| Movin' On Up | |
| |
| Episode Information | |
| Episode #: | 48 |
|---|---|
| Air Date: | September 13, 2002 |
| Writer(s): | Jeremy J. Bargiel Nina G. Bargiel |
| Director: | Mark Rosman |
| Prod. #: | 202 |
| Credits | |
| Starring: | ■ Hilary Duff as Lizzie McGuire ■ Lalaine as Miranda Sanchez |
| Recurring: | ■ Christian Copelin as Lanny Onasis |
| Guest(s): | ■ Joy Lauren as Head Cheerleader ■ Willie Green as Student |
| Episode Guide | |
| Previous: | Inner Beauty |
| Next: | Party Over Here |
| Chronological Order | |
| Previous: | Just Like Lizzie |
| Next: | First Kiss |
Movin' On Up is the seventeenth episode of Lizzie McGuire's second season, and the forty-eighth episode overall.
Summary[]
Gordo skips a grade and gets promoted to high school. Meanwhile, Matt and Lanny try out for the cheerleading squad at school.
Synopsis[]
Gordo has received some big news: he has the chance to skip the eighth grade and start high school immediately. When Lizzie and Miranda hear this, they strongly encourage him to do it, saying high school is so much cooler than junior high. But Gordo isn't sure about it, and when he points out that a move to high school will split up the trio, the girls all of a sudden have something serious to think about. Lizzie and Miranda now decide they don't want their best friend leaving them, but they are shocked when they find Gordo cleaning out his locker the next day—he's going to high school. Miranda recovers quickly and wishes him the best, but Lizzie is clearly stunned. Animated Lizzie urges her to say something to Gordo to try to make him stay, but she doesn't.
On Gordo's first day at high school, Lizzie is still terribly troubled by his absence. Miranda is more practical. She'll miss him too, but she knows it's what he wants and it's something that is good for him. For his part, Gordo has a rough time in his new school, not academically, but socially, one of his problems being that he's about a head and a half shorter than almost everyone else. After being taken advantage of by a student who sells him a fake elevator pass, he heads home on the bus, and is surprised to find Lizzie waiting for him at his stop. When she asks how his day went, he tells her everything was fine. Again Lizzie is dying to tell Gordo how she feels about his leaving, but she doesn't. Later at her house, Lizzie talks to Miranda, still unable to come to terms with Gordo's absence. Unexpectedly, Gordo drops in and tells the girls he's not going to stay in high school. The girls are glad, but Lizzie presses him to tell her why. Gordo gives several reasons before finally telling Lizzie what she wants to hear—that he misses her and Miranda. The three friends seem to be closer than ever before.
Meanwhile, with Matt[]
Meanwhile, Matt and Lanny plan to try out for the cheerleading squad at school. Sam, perhaps feeling a bit insecure after Jo fixes the kitchen sink when he can't, is not so sure cheerleading is a "manly" enough venture for Matt, so he tries taking him on several "male bonding" adventures, which end up disastrously. When Matt and Lanny arrive for the tryouts, they're told there is only one spot open for a boy, but they audition as a pair anyway. The boys do a spectacular routine, but rather than split up their duo, they refuse the spot on the squad.
Trivia[]
- The filming dates for this episode took place between September 17-21, 2001.
- The clothes that Lizzie, Miranda and Gordo are wearing in the scrapbook photos are the same ones they wore in the hallway scene of "Just Like Lizzie" where Miranda and Gordo meet Andie.
- The scrapbook that Lizzie and Miranda are reading actually contains references to visits to two different amusement parts. The first spread contains pictures of Lizzie, Miranda and Gordo, along with a ticket to "MIRACLE MO___ AMUSEMENT", a potential reference to Six Flags Miracle Mountain Amusement Park, located in Valencia, California. This would be an oddity, considering that Miracle Mountain is a direct competitor to Disneyland. Lizzie then turns the page to another spread, this one unseen. Gordo enters and notes that the new spread references their trip to Coaster Kingdom, where he rode the Annihilator.
- When Gordo empties his locker, he removes the trilby hat he wore in Come Fly with Me.
- The stock footage of the high school Gordo attends is the same one used for John Adams High in "Boy Meets World."
- The cheer that Matt and Lanny did won "Best Cheer" in the voting on "A Raven New Year's Eve," the Disney Channel's year-end viewer voting.
- Lizzie's 7th grade class picture from the first-season episode "Picture Day" is briefly shown.
- In one of the Animated Lizzie segments, Gordo is represented by a frog. This is also done in Gordo and the Girl.
