The Famous Jett Jackson
Encyclopedia
The Famous Jett Jackson is a joint Canadian and American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Disney Channel Original Series coming-of-age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...

 television series for children ages 12–16 about a boy named Jett Jackson (Lee Thompson Young
Lee Thompson Young
Lee Thompson Young is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his teenage role as the title character on the Disney Channel television series The Famous Jett Jackson...

) who plays a teenage secret-agent on a fictional TV show-within-a-show called Silverstone. Jett lives and films Silverstone in his fictional hometown of Wilsted, North Carolina, where his father is the sheriff. However, the actual series, The Famous Jett Jackson, was filmed in Brooklin, Ontario
Brooklin, Ontario
Brooklin is a community in the Town of Whitby, Ontario, Canada. It is located,North of the urban area of Whitby,at the South junction of Ontario Highways 12 and 7....

.

Premise

Jett Jackson previously lived with his actress mother in Los Angeles, but missed his home and his friends. Longing for a relatively normal life, Jett succeeds in getting the production of Silverstone moved to Wilsted, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, thus providing jobs to townspeople while affording Jett the chance to live with his father, Sheriff Wood Jackson, and his great-grandmother, Miz Coretta (whom Jett calls Nana). Keeping in touch with his mother Jules by video link on his computer (though by the third season she also moved to Wilsted), Jett now spends part of his time with family, friends and school, and the rest living the life of a working actor and celebrity. In doing so, Jett often ends up in sticky situations, usually aided and abetted by his best friend, J.B., his not-quite girlfriend Kayla, and sometimes by Cubby, Silverstones wacky special effects wizard. In the second half of the series, Jett's new co-star, Riley Grant, is added to the mix.

The show within the show, Silverstone, is about a spy who works for Mission Omega Matrix in order to save the world from villains like Dr. Hypnoto and the Rat. In contrast to Jett, Silverstone has no family, only his mentor, Artemus, and eventually his partner Hawk ("played" by Riley Grant).

Main

  • Lee Thompson Young
    Lee Thompson Young
    Lee Thompson Young is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his teenage role as the title character on the Disney Channel television series The Famous Jett Jackson...

     as Jett Jackson/Silverstone
  • Ryan Sommers Baum
    Ryan Sommers Baum
    Ryan Dowell Baum is an American former child actor who is best known as J.B. Halliburton on the Disney Channel original series The Famous Jett Jackson.-Biography:...

     as J.B. Halliburton
  • Kerry Duff as Kayla West
  • Gordon Greene as Woodrick Jackson
  • Montrose Hagins
    Montrose Hagins
    Montrose Hagins is an African-American television actress. Hagins has starred and been a guest on popular shows such as: Seinfeld, Roc, 227, The Golden Girls, Sister, Sister, The Hughleys, The Jamie Foxx Show, What's Happening Now, The Sinbad Show, The Famous Jett Jackson...

     as Miz Coretta
  • Melanie Nicholls-King as Jules Jackson

Recurring

  • Jeffrey Douglas as Cubby
  • Lindy Booth
    Lindy Booth
    Lindy Booth is a Canadian actress who currently resides in Los Angeles, California. She's best known for playing Riley Grant on the Disney Channel series The Famous Jett Jackson and Claudia on Relic Hunter. She also portrayed A.J...

     as Riley Grant/Hawk
  • Nigel Shawn Williams as Nigel Essex/Artemus

History and related series

Show creator Fracaswell Hyman reportedly devised the character before casting Lee Thompson Young for the role. Like Jett, Young was raised in a single parent home in the South, and decided on an acting career at an early age. Young went on to write one of the episodes produced for the series.

The series included both young guest stars such as Hayden Christensen
Hayden Christensen
Hayden Christensen is a Canadian actor. He appeared in Canadian television programs when he was young, then diversified into American television in the late 1990s. He moved on to minor acting roles before being praised for his role of Sam in Life as a House, for which he was nominated for a Golden...

, Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...

 and Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child was an American R&B girl group whose final line-up comprised lead singer Beyoncé Knowles alongside Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. Formed in 1997 in Houston, Texas, Destiny's Child members began their musical endeavors in their pre-teens under the name Girl's Tyme...

 and veteran stars such as Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...

, the latter of whom played the new coach of Wilsted's minor league baseball
Minor league baseball
Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...

 team in one episode.

The relative realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

 of Jett's home life sometimes gave way to fantasy or paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...

 elements, such as one episode in which Jett learns about a shameful incident in Wilsted's history with a little prodding from the ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...

 of a key figure in the buried scandal. Other episodes dealt with issues in a more realistic and contemporary way, such as when J.B.'s father's family-owned store is threatened by the arrival of high-powered, "big box" competition, and another in which Jett's English teacher, Dr. Dupree, runs afoul of local attempts at censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

 of a class reading assignment. Other episodes dealt with such topics as bulimia and the question of whether Jett, with his relatively sheltered and pampered home life, can truly understand or cope with the problems of other African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s.

Although it was well-received and regarded as a success, the series ended on June 22, 2001, allegedly due to Disney's unstated policy of making only 65 episodes per series. It was followed by a Disney Channel movie in which Jett finds himself trapped in Silverstone's world, and vice versa. In that movie he takes on Silverstone's role for real and is able to muddle through while Silverstone does the same thing in Jett's world until Miz Coreta finds out the truth and he returns home and sends Jett back as well. The movie ends with Jett returning to Silverstone's world and helping him complete his mission by rescuing Silverstone from Kragg and then defeating Kragg alongside his hero alter-ego. The series was in re-runs on Disney Channel throughout 2002 at 12:30 AM eastern/Pacific.

