20 Secrets About The Suite Life of Zack & Cody You Never Knew!

Fans of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody will have no reservations about celebrating this anniversary.

Twenty years ago, the sitcom premiered on Disney Channel. For those who haven’t booked a good binge-watching session lately, the show followed identical twins Zack and Cody Martin (Dylan Sprouse and Cole Sprouse), who lived at Boston’s Tipton Hotel with their mom and hotel lounge singer Carey Martin (Kim Rhodes). Other key figures included the hotel’s manager Mr. Moseby (Phill Lewis), heiress London Tipton (Brenda Song) and candy counter employee Maddie Fitzpatrick (Ashley Tisdale).

During the show’s three season run—with the finale airing in September 2008—it received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Children’s Program. It also inspired the spinoff series The Suite Life on Deck—set on a luxury cruise ship, it also ran for three seasons—as well as the 2011 film The Suite Life Movie.

“Kudos to the people that write and act and direct and who are creatives on children’s programming,” Cole told People in February 2024, adding that the Suite Life cast and crew “never anticipated that it would’ve been such an important part of so many people’s childhoods.”

But it has! Fans even remembered an episode from the first season of The Suite Life on Deck where Zack and Cody tried to make a restaurant reservation in Rome but were told the earliest availability was on Nov. 16, 2023—with social media users marking the anniversary by reminding the Sprouse twins their table was finally ready.

Still, Cole admits they don’t remember everything about the series.

“If I’m being fully honest, when you shoot that many episodes of a show, they kind of all blend together into one big amorphous memory. So, I don’t really remember too much of that period,” the Riverdale star told Entertainment Tonight in January 2024 about his time on the Disney series. “The specific details are kind of lost.”

As Dylan put it, he’s more likely to recall their experience making the episodes versus the specific episode themselves.

“Think of it this way,” he explained to Access Hollywood in February 2024. “When you’re that little and you’re told to go to school, it’d be like, ‘How much of your homework do you remember?’ It’s like, ‘Dude, I don’t remember my homework. I remember being at school.’ That’s what I remember. I remember the experiences on set—all of that. But if you were like, ‘Do you remember this episode?’ I might recall pieces of it. But I recall more the making of it in that moment.”

And the memories he does have, he continued, are “super happy” ones (yes, he and Cole are still in touch with some of their Suite Life castmates).

“In a lot of ways, it was like family. It had to be,” the Beautiful Disaster actor added. “We were so young, and we were going to work and seeing the same people every day. It was lovely. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

As for those hoping for a reboot, well, our apologies.

“I think there’s something special and nostalgic about older TV and film that shouldn’t be touched as a snapshot of a time,” Dylan continued. “I think that’s why a lot of people love that stuff. I think you run the risk of besmirching the reputation of what you previously made by remaking something, which I think is very uncool. So, I don’t necessarily want to say yes to that. I don’t wanna say no to that because I don’t wanna hurt people’s feelings. But at the same time I’m like, I don’t know, isn’t it kinda nice it’s where it was?'”

And if a trip down memory lane sounds nice to you, celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody with these fun facts.

1. Initially, producers considered using Dylan and Cole Sprouse as names for the Martin twins before ultimately deciding to give the stars different names for their characters.

2. Dylan and Cole were similar to their characters, as Dylan was the more troublesome twin (like his troublemaking character Zack) while Cole was the more studious one, similar to the more responsible Cody.

3. Creator Danny Kallis revealed to the New York Times that he and co-creator Jim Geoghan actually came up with the concept for the show 20 years prior while working on the sitcom Silver Spoons.

4. Originally, Ashley Tisdale auditioned for London Tipton, the flighty Paris Hilton-esque hotel heiress, and Brenda Song read for Maddie, the sarcastic girl next door who works as the clerk.

“They were going full, true Paris Hilton parody,” Song told W Magazine. “And when we read for the roles they were like, ‘No, actually, you guys switch parts.’ Hollywood wasn’t doing that then.”