- When Sam lifts Matt and carries him to the back porch, he is mimicking the way he carries Matt in the opening theme.
- Joy Lauren, who appears here as the Head Cheerleader, went on to star in the dark comedy television series Desperate Housewives.
- Gordo's high school textbooks include:
- Dangers of Genetic Engineering
- Boring Fact About the Civil War (by Joe Boring)
- Bullfrogs: Care and Dissection for Your Biology Frogs
- Geology Through the Ages
- The World Around Us
- Applied Mathematics
- Chemistry, Year One
- Adventures in the World
Music[]
- Macho Man by the Village People (while Sam and Matt are doing some "male bonding")
- Everybody Hurts by REM (played during Gordo's first day in high school)
Goofs[]
- Continuity: During his day in high school, Gordo wears an open brown shirt over a grey t-shirt with an open heavier light brown or beige shirt worn over those, but in the pictures where a girl is patting him on the head, the brown shirt is being worn over the lighter-colored one.
- Character error: Matt states that he and Lanny got a standing ovation for their performance. Actually, when the boys finished their routine the others in the gym gave them an ovation, but no one was standing.
- Sam and Matt are throwing a football around, but when Matt makes the last catch, another football is seen bouncing around in the background.
- The text on the blackboard in the background of Gordo's high school English class is a partial quote from the middle of William Shakespeare's Sonnet #18 ("Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"). Oddly enough, the text skips over one line of the sonnet. It is possible that the production staff began to write the sonnet on the blackboard, then realized as they neared the end that they didn't have enough room for the entire quote, so they just skipped to the end.
Quotes[]
Miranda: The whole point of middle school is to give us something to do before we go to high school.
Matt: Mom! Mom! She's our man! If she can't do it, no one can! Goooo, Mom!
Matt: Dad! Dad! He's our man! If he can't do it, Mom sure can! Goooo, Mom!
Sam: Cheerleading?
Jo:: Oh, it sounds like fun. Hey, would you give me the wrench, please?
Sam: Yeah.... I don't know. Cheerleading. It sounds kinda girly.
Jo: If it's something he wants, and he's willing to work for it, how is that girly? And by the way, this is not a wrench. These are pliers, Mr. Fix-It.
Miranda: Lizzie, he's not doing this to us. He's doing it for him. C'mon. Friends should always want the best for each other.
Gordo High school was kinda like the Annihilator. It didn't actually pull the flesh off my bones, but until I do it with you guys, I'm not going on it by myself.
Lizzie: So, is there anything we need to know about high school?
Gordo: Well, you're gonna need an elevator pass, but don't worry. I'll sell you mine cheap.
Pop Culture[]
Animated Lizzie: Alas, poor Gordo, I knew him well.
- This is a takeoff on the play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, written sometime between 1599 and 1601. In it, Hamlet says "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio," often misquoted as "I knew him well."[1]
In the blooper reel, the skull held by Animated Lizzie in the previously detailed "Hamlet's Skull" segment is wearing a plastic Groucho Marx mask, also known as "Groucho Glasses."
- Groucho Marx was the front man for the comedy team the Marx Brothers, who appeared in several comedy films, primarily in the 1920's and 30's.[2] The Groucho Glasses mask originally premiered in the 1940's and featured black horn-rimmed glasses topped with bushy black eyebrows, and accompanied by a large rubber nose and bushy mustache.[3]
Animated Lizzie: Gordo is a secret agent.
- Animated Lizzie is wearing a jetpack, similar to the one worn by British Secret Service agent James Bond in the opening segment of the 1965 film Thunderball, starring Sean Connery.[4] This scene also evokes Bond's iconic theme music.[5]
Gordo: Slow down there, Dawson's Creek.
- Dawson's Creek was a drama series that ran on American television from 1998 to 2003. The show centered around the coming-of-age stories of first, a trio—and eventually a quartet—of high school students.[6]
Matt: Dad, you gotta know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em.
- This is a quote from The Gambler, the hit 1978 country and western song performed by Kenny Rogers. In the song, the gambler gives advice for winning, both in card-playing and in life.[7]
Gordo's feet as he walks down the high school hallway.
- This shot emulates Tony Manero's walk in the opening scene of the 1978 musical drama Saturday Night Fever.[8]
Animated Lizzie: Leave it to Mom to get all Lifetime movie on us.
- Lifetime movies were made-for-television films that ran on Lifetime, a cable channel aimed primarily at women, and its sister channel, the Lifetime Movie Network.[9]