I have a really obvious confession to make: I watched the sing-a-long version of High School Musical 2. Nope, that's not the confession; I couldn't help which version was on when I sat down to watch. The admission is more that by the end, against my own will, I was trying to sing along. Still, that's obvious. Because High School Musical 2 is impossibly catchy and lovable.

Disney Channel movies have a long history of cheesy, clean, wholesome fun. High School Musical - the original - fit directly into this mold. A fluke of a success, the original film was cute, catching the attention of tweens across the country. But the popularity spread at an exponential rate, making it so there was not one group of friends without a closet HSM lover. The premiere of the second was hotly anticipated - there are tons of stories on the internet of kids postponing their birthday parties, parents planning official get-togethers around the largest tvs, and there were even some college kids I knew who made quite a few calls to make sure someone had a cable package with the Disney Channel.

Logically, Sharpay makes things difficult for Gabriella, getting her written up a couple times, while suspiciously inspiring promotions for Troy. Suddenly, Troy's job description involves a salary, golf course games, and dinners with the Evans' family. As Troy sees his chances at a scholarship grow, his friends become more distant. Sharpay wrangles Troy's promise to perform with her in the talent show, and this proves to be the final straw for Gabriella, who up and quits, ignoring Troy's plaintively sung "What about us?"

Meanwhile, Sharpay's discarded brother, Ryan Evans (Lucas Gabreel) is finally allowed to steal the show, as he programs a glittery and Disney Channel-worth finale number for the staff to perform in the talent show. Convincing the entire Wildcats basketball team in the fantastic "I Don't Dance" number, Ryan becomes one of "them," bringing his great timing and more adult aimed character into the limelight. That is, until Sharpay brings the employees number to a crashing halt, forcing them all to work instead of perform in the show.

Obviously, this is a Disney Channel movie. I'm not ruining anyone's expectations if I reveal that everything is squared away in the last 10 minutes of the movie, very satisfyingly perfectly. The movie is fun and easy to watch, and in the same way as the original, it appeals to show tune lovers, tweens in love with the very pretty cast, babysitters who want to watch something that won't assault their eardrums and sanity, and families sitting down together. It's the ultimate fun for the whole family.

But it's not without its flaws. Zac Efron is his own boy band, without the band, as my mother says, and while his crooning is enjoyable to watch, I missed the characters from the first film, most of whom were forsaken for his greater screen time. Even Gabriella seemed like she was only a minor character. The main complaint on the message boards is that there was too much singing, not enough story, and that's not unfounded. The songs are great, but they're useless if the plot isn't strong enough to hold them up.

Though I feel silly critiquing the plot of a Disney Channel movie (and isn't the whole guilty pleasure that you don't have to?), something disturbing from the first movie carried over into the second. Troy Bolton, star basketball captain and supposedly loyal friend, ends up making a lot of decisions based solely on who is behind him. While that may be realistic, given the non-reality of the rest of the film, I take issue with the fact that when Troy finally decides not to sing with Sharpay because she has excluded his friends, he is immediately welcomed back into the fold. Not only that, Ryan subsequently orders him to learn a new number, and in fact, sing it with Sharpay. Sure, things work out differently, but shouldn't our lead character have even a little bit of conviction?

That being said, it's a rare occasion that the better funded and more hyped sequel outshines the original, but HSM 2 was much better than its happy accident of a predecessor. The Disney Channel learned what it did right with the first and pumped it all up for the second, including flashier dance numbers, songs that more resembled pop hits, and focused the camera on Zac Efron's eyes for much longer periods of time. I can only imagine the extreme swooning of tweens around the nation. It made all the characters just as (unrealistically, but charmingly so) likable as the first, so you're pretty much rooting for everyone. It's hard not to fall in love - or sing along - with HSM 2, even if you're trying not to.

Return to the main High School Musical page.

When they talked in February 2006, Ashley Tisdale told MediaVillage junior correspondent Maya Motavalli that she had a ball playing "mean girl" Sharpay in High School Musical. She must have had a blast reprising the role, because Sharpay is even meaner in HSM2. Read on to learn how Ashley prepared for her career-making role the first time around.

Originally published February 15, 2006

MediaVillage: What's the difference between working on a movie and a TV show?

Ashley: With a sitcom you have a live audience. We go in, we rehearse, we're done by four or done by three and everything moves very quickly. With a movie they have to get all the different shots. You block and then you film it, so it takes a lot of patience. It's a very cool experience.

MV: Are you like Sharpay or Maddie in any way?

Ashley: The only way I can say I'm like Sharpay is I love to perform. I started off on Broadway in Les Miserables so I have that whole performing thing down. But [I don't have] Sharpay's personality. She's really mean. It's fun to play the mean part though, sometimes.

