Keke Palmer, Vanessa Hudgens and Andre Jamal Kinney Almost Starred on a Disney Channel Show Together

Keke Palmer may have started her career off as True Jackson on Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP, but there was a second there where she almost become a star thanks to Disney Channel. The actor shared on Monday (August 10) that when she was just 10 years old, she actually filmed a pilot for a Disney Channel show alongside Vanessa Hudgens!

Photo credit: C Flanigan for Getty Images

"When I first moved to California I was introduced to Ralph Farquhar (one of the creators of The Proud Family, Moesha, The Parker’s etc)," Keke shared on Instagram. "He took a chance on me and he landed me this pilot with Disney Channel that didn’t get picked up called Keke & Jamal."

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Omg my big bro @andrejamalkinney pulled this out of the archives. When I first moved to California I was introduced to Ralph Farquhar (one of the creators of The Proud Family, Moesha, The Parker’s etc) he took a chance on me and he landed me this pilot with Disney Channel that didn’t get picked up called Keke & Jamal lol it was loosely based on my life. A little girl named Keke with big dreams of being an entertainer and her tight nit family. I was ten years old and I can remember it like it was yesterday 😭. We filmed this on the old That’s So Raven set and that was when I first met Raven Symone. True dream come true for me and like a fairytale. I hope it makes you laugh like it has mad me hahaha whew

A post shared by BIG BOSS 🔑🔑 (@keke) on Aug 10, 2020 at 5:24pm PDT

The 26-year-old revealed that the show was "loosely based" on her life. "A little girl named Keke with big dreams of being an entertainer and her tight nit family," she explained.

Keke then shared some clips from the show, including the title sequence. If the house set looks familiar, that's because it was recycled from That's So Raven. "That was when I first met Raven Symone," Keke wrote. "True dream come true for me and like a fairytale."

Along with Keke, Keke & Jamal starred Vanessa Hudgens pre-High School Musical as well as Andre Jamal Kinney, who went on to star in Hannah Montana. Andre shared some clips from the pilot as well. In his post, he revealed that around the same time he had also shot a pilot for Disney with Zac Efron.

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Fun Fact: A year before joining the Hannah Montana cast, @keke and I shot a pilot together called Keke and Jamal. Our chemistry was tooooooo good 😂. (And yes, that’s @vanessahudgens pre HSM.) At this time, I’d already shot another Disney pilot with Zac Efron that didn’t make it to series, and I was playing various characters on The Proud Family. A LOT was happening at that time, but I wanted sooo badly to go to series with this show and wave my little Disney wand around and say “Hey, I’m Andre Jamal Kinney, and you’re watching Disney Channel.” 😂. It hurt like hell when we didn’t get picked up, but I eventually accepted that my path was not for me to decide (which isn’t easy to do at 14 years old). On the slick, God probably knew I was too much for Disney and did us all a favor 😂😂

A post shared by Andre' Jamal Kinney (@andrejamalkinney) on Aug 10, 2020 at 9:16pm PDT

Of course, Keke & Jamal never got picked up, but Keke, Andre, and Vanessa all seemed to have done more than OK for themselves nonetheless.

It seems like things have come around full circle for Palmer, as the actor will be voicing a new character for its upcoming Disney+ reboot, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, based on the original Disney Channel series. In fact, similar to Palmer's story, The Proud Family was very nearly a Nickelodeon series! Palmer will also be hosting the 2020 MTV VMAs!

More Nick: Jamie Lynn Spears Wants Daughter Maddie to Play Younger 'Zoey 101' Character in Potential Reboot!

Original source: Seventeen.

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