pressures of being a Disney role model were also exceptionally huge. Combined, it's a story I couldn't believe hadn't been properly told, and one that I knew I wanted to tell with Disney High.
How many of the episodes of the bigger shows did you wind up watching per featured chapter?
So many. Of the shows that received full-chapter treatment, I think I had already watched all of Even Stevens and Lizzie McGuire when they aired. I'd also watched chunks of the multi-camera sitcoms, either through my own recreational viewing or as part of my job at J-14 magazine in the early 2010s. For the book, I went back and honed in on key episodes (the pilots, the crossovers, the big guest stars, milestones, specials, finales, etc.) across each series, and I also rewatched a multitude of DCOMs.
Through your research, how many chapters solely dedicated to the fatphobia of this time period could you have written?
That's such an interesting question because it was an issue that was ever present. I highlight it in Disney High mainly through discussing the experiences of Raven-Symoné and KayCee Stroh of High School Musical, but body shaming and body scrutiny is something that could have been a stand alone section covering basically every young person mentioned in the book. Hilary Duff, the Sprouses, Demi Lovato, Cara DeLizia on So Weird. Miley Cyrus was too little. Raven-Symoné was too big. There was really no winning if you were a young person inhabiting a body in the public eye in the 2000s.
Was the Hilary Duff/Lalaine fallout you detail in the book public knowledge? I definitely didn’t know about this!
No, none of that had ever been reported. For decades, the party line has been that Lalaine left Lizzie McGuire to focus on her music. And she did focus on her music after Lizzie! But that's not why she left. (Lalaine is narrating the audiobook for Disney High! - TG)
Did you research chronologically? By show? Did you pitch interviews in batches per show?
Early on, I made a series of spreadsheets for every major show and DCOM that listed key sources to approach, and then I reached out, researched, and interviewed them mostly chronologically as the book came together.
Did you come away feeling that being a child actor is…worth it?
I think the only people who can really answer that are the former child actors who lived it. It's a fact that the entertainment industry is one of the only industries in which kids under 14 can legally work. The other avenues for child employment are essentially a newspaper route or a business entirely owned by your own family. It's not normal in the 21st century to be a working professional when you are a child.
To have to deal with all of the stress that comes with having a high-profile job that could potentially see you become the breadwinner for your family before you're old enough to vote, while also coping with the massively disorienting nature of fame alongside the tumult of puberty and figuring out your own identity… that's often an incredible load to carry as a kid and to unpack for the rest of your life.
Learning that the writer of the Lizzie McGuire theme song fronted the band Looking Glass (“Brandy”) rocked my shit. What was your favorite crossover between Disney and the secular mainstream that you encountered?
Isn't that such a great nugget? Personally, I was a huge Happy Days fan growing up, thanks to Nick at Nite reruns. So, the fact that Henry Winkler was an executive producer on So Weird and Anson Williams (who played Potsie) was a director on several episodes of Lizzie McGuire — and that they both spoke to me for my book! — thrilled me.
Last question: what color would your Mickey ears be as you said “Hi, I’m Ashley Spencer and you’re watching Disney Channel?”
I really love the turquoise-blue shade. It screams Y2k-era Disney Channel and reminds me of my favorite flavor of the translucent iMacs and iBooks that were also so iconic to that era. (Yes, I did ask her this so I could surprise her with the graphic at the top of this letter! - TG)
And as a treat for today’s readers, Ashley leaves you with a playlist full of your (and hers, and mine) nostalgia karaoke jams. Long may “Supernova Girl” reign.
Ashley Spencer is a culture writer and reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, Vice, Vulture, and elsewhere. Disney High is her first book.
www.AshleyMSpencer.com
To listen:
From Twitta pal
, a feel-great playlist sent as a gift to me and shared lovingly with you:To read:
God bless John Mulaney, who went to a Salesforce conference and delivered, as my friend Cedric cleverly intoned, “leopards ate my face material.” Every word a slaughter. GOD BLESS.
This is literally just Simone:
(sometimes she likes to be a window chicken)
This is literally just Lugosi:
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
Come see me read!
Love you bitches,
TG
THE BABIES ARE SNUGGLING! Also do you have the same Brooklinen sheets in Slate that I do? Lmao
So appreciate the shout out!! TYSM 💫