MV: Was it hard to go from playing good girl Maddie to bad girl Sharpay?

Ashley: You know what? It wasn't. Maddie is a lot like me. She's a little bit sarcastic though.

MV: I like that.

Ashley: Yeah, I like that about her, too. But Sharpay is fun. I watched a lot of movies to prepare for playing her. I actually watched Mean Girls with Rachel McAdams and I liked how she portrayed her character. She was a mean girl but she had a smile on her face whenever she did it. So I watched all these other things and kind of put some things in and made it creative myself. I just loved playing the mean girl. When you're not like [a character] it's kind of fun to play.
MV: I just want to know, on the High School Musical album, I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You … what is that, anyway? [This song is not included in the movie.]

Ashley: It was an additional song written by Matthew Gerrard, who did We're All in This Together [and other songs in the movie]. He had pitched the song and we knew we weren't going to use it but we just recorded it anyway.

MV: I loved it.

Ashley: It's cool. It's kind of weird because it's me and Lucas [Gabreel, the actor who plays Sharpay's brother in the movie]. My kid brother is singing it with me and I'm singing, "I can't take my eyes off of you." But it's a really nice song. It's not really our characters singing.

MV: Do you like working on The Suite Life?

Ashley: I love working on The Suite Life! It's like my home. The twins [Cole and Dylan Sprouse] are like my brothers and Brenda [Song] is like my sister. It's so much fun. Our schedule is amazingly awesome. We shoot on Monday and do live audience on Tuesday so we get to shop and hang out. It's so much fun. I've been very lucky. I did pilots for network shows on NBC and ABC and they didn't go. So I've had my time where the stuff wasn't popular and wasn't great. I've worked really hard to get to where I am. I'm very lucky to have both projects that did so well. But Zack & Cody, those twins are absolutely adorable.

MV: (Sighs) They are…

Ashley: They're so funny and so normal, like boys. They play non-stop. They just don't care. That's the best part about them. Their dad has really kept them grounded. When they're off from work they're hanging out with their friends and not doing events and stuff. That's really refreshing.

MV: A lot of 7th graders and 8th graders are watching High School Musical and everybody has been talking about it non-stop.

Ashley: Somebody told me their daughter is in high school and never watches the Disney Channel, but she was singing the songs from the movie and all her friends were singing them with her.

Currently starring in both High School Musical 2 and the feature film Hairspray, Zac Efron is one of the hottest actors in television and movies today. Early last year, when the media spotlight had yet to focus on him, Zac talked with MediaVillage junior correspondent Maya Motavalli about the first HSM, how he prepared for the role of Troy and what it was like to have his first "passionate" on-screen kiss during the making of the movie.

Originally Published February 15, 2006

MediaVillage: Are you like Troy at all?

Zac Efron: In some ways. We're as similar as we are different. Troy is like the star at his school. He's a basketball stud and a hot shot. I was not like that when I was in school. But the way he is around people is like me.

MV: What did you have to do to prepare for the role?

Zac: We had two weeks of rehearsal from morning to night. I had to do basketball practice constantly for [the song and dance sequence] Get'cha Head in the Game and all the basketball scenes. The whole team would run real basketball practice. And after that I would go straight to dance rehearsal and that was very difficult and time consuming. It was really tough because I'm not really a dancer.

MV: Were you surprised at how Breaking Free climbed? [This song, sung by Zac and co-star Vanessa Anne Hudgens, reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and remains No. 1 on iTunes' Top 10 Soundtrack songs list.]

Z: Absolutely! Listening to the song I had a sense that it was good, but when we were recording it I had no idea. I was very surprised.

MV: On my school bus everyone's listening to their iPods and everyone's listening to that song.

Z: Well, that's good to hear!

MV: Was your kiss with Ashley Tisdale your first on-screen kiss?

Z: [Laughing] Ahh… it was my first on-screen passionate kiss, I guess. It was not my first on-screen kiss. I had to kiss Kay Panabaker on [The WB series] Summerland. That was my first on screen kiss.

MV: Was it hard to do?

Z: No, I'm good friends with Ashley and we're cool about it. We were friends before the movie started. We knew each other before we even took the roles.

MV: What do you think the sequel for High School Musical will be about?

Z: I have no idea. There's no script out yet.

Classic Maya: High School Musical Star Ashley Tisdale Reveals How She Prepared for the Role of Sharpay

By Maya Motavalli with Ed Martin

When they talked in February 2006, Ashley Tisdale told MediaVillage junior correspondent Maya Motavalli that she had a ball playing "mean girl" Sharpay in High School Musical. She must have had a blast reprising the role, because Sharpay is even meaner in HSM2. Read on to learn how Ashley prepared for her career-making role the first time around.

