How I spent my Thanksgiving plane ride home:

Yes, High School Musical 2 was my inflight entertainment. I was thrilled. I was also probably the only passenger singing along. Who else would be silly enough to stay up watching Zac Efron dance on a tiny beveled television screen?

I still can't believe the flight attendants didn't feed us anything on our five-and-a-half hour flight. Not even a tiny breakfast muffin. My plastic cup of orange juice did not cut it.

Here's what got me through a hefty patch of turbulence:



Corbin Bleu, I've got game. I can show you how I swing, too!
.

It got me hooked on Hannah Montana.

...the absolute best part, as pointed out by noted pal Jane Wiedlin's Boyfriend (who watched this for no compensation, and therefore needs a doctor, I am thinking), is how the song repeats "work, work, work it out" until you feel like maybe nobody knew any other words to include, or nobody knew any other words at all, or somebody wrote the whole thing using a defective magnetic poetry kit where all verbs were replaced with "work," all pronouns with "it," and all prepositions with "out," and then when the music is finally over and the dance stops, Troy immediately turns to FOT [Friend of Troy, Corbin Bleu] and says, "So can we work this out?" Because he's still wondering. Goddamn, Troy. What do you think the entire song you just sang was about? Unsurprisingly, having just repeated "we can work it out" in song four hundred times, FOT replies, "Yeah, we can work it out." I'M SO GLAD WE GOT THAT CLEARED UP.

I was cracking up over that paragraph all day. My coworkers probably think I get high in the bathroom. Read the rest of Miss Alli's recap of High School Musical 2 at TWoP.

P.S. I know the picture about is from the first HSM. However, I guffaw whenever I see Sharpay and Ryan performing "What I've Been Looking For." They're so goofy.

"Bet On It"

If you didn't see this coming, you shouldn't be working in television.

High School Musical 2 Big 2 B Ignored, by Joal Ryan, E! Online. Emphases mine.

...Disney Channel's HSM2 was simply huge, averaging 17.2 million Zac Efron-worshipping viewers, preliminary Nielsen Media Research ratings showed, per the network Saturday.

The TV movie set records for all-time biggest basic cable audience (besting a 2006 ESPN Monday Night Football telecast) and all-time biggest made-for-basic-cable telepic (besting TNT's 2001 western, Crossfire Trail), the Disney Channel said.

Overall, HSM was easily TV's most watched show, on broadcast or cable, since the final week of 2006-07 season, topping the summertime likes of The Sopranos finale on HBO (11.9 million) and the season premiere of NBC's America's Got Talent (12.9 million). And according to the Disney Channel, it was the most-watched TV-movie anywhere since the 2005 premiere of the Keri Russell-Skeet Ulrich period drama, The Magic of Ordinary Days (18.7 million), on CBS...

...It was not clear what impact the mobilization of such large numbers of children had on the greater society on Friday night. Historically, or at least anecdotally, big TV events, such as the Beatles' debut on Ed Sullivan, have been linked to drops in crime. There was no word if HSM2 could be credited with bringing calm to the nation's pizza parlors and summer camps.

Also, according to the Disney Channel, there was no way of gauging exactly how many youngsters watched HSM2 owing to an untold number of HSM2 viewing parties. (Nielsen doesn't count heads at such events. Ditto for slumber parties.)...

...The new movie starred Hairspray's Efron and duet partner Vanessa Hudgens, both of the old movie, in a tale seemingly borrowed from the third season of Saved by the Bell, i.e., high-school friends take summer jobs, en masse, at a country club.

In its review, the New York Times said there was "much to admire" in the sequel, but also "so much to hate," including, for its taste, too much cast use of bronzer...

For more commentary on into this cultural phenomenon, read High School Musical 2: What Time Is It? on Ducky Does TV, as well as Miss Alli's review of the first High School Musical on TWoP.

Status Quo, or Something New?

Who else is watching the sing along version of High School Musical on The Disney Channel right now? 23 hours, 46 minutes and counting till High School Musical 2 premieres!