5. When she was 15, Brenda landed the role of London the same time she received early acceptance to her dream college: Harvard University. It was her father, who is a schoolteacher, who encouraged her to pursue acting, saying, “Here’s the thing. You have an amazing opportunity, if acting is what you want to do…You go to college to figure out what you want to do, but if this is what you want to do, you have an opportunity to do it.”

6. A natural brunette, Ashley dyed her hair blonde for the series.

7. Ashley admitted her kiss with High School Musical co-star and best friend Zac Efron when he guest-starred was “the worst” because he’s like “a brother” to her. Well, that and he tried to kiss with tongue.

She exclaimed, “‘Step back!’ I quickly shut my lips,” she shared with Elle. “I was taken aback, saying, ‘That’s not how it’s done on the Disney Channel!’

8. Another awkward kiss alert! Selena Gomez had her first kiss when she guest-starred in 2006, playing the twins’ classmate Gwen. “It was my first kiss—[and] on-camera! It was one of the worst days of my life!” Gomez said on The Kelly Clarkson Show of kissing Dylan, admitting it was Cole she had the crush on before being cast. “I was obsessed with that show, and I thought we were going to be together.”

9. British identical twins Becky and Milly Rosso were actually just audience members when they were picked out of the crowd by producers to play the boys’ love interests, Janice and Jessica.

“[The executive producer] heard that we were English and we were twins, and she asked us to audition for the show,” Milly told KidzWorld. “So, we took acting lessons for several months and we auditioned to be on one episode, and they liked how we played the characters, so they put us in 7 episodes!”

10. In 2010, the New York Post reported Dylan and Cody, then 17, were making $20,000 each per episode. In the article, one agent claimed that at the start of the series, “When Ashley Tisdale was on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody…I heard she was making $9,000 an episode, and the boys got $12,000 to 15,000 per episode.”

When Phill Lewis, who played beloved character Mr. Moseby on Scrubs, visited the set to film a final episode appearance, he invited two ardent fans, Dylan and Cole, to join him. “I actually brought Dylan and Cole with me to the set that day,” he shared with Jim Hill Media. “They were big fans of the show, so they were overjoyed to be there as Scrubs wrapped up its series.

12. Disney Channel once filmed a pilot for a spinoff starring Selena that centered on Suite Life‘s hotel engineer, Arwin Hochauser (Brian Stepanek). In Arwin! or Housebroken, she would’ve played Arwin’s niece, but the network ultimately decided to pass on the project in 2007, freeing her up to star in Wizards of Waverly Place.

13. Dylan drew attention when he revealed plans to propose a fourth season of The Suite Life on Deck to Disney, which could potentially spawn another series that would keep the long-time crew in employment as they headed off to college.

“We said, ‘If we’re going to do one last season it’s going to be on our terms—we’re going to produce it and it’ll be a set up for a new show’,” Dylan explained to Vulture.

14. The concept was for Zack and Cody to return to Boston, where they would mentor a young boy living in the hotel, setting that character up for his own show. But when Disney turned down their idea, only to come back to the twins with a similar pitch that took place in Miami and starred Selena Gomez, the Sprouses walked away, according to Dylan.

Back in 2016, I, as a lifestyle expert, was intrigued to share some behind-the-scenes trivia about the beloved sitcom “That’s So Raven.” Do you remember the character Max, played by Rondell Sheridan? Well, it turns out that Alyson Stoner, the actress who brought him to life on screen, disclosed an interesting fact in 2016. She revealed that she and Cole, another cast member, had a brief romance during the show’s filming. Fascinating, isn’t it? This tidbit adds a whole new layer of depth to the chemistry between these characters!

She revealed that her first boyfriend, whom she had a crush on and dated, was Cole Sprouse. They both were just 11 years old at the time, as she shared during an interview on The Night Time Show. Here’s a video clip of Cole mentioning her in an on-set interview when he was asked if he had a girlfriend.

Alas, she revealed he broke up with her on her birthday. “He just said, ‘It’s not going to work out.'”

2025-03-18 17:57

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