Film

Jett Jackson: The Movie
Jett Jackson: The Movie
Jett Jackson: The Movie is a Canadian 2001 Disney Channel Original Movie based on the Disney Channel series The Famous Jett Jackson.-Plot:...

 premiered on Disney Channel in 2001.

Reruns

The show was removed from Disney Channel in early-mid 2004. The show airs reruns airing on Disney XD.

Many of the regular and recurring cast members from The Famous Jett Jackson have since appeared in another Canadian television series, Strange Days at Blake Holsey High
Strange Days at Blake Holsey High
Black Hole High is a Canadian science fiction television program which first aired in North America in October 2002 on NBC and Discovery Kids...

, as stars or guest stars. The most obvious examples of this are Jeff Douglas
Jeff Douglas
Jeffrey Lloyd "Jeff" Douglas is a Canadian actor and broadcaster. He rose to prominence for his role as Joe Canada in Molson's ad The Rant....

 (Cubby) as Professor Noel Zachary, a.k.a. Professor Z., Lawrence Bayne
Lawrence Bayne
Lawrence Bayne is a Canadian actor, born November 11, 1960 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has appeared in various movies and television series, both live action and animated, and also sings/writes with his band The Lawrence Bayne Issue....

 (Dr. Hypnoto) as Victor Pearson, Tony Munch (The Rat) as The Janitor, and Valerie Boyle (Vice Principal Niad) as Principal Amanda Durst.

Director Shawn Levy
Shawn Levy
Shawn Adam Levy is a Canadian-American actor, director and producer who directed the comedy films Big Fat Liar, Just Married, Cheaper by the Dozen, The Pink Panther, Night at the Museum, Date Night, and the sci-fi movie Real Steel...

 (Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen (2003 film)
Cheaper by the Dozen is a 2003 American comedy film about a family with 12 children . The film takes its title from the 1948 biography of the same name of Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth and their 12 children, but other than the title and the concept of a family with 12 children,...

, The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther (2006 film)
The Pink Panther is a 2006 American comedy film and a reboot of The Pink Panther film series. In this film, Inspector Jacques Clouseau is assigned to solve the murder of a famous soccer coach and the theft of the famous Pink Panther diamond. The film also stars Kevin Kline, Jean Reno, Emily...

, Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum is a 2006 fantasy adventure-comedy film based on the 1993 children's book The Night at the Museum by Milan Trenc. It follows a divorced father trying to settle down, impress his son, and find his destiny...

) did a few episodes of the series and has since then cast members of the cast in minor roles in his big-budget films.

Lee Thompson Young went on to play Cyborg in two episodes of Smallville, as well as an intern in the 8th season of Scrubs
Scrubs (TV series)
Scrubs is an American medical comedy-drama television series created in 2001 by Bill Lawrence and produced by ABC Studios. The show follows the lives of several employees of the fictional Sacred Heart, a teaching hospital. It features fast-paced screenplay, slapstick, and surreal vignettes...

 and was cast in the movie "Friday Night Lights". He also has a supporting role as Det. Barry Frost on the TNT original series Rizzoli & Isles

Critical reaction

Response to the show was generally positive. Laura Fries of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

, the Hollywood trade paper, noted in her review of Jett Jackson: The Movie that "Young serves as an appealing role model, much like Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...

's Buffy the Vampire Slayer --someone who can fulfill young, action craving audiences without the gratuitous violence. There's a sense of empowerment associated with these sort of roles, and handled correctly, they function as an excellent allegory for the confusing teenage years." Although she mentions "contrived plot devices", she also refers to the series as "clever" and "an extremely entertaining concept".

Awards and nominations

The series The Famous Jett Jackson and its young cast were nominated for Young Artist Awards, presented by the nonprofit Young Artist Foundation, in several categories in the course of the show's run:
Awards
Year Result Award Category Won
1999 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Performance in a TV Comedy Series, Leading Young Actor Lee Thompson Young
Lee Thompson Young
Lee Thompson Young is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his teenage role as the title character on the Disney Channel television series The Famous Jett Jackson...

1999 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Performance in a TV Comedy Series, Supporting Young Actor Ryan Sommers Baum
Ryan Sommers Baum
Ryan Dowell Baum is an American former child actor who is best known as J.B. Halliburton on the Disney Channel original series The Famous Jett Jackson.-Biography:...

1999 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Performance in a TV Comedy Series, Supporting Young Actress Kerry Duff
1999 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Family TV Comedy Series The Famous Jett Jackson
2000 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Performance in a TV Drama Series, Leading Young Actor Lee Thompson Young
2000 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Performance in a TV Drama Series, Supporting Young Actor Ryan Sommers Baum
2000 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Performance in a TV Drama Series, Supporting Young Actress Kerry Duff
2001 Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

Best Performance in a TV Movie Kerry Duff (Jett Jackson: The Movie
Jett Jackson: The Movie
Jett Jackson: The Movie is a Canadian 2001 Disney Channel Original Movie based on the Disney Channel series The Famous Jett Jackson.-Plot:...

)
2001 Parents' Choice Awards Silver Honor The Famous Jett Jackson
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