The Real Reason Danica McKellar Ditched Hallmark For Great American Family

To an entire generation, Danica McKellar is perhaps best known for her role as Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years." In later years, however, she carved out a new identity for herself as a mainstay of the Hallmark Channel's various TV movies. McKellar made her Hallmark debut in 2015, appearing in more than a dozen productions for the network before eventually moving on to greener pastures in October 2021. That month, Deadline broke the news that she'd signed a deal with one of the network's main competitors, Great American Family (formerly known as Great American Country and GAC Family). According to McKellar, her decision to leave Hallmark for GAF was a matter of loyalty — not to a brand, but to a person.

"So, Great American Family channel was started by the man who ran Hallmark Channel for 20 years. Bill Abbott is his name. I credit him with reviving my career, giving me the genre," McKellar said during a November 2024 appearance on Cheryl Burke's podcast "Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans" (via CinemaBlend). "I did, like,15 movies with him at Hallmark Channel. So, when he left to start his own network and he asked me to come along, I was like, 'Yeah.'" McKellar added that GAF also gave her a better contract than what she had at over at Hallmark — complete with much more creative freedom. "They let me be way more involved in the writing and the producing," she said. "It is so creatively fulfilling. ... I just like being more involved."

Danica McKellar is hardly the only actor who followed Bill Abbott from the Hallmark Channel to Great American Family. The likes of Cameron Mathison, Candace Cameron Bure, Trevor Donovan, Jen Lilley, and Jessica Lowndes made the transition over the years, as well. By way of explanation, McKellar shared another reason she jumped ship for GAF during her "Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans" appearance: GAF gave her more opportunities to inject her faith into her work. Bure echoed this sentiment when she signed her own deal with Abbott's new network in April 2022. "I'm very excited to develop heartwarming family and faith-filled programming and make the kind of stories my family and I love to watch," she said (via Variety). "I am constantly looking for ways that I can inspire people to live life with purpose."

For others, though, the move was just a matter of staying close to long-time friends. "I mean, Hallmark is where I started, and everybody at Great American I knew from Hallmark, most of 'em were over at Hallmark," Mathison told Us Weekly in July 2024 while explaining his own decision to sign with GAF. "I love working there ... and I love doing those movies, and they're still going. But from another perspective, the people that are at Great American are the people that I started with at Hallmark. So, it's, like, coming home ...  I think a lot of the viewers are now watching both [channels]."