The Secret World of Alex Mack
The Secret World of Alex Mack is an American television series that aired on Nickelodeon from October 8, 1994, to January 15, 1998.[1][2] The series was co-created by Ken Lipman and Thomas W. Lynch and was produced by Lynch Entertainment, Hallmark Entertainment and Nickelodeon Productions. The Secret World of Alex Mack was accompanied by a tie-in series of 34 paperback books, as well as a variety of merchandise.
The Secret World of Alex Mack
Thomas W. Lynch
Ken Lipman
- Larisa Oleynik
- Darris Love
- Meredith Bishop
- Michael Blakley
- Dorian Lopinto
United States
English
4
78 (list of episodes)
- Thomas W. Lynch
- John D. Lynch
- David Brookwell
- Sean McNamara
- Matt Dearborn
- Gary L. Stephenson
- Greg A. Hampson
Cindy Parisotto
24 minutes
October 8, 1994 –
January 15, 1998
Production[edit]
Thomas W. Lynch, who had created the programs Night Tracks and Kids Incorporated, said the idea for the series was based on an incident from his own childhood.[7] Lynch's father, a nuclear physicist, worked with radioactive material in the family's garage and the chemical spilled out of its container. Lynch said, "Today, they would've shut the whole block down. It cracked me up—the idea that that stuff was right there. What if I ate it? What would happen to me?"[7] For the fictional chemical GC-161 in the show, Lynch said he came up with the GC part of the name while doing DNA research, while the 161 came from the number eight.[7]
Though the character of Alex Mack was initially conceived as a boy, Nickelodeon had the writers change the character to a girl.[7]
The series was filmed in Valencia, Santa Clarita and the Santa Clarita Valley.[8] The Mack home and Paradise Valley Chemical Plant interiors were filmed in a converted warehouse used as a soundstage. The junior high scenes were filmed at Charles Helmers and James Foster Elementary Schools. Castaic Middle School was used for senior high scenes.[8] The house, used for exterior shots, is located in the Westford Place neighborhood of Valencia.
Near the end of the series' run, Lynch presented star Larisa Oleynik with a package deal that included a fifth season of the show and a feature film, but Oleynik turned the deal down.[7] Said Oleynik, "I have absolutely no regrets about that. It was an incredible thing he was offering me and I knew that at the time, but I was a little burnt out."[7]
Television airing[edit]
The show premiered on Nickelodeon (part of SNICK line-up) in 1994 and ended in 1998. Internationally, it also aired on YTV in Canada, Kabel 1 in Germany, SVT in Sweden, France 2 in France, Viasat 3 in Hungary, Rai 1 in Italy, Fox Kids in Latin America, Channel 4 in the UK, NHK in Japan and was in the children's weekday lineup for much of the mid-to-late 1990s on the ABC in Australia. Repeats of the show aired in 2003 on The N, but it was soon replaced there. The show aired occasionally on TeenNick's 1990s-oriented block, The '90s Are All That.
Cast reunion[edit]
The Secret World of Alex Mack 20 Year Reunion was recorded in 2018 and released as a TV movie on YouTube and Vimeo.[9] Initially a live convention interview, the reunion featured numerous cast and crew members from the original TV series, revelations about their lives post-series, and discussions of a possible reboot or sequel.[10] It was revealed that many of the cast members had gone on to various endeavors, with moderate success: Larisa Oleynik (Alex) had gone on to earn mainstream adult roles in shows such as 10 Things I Hate About You, while other cast members had largely left acting. Alexis Fields (Nicole) had gone on to a career in interior design, John Marzilli (Vince) had adopted a son who attended the cast reunion, and Darris Love (Ray) became involved in acting and music.
A book series aimed at young readers was released along with the series.[15] The first and last books of the series are novelizations of the first and last episodes, respectively. The rest of the series consists of completely original stories, tied into the main series through the mentioning of various plot points from the TV episodes. There were 34 books in total, all released as mass-market paperbacks from Simon & Schuster.[16] Authors Diana G. Gallagher and Cathy East Dubowski were the predominant authors of the series, although other authors were recruited in-between to write certain titles.
The following titles were included in the series (in order, published between the years 1995 to 1998; note that the exclamation point at the end of each title was a stylized and intentional punctuation):