Remember the little girl from the Missy Elliott videos? She's still workin' it
C'mon... admit it. You wanted to be the dancing girl
killing it in the circa-early-2000s Missy Elliott videos like "Work It."
We know we did. What we didn't know, though, was just how much she's
done since her Missy days.
Rewind back to 2002. Remember this?
Today, that girl — whose name, by the way, is Alyson Stoner —
reminded us just how much we coveted her tracksuited, pigtailed dance
skills by releasing a tribute video to her mentor. And it's awesome.
But, y'all, Stoner has been doing her thing ever since... albeit a
bit under the radar. Here are a few surprising ways she's been workin'
it since, you know, she
worked it.
1. Cheaper by the Dozen and Cheaper by the Dozen 2
OK, so this one's a softball. You probably saw these movies, in which
case we can agree that there is no shame in watching them every single
time they come on TV. Still, you may not have realized that cute little
Sarah Baker — the total tomboy in the first film who enlists Hilary
Duff, er, her sister Lorraine's help in girl-ifying her when she gets a
crush in the sequel (on Taylor Lautner, no less).
2. Cartoon cameos
To be precise, voice-over work! She voiced Kid Rat in 2004's
Garfield. In
Lilo & Stitch: The Series,
she lent her cords to bring Victoria to life from 2004 to 2006. She was
the voice of Holly Hobbie in several video shorts and Kairi in the
Kingdom Hearts video games. Impressed yet? I'm not done. She was Little
Engine in 2011's
The Little Engine That Could, Strawberry in 2013's
Super Buddies, Opal in last year's
The Legend of Korra TV series and — the pièce de résistance — she voices Isabella in
Phineas and Ferb (this was a real revelation for me, as my kids are super-fans of the clever cartoon).
3. Disney!
Stoner also spent some time hopping around the Disney Channel. She guested as Ally Parker on
That's So Raven, charmed as Sally/Sallabella on
Super Short Show, played Max on
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and starred as Caitlyn Geller in the Disney original movie,
Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam.
4. A string of Step Up movies
Who doesn't love the
Step Up movies? The dance sequences are
entirely too addictive to resist. Besides, the first of these films
brought Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan together and how precious is
that? You might easily recall Stoner's role as Moose's love interest,
Camille, in
Step Up 3D and
All In, but she was also in the original
Step Up as the tiny protégé of Tatum's character.
5. Some of your favorite dramas
If you feel like you've seen Stoner somewhere else, chances are you
have. The now-21-year-old has also landed bit parts in some of TV's
biggest dramas. In 2010, she snagged the role of a girl named Della in
an episode of the wildly successful, long-running series,
House M.D. And just last year, she popped up on
Major Crimes as the character Bug on the show's "Jane Doe #38" episode.
6. A slew of YouTube videos
Stoner's tribute video to Elliott certainly wasn't her first foray on
YouTube. The Ohio native posts everything from concert performances to
music videos (she's doing her own thing these days) to fun covers. Just
check out her and Alex G's take on Taylor Swift's ubiquitous feel-good
anthem, "Shake It Off" — adorable. So it is our sincere hope that Missy
sees the stellar tribute Stoner put together for her, gives this girl a
call and, by proxy, makes all our dreams come true with a reunion vid.
P-p-p-please?
