From a web show to an award show!
While it's not exactly 2007 anymore, it felt a lot like it as the stars of iCarly came together on Saturday, March 13 for Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards. During the annual award ceremony—which welcomed an audience and some stars virtually amid the coronavirus pandemic—the famous faces that helped bring the beloved late 2000s series to life joined together for a highly anticipated reunion.
Miranda Cosgrove, 27, Nathan Kress, 28, and Jerry Trainor, 44, stepped out on stage together—at a safe social distance, of course—to share their excitement about their series' return and to hand out the orange blimp for Favorite Movie. The award went to Wonder Woman 1984 and the film's beloved star Gal Gadot was there to accept it.
The stars of iCarly are no strangers to the Kids' Choice Awards. The series was nominated for Favorite TV Show every year from 2008 through 2013 and won the award three times. Cosgrove also racked up five nominations for Favorite TV Actress.
As the trio made clear, this isn't the last fans will be seeing of these iCarly cast members, who also caught up in 2016. In December 2020, news first emerged that the show is relaunching on Paramount+, which was seemingly confirmed by Cosgrove herself when she posted a photo with Kress and Trainor in January.
Now, in honor of this Kids' Choice Awards moment—and more of the nostalgia the upcoming reboot is bound to spark—allow E! News to jog your memory with these secrets about the hit show. All you have to do is keep scrolling!
1. After she spent three years as mischievous younger sister Megan on Drake & Josh, Nickelodeon wanted to give Miranda Cosgrove her own show. And the initial conceit might sound surprising to loyal viewers.
"My original idea was that she play a 'normal' girl who, in a twist of fate, gets cast to star in her favorite TV show," creator Dan Schneider revealed on his blog in 2009. "I even wrote the script. I called it Starstruck. The pilot I wrote (and turned in to Nickelodeon) was about Carly, a regular girl who gets cast to star in her favorite TV show."
2. While the network loved the idea for Starstruck, Schneider's plot for the show shifted after a conversation with his wife and his good friend, The Big Bang Theory executive producer Steven Molaro.
"I decided that it would be MUCH COOLER for Carly to create HER OWN show," he explained, "a show she could run herself, her own way, and do whatever she wanted to do -- A WEB SHOW."
3. Carly was not the first name Schneider had in mind for the main character. It was actually Sam, while the original name for Sam's character was Kira.
4. The name changes went down after Schneider discovered the URL iSam.com was already taken. He also tried the name Josie—even buying the URL before deciding he "didn't like it" and settling on Carly. "So, back in 2007, if someone hadn't already owned the URL iSam.com, then iCarly would likely have been called iSam," he explained on his blog.
"I came up with the name iCarly while filming on the set of Zoey 101," Schneider continued. "My friend Steve Molaro...was working with me, and we were trying to think of a good title for my new series about kids who start their own web show."
5. The character of Sam was written with Jennette McCurdy in mind after she guest-starred on Zoey 101. "I loved her and thought she was a major talent," Schneider wrote in another 2009 blog post. "So when I was creating Carly's best friend Sam, I knew that Jennette would LIKELY play that role."
6. "I wasn't doing enough where I felt like I wanted to stay involved in the industry," Nathan Kress admitted on Throwback With Nickelodeon of nearly almost quitting acting before landing the role of Freddie, Carly's BFF and technical producer. "I was on my way out when that audition happened." Then he beat out upwards of 200 actors for the role.
7. The series most-watched episode—2010's "iSaved Your Life"—attracted 11.2 million viewers, making it, at the time, the second most-viewed telecast in Nickelodeon's history.
8. In 2012, Cosgrove was listed as the "Highest Paid Child Actress" by the Guinness World Records, earning $180,000 per episode.
9. After Carly's zany older brother and legal guardian Spencer (Jerry Trainor) cooked "spaghetti tacos" for dinner on the show, the meal went viral, even landing the cover of the Food & Wine section of The New York Times.
"It was just a little joke I came up with for one episode," Schneider told the publication in 2010. "Then it turned into a running joke. And now it's this thing people actually do."
10. Throughout its five-year run, iCarly welcomed a list of high-profile guest stars, including Michelle Obama, One Direction, Emma Stone and Jimmy Fallon.
11. While it was never stated on the show, Spencer became Carly's legal guardian when she was 12 years old. And their father made his only appearance in the series finale, with David Chisum playing Colonel Steven Shay.
12. McCurdy revealed what was actually in Sam's infamous "butter sock" during a 2015 interview with the Huffington Post. "Although I am tentative to crush any person's childhood dreams, it was not filled with butter. It was batteries to give it some weight, with Styrofoam around them, wrapped with duct tape," she revealed. "I feel like Nathan [Kress] was probably the receiver of a few accidental butter-sock whacks."
13. After iCarly ended in 2012, Nickelodeon ordered a spinoff centering on fan-favorite side character Gibby (Noah Munck). The sitcom would follow the oft-shirtless character after he gets a gig at a recreational center where he winds up as a mentor to four offbeat middle-school students. While the pilot was filmed, Nickelodeon didn't order Gibby to series.
14. Another spinoff, however, did make it to air: Sam & Cat, which starred McCurdy and Ariana Grande as their respective iCarly and Victorious characters, premiered in 2013 and became an instant hit for Nickelodeon. But the show never returned for a second season after reports of "discord" on the set and rumors about salary disputes.
15. Last December, it was announced that iCarly is being revived by Paramount+ (currently known as CBS All Access), with Cosgrove, Kress and Trainor all reprising their roles. The new series is being developed by Jay Kogen (School of Rock the series) and Ali Schouten (Diary of a Future President, Champions, Merry Happy Whatever).