Even Stevens is an American comedy television series produced by Brookwell McNamara Entertainment that originally aired on Disney Channel from June 17, 2000, to June 2, 2003, airing a total of 65 episodes spanning three seasons. It follows the life of the Stevens, a family living in suburban Sacramento, California, mainly focusing on the clashing personalities of its two younger children, Ren and Louis. The series was produced by Brookwell McNamara Entertainment. It is generally remembered for starring an adolescent Shia LaBeouf, before he achieved mainstream success as an actor. The show also features fast motion photography, which it employs in every episode. The feature-length Disney Channel Original Movie based on the series, The Even Stevens Movie, premiered on June 13, 2003, and serves as the series finale. The show ended after reaching the 65-episode limit that Disney Channel had at the time.

Premise

The Stevens family live in Sacramento, California, where the two younger children in the family, Ren and Louis, who have opposing personalities, often clash.

Episodes

Characters

Main

Recurring

Production

The show was originally produced as a show called Spivey's Kid Brother. A pilot was filmed in July 1999, and was later picked up by Disney Channel as Even Stevens. In the episode "A Weak First Week" (where the original pilot was repurposed as flashback sequences), Disney had to dub out the name "Spivey" to "Stevens". In fact, in the gym class scene, a banner is visible in the background reading, "Home of Spivey and the Wild Wombats." In the theme song of the show, clay animations of Louis and Ren turn their remote controls into lightsabers, alluding to Star Wars, several years before Disney would purchase the franchise. Prior to this, Ren reads a TV guide with live-action photos of Christy Carlson Romano and Shia LaBeouf on the cover. Lawrence Junior High is apparently a standard three-grade junior high school. Although the show lasted three seasons, the timeline of the show is only two school years, with Louis and his friends remaining in the 7th grade until some point after the middle of the second season. In several third-season episodes there are subtle references to an advance in the timeline that puts Ren and her friends in the 9th grade and Louis in the 8th grade. Ren finally graduates in The Even Stevens Movie. Shia LaBeouf and Christy Carlson Romano are the only two actors to appear in all 65 episodes of the series. In 2002, the musical episode "Influenza: The Musical" aired as part of the program's second season, which was viewed favourably by the audience and network executives. Several cast members had backgrounds on Broadway as well as professional dance training. McNamara had done musical theatre in high school and directed the episode, while Brookwell cited the "musical episode" as a television convention. Brookwell stated that network executives were initially unsure that a musical episode would be successful and were uninterested in the subgenre, but the idea was ultimately approved. The success of the musical format led to the idea being adopted on Brookwell and McNamara's other comedy series That's So Raven. It also inspired the development of the television film High School Musical, which then-president of Disney Channels Worldwide Gary Marsh said would not have been possible if not for the success of the Even Stevens episode. The series was produced and distributed by Disney in North America, while Fireworks Entertainment distributes the series in all other territories.

Broadcast

The series reran on Disney Channel from June 2, 2003 to September 4, 2006. On July 7, 2007, Disney Channel aired eight episodes as part of their "Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Louis" marathon, to coincide with the release of Shia LaBeouf's film Transformers. In 2006, Superstation WGN (now NewsNation) acquired the rights to Even Stevens and Lizzie McGuire. It aired on the channel from September 18, 2006 to September 12, 2008, during the week originally airing after each other on weekday afternoons before moving to the late night hours, when both shows' target audiences were generally not awake, with Stevens airing Tuesdays and Thursdays and Lizzie airing the rest of the week. In 2009, Even Stevens began airing on Disney XD; it was removed from the channel in January 2010. From 2015 to 2016, Even Stevens aired on Freeform for two hours after midnight on Wednesdays as part of the That's So Throwback block. In the UK, on April 30, 2001, it was reported that the BBC had acquired terrestrial rights to air and re-air the show on CBBC with 21 episodes in 30 minute formats of the show being scheduled to first air later that same year, after having secured a deal with Fireworks Entertainment. All episodes of the show were eventually aired before being re- broadcast on CBBC until December 20, 2008 at 15:00pm. Sometime in 2009, CITV also acquired rights to the show and aired and re-aired the show until sometime in January 2013, taking it off schedule just one week before the rebrand of the channel that same year. The show currently is no longer airing on television. The series released on November 12, 2019 with the launch of Disney+ in the United States. It is currently not available in all territories where the platform has launched due to different distribution rights in many countries.

Home media

The first season of Even Stevens was made available on DVD on Region 4 in Australia and New Zealand. To date, no further seasons have been released on Region 4. Region 1 has not released any season of the series, however, the television film, The Even Stevens Movie, was made available on DVD (Full Screen only) and VHS on June 28, 2005. In March 2020, the complete series was made available for purchase on iTunes. The series finale film is available on iTunes in non-cropped widescreen.

Awards and nominations