Originally Published February 15, 2006

Zac Efron, Ashley Tisdale and their co-stars in the two High School Musical movies are household names today, but that wasn't the case in early 2006. It wasn't until weeks after the first film premiered and its soundtrack album blew through the roof that adults learned what kids and tweens already knew: The stars of Disney's HSM were the stars of the future, and the franchise was one that would live on for years (and possibly generations) to come.

MediaVillage, however, had the inside track on the HSM phenomenon. Junior correspondent Maya Motavalli, who was 11 years old at the time, was talking about the movie months before it debuted. Indeed, it seemed that Maya and her friends knew the words to all of the songs on its soundtrack even before they saw the movie. Such is the influence of the Internet, especially on the young.

Maya (with a little help from MediaVillage editor Ed Martin) interviewed Zac and Ashley in February of last year for a series of columns on MediaVillage. With High School Musical 2 about to make its wildly anticipated debut on the Disney Channel we thought this would be an interesting time to rerun those interviews and see what had been going through the young stars' minds when HSM mania was just beginning.

You may not recognize the names Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale, but if you have children or find yourself near any kids, mention them and you'll suddenly be the center of attention.

Zac plays Troy, the conflicted basketball star torn between his interests in sports and singing in the Disney Channel Original Movie smash High School Musical. Ashley, a break-out Disney Channel star last year for her role as Maddie the sweet candy counter clerk in the series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, co-stars as Sharpay, a talented, scheming high school diva. Sharpay and her brother Ryan always land the leads in their school's musical productions, until Troy and his almost-girlfriend Gabrielle, the brainy and beautiful new girl in school, break out of their comfort zones and provide unexpected and unwelcome competition -- while still getting to know each other.

Thanks to the movie's outsize success on Disney and the robust sales of its soundtrack album, which has topped charts on iTunes, Amazon and Billboard, Zac and Ashley are suddenly known to millions of kids and teens -- and they're both still surprised at the overnight success Musical is enjoying.

"Going into the production, you could tell there was a lot of momentum behind the movie," Zac tells MediaVillage in an exclusive interview. "Everyone was very enthusiastic while we made the film, which is uncharacteristic of a lot of movies. The cast and crew were very excited the whole time we were making it and that came through on camera. I hoped it would do as well as it's done. I'm ecstatic."

"I knew we were doing something really cool because everybody was really passionate about it," Ashley adds. "It had an amazing cast and an amazing director. We knew it was going to be really good." She has a theory as to why its appeal is so widespread. "High School Musical was the first Disney movie that was [filled] with teenagers [rather than] kids, so I think a lot of teenagers and even 20 year olds tuned in," she says. "It kind of opened that age group."

As hot as the movie has been, Ashley admits the success of the album "kind of came out of left field." Indeed, Ashley and Zac, who both sing and dance throughout the film, say it's the music that made High School truly special.

"It's something that we're missing these days," Zac explains. "I grew up with it, watching Grease and the musical Disney movies, the cartoons. Music was a part of films. That's what made me excited. I think we brought that back a little bit."

Significantly, the director and choreographer of High School Musical, Kenny Ortega, was the choreographer of one of the most successful movies with music of all time, Dirty Dancing. "Kenny had an amazing vision and made it all come to life," Ashley says. "He was very respectful towards the kids, listening to us and having us tell him what we thought would be good. He was very open to our opinions and stuff. I think that's maybe why it did so well."

One of the perks that comes with huge success in a series or special on a cable network that targets children is that one can still go out in public without being noticed, provided one makes smart choices. Zac has no complaints. "It's not too bad," he says. "I'm not getting mobbed or anything. But I can't go out to places where there's going to be lots of people under 15."

Ashley has already had some experience with being recognized in public because of her role on Zack & Cody. "The musical has kind of doubled the amount of people that come up to me now," she says. But she knows when strangers are lurking, especially in her neighborhood. "I know all the kids on my street cause I used to baby-sit them," she notes. Now, teens are "camping out" on her street waiting for her to emerge from her home. Recently, four teenagers excitedly screamed and followed her to the end of her road. "My dad's like, 'Oh no, here we go!'" she laughs.

Asked if he did his own singing in High School Musical, Zac replies, "It depends [on the] song. When we started recording the album [we were] in the middle of basketball rehearsals and all the dancing and practicing for all the stuff. There was another boy, Andrew Seely, who came in. They mixed his voice with mine. So in the movie it's a medley of our two voices."

Ashley, on the other hand, performed all of her own vocals. She recently recorded Someday My Prince Will Come for the album Disneymania 4 and says she hopes to have an album of her own "one day."

Disney announced last week that a sequel to High School Musical is already in development. Zac, Ashley and the rest of the primary cast have been signed to reprise their roles. Until it goes into production,

Ashley has her regular Disney gig on Zack & Cody to keep her busy. Because she will be working on that show "until October," she says the sequel "probably won't be done for a long time, but I'm very excited." (Disney executives say it will debut in 2008.)

