Production
The name for the main character changed several times prior to production, starting with Dawn Baxter in a show named The Future Is On Me. Names changed to Rose Baxter in a show called Absolutely Psychic but finally settling on Raven Baxter when actress Raven-Symoné won the lead part, with the show titled That's So Raven. Symoné originally auditioned for the role of the best friend, Stacey, but was changed due to ratings. Raven-Symoné is credited simply as "Raven" throughout the series.
The show filmed a special pilot episode on April 12, 2001 and the first season was filmed from November 9, 2001 – June 2002. The first season premiered on Disney Channel UK in September 2002 and in the United States on January 17, 2003.
That's So Raven was responsible for many firsts for Disney Channel: the series was the highest-rated series in the history of Disney Channel and the first series to garner more than three-million viewers; the second longest-running original series in Disney Channel history, the first Disney-produced series to reach 100 episodes), the First Disney-produced series to produce a spinoff (Cory in the House) and one of only three live action original series, where the lead and most of the supporting main characters are minorities (The Famous Jett Jackson and Cory in the House being the others).
In addition, it was also the first Disney Channel sitcom to be shot on videotape, to use a multi-camera format, to be shot in front of a studio audience or use a laugh track, and to use the simulated film look created by FilmLook, Inc. (all of which has become standard on all Disney Channel comedies, though a 'filmized' appearance will be given to all of the channel's videotaped sitcoms produced from 2009 onward, as the live-action Disney Channel Original Series begin being produced in high definition).
The first three seasons were produced by Brookwell McNamara Entertainment. The company later left at the end of season 3, being replaced by Warren & Rinsler Productions. Raven-Symoné then received a producer credit for the show's fourth and final season, with the credit being called "That So Productions". It became the first Disney Channel series to create a spin-off, Cory in the House, which followed her younger brother, Cory, as his dad becomes the head chef for the President of the United States, causing the two of them to move to Washington, D.C.
In the fourth season of That's So Raven and on Cory in the House, Victor states that Tanya (T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh) is in England as a lawyer. The show shot its final few episodes in January 2006, but they weren't all aired until a year later, with the series finale airing in March 2007 and the second-to-last episode shown that November.
Read more about this topic: That's So Raven
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)