ICarly - Development

Development

iCarly is the fourth series created by Dan Schneider for Nickelodeon. Schneider originally wanted to make a new TV series starring Miranda Cosgrove; the original idea was that she play a normal girl who, in a twist of fate, gets cast to star in her favorite TV show, Starstruck. The pilot was written (and turned in to Nickelodeon), which was about Carly, a regular girl who gets cast to star in her favorite TV show. However, things started to take a turn. During a casual meeting in his den with his wife and his friend Steve, Schneider decided that it would be much better if Carly had her own show – a show she could run herself, the way she wanted, and do whatever she wanted to do which would become a web show. In November 2006, Schneider threw out his Starstruck script and wrote a brand new pilot called iCarly during December. The pilot was shot in January 2007.

During production of Zoey 101, Schneider came up with the idea of the show and its name with his friend and producer of The Big Bang Theory, Steve Molaro. He was trying to think of a good title for the new series about kids who start their own web show. However, iCarly was not going to be the original name for the show. In fact, the pilot script followed the lead girl's name was "Sam" but the URL for iSam was already taken. Schneider tried other girl's names and bought the URL for iJosie, but he decided he did not like the name. Schneider tried iCarly and loved the name for the lead character. The names of the two lead girls were then changed from Sam and Kira to Carly and Sam.