Returning stars Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman are all in fine form. Together, they're the most perfect six-pack of young television talent the medium has produced since Friends debuted in 1994.

BACK: MONIQUE COLEMAN; ZAC EFRON; RICH ROSS, PRESIDENT, DISNEY CHANNEL WORLDWIDE; ASHLEY TISDALE; ANNE SWEENEY,CO-CHAIR & PRESIDENT DISNEY/ABC TELEVISION GROUP; KAYCEE STROH; GARY MARSH, PRESIDENT, ENTERTAINMENT, DISNEY CHANNEL WORLDWIDE; VANESSA HUDGENS; OLESYA RULIN
FRONT: RYNE SANBORN; KENNY ORTEGA; LUCAS GRABEEL; CHRIS WARREN, JR.

We're two days away from what may be the most eagerly anticipated telecast of the year -- Disney Channel's High School Musical 2, the not-too-long awaited sequel to last year's unexpected blockbuster. Among kids and tweens it's going to be even more popular than the year's other giant TV entertainment event, the season finale last May of American Idol. I suspect it's going to appeal to millions of teens and young adults, and adults who are young at heart, as well.

From there, HSM2 is pure, perfect fun. Returning stars Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman are all in fine form. (Grabeel and Bleu are especially outstanding in I Don't Dance, another super-deluxe song and dance number.) Together, they're the most perfect six-pack of young television talent the medium has produced since Friends debuted in 1994. And unlike that group, this gang is truly multi-talented.

It has been only 19 months since High School Musical made its January 2006 premiere, but the difference between that distinguished debut and this week's mammoth event are significant in many ways. Nobody predicted that the first film would be a historic pop-culture phenomenon, making overnight stars out of several young unknowns, turning a basic cable channel that had been struggling for recognition just a few years earlier into a television powerhouse, producing a hit soundtrack that became one of the first true sensations on iTunes and inspiring a national concert tour with most of the original cast (minus Efron, who was busy filming the current box-office hit Hairspray at the time) that sold out arenas from coast to coast and had to be seen to be believed. (My sympathies to any adult who did not bring earplugs.) The HSM tour (later released on DVD and telecast on The Disney Channel) served in part as a monster promotional platform for the sequel. In fact, the concert ended with a giant image on the screen behind the performers heralding the impending arrival in Summer 2007 of HSM2, prompting ear-splitting, skull-cracking screams of delight from the thousands of kids and tweens in attendance.

Back in late 2005, not even the folks at Disney fully understood what they were about to experience. When Disney Channel made its presentation at the Winter Television Critics Association tour in January 2006, about one week before the debut of HSM, network executives played a couple of clips from the movie but spent their time instead focusing on an upcoming (and long-forgotten) Disney Channel Original Movie titled Cow Belles and the March 2006 premiere of another future phenomenon, Hannah Montana.

Tellingly, the only people who seemed to be fully aware of HSM and expected it to explode on arrival were the kids and teens to whom it was targeted. MediaVillage junior correspondent Maya Motavalli, who was 11 at the time, was asking me about the movie way back in November 2005 and insisting it was going to be a big hit. I hadn't heard of it when she first mentioned it. Apparently Maya and her classmates had been tantalized by previews on www.disneychannel.com and, later, free music downloads on iTunes.

The rest of us had to catch up -- and fast -- in January and February 2006.

Everything is different this time around. The press conference for HSM2 at the July 2007 TCA tour was standing room only, with reporters and critics from every significant publication in attendance. Zac Efron can currently be seen in hundreds of movie theaters as a featured player in Hairspray. He is also the current Rolling Stone cover boy and is smiling at millions of people this week from every newsstand and check out aisle in the land. The six leads from the movie have been seen and heard everywhere this month, promoting HSM2 and their own personal projects with equal feel-good enthusiasm. You can't escape the onslaught of publicity, promotion and marketing for this project.

Still, the tsunami of all things HSM doesn't have the deadening feel of commercial overkill that permeated life as we know it in advance of such would-be blockbuster movie sequels as the three most recent Star Wars epics or the last of the pre-Christian Bale Batman flicks.

That's a good thing, because this isn't the last we will see of High School Musical mania. There is a theatrical movie sequel in the works (rumored to be all about the Wildcats' senior year in high school) and a Broadway musical is said to be in early development. High schools across America are continuing to perform stage versions of the original HSM and next year will likely begin performing HSM2, as well. Speaking of those high school productions, later this fall Disney Channel will present High School Musical: The Music in You, a documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Barbara Kopple. It's about a production of HSM by a joint summer theatre workshop of two rival Fort Worth, Texas, high schools and the profound impact it had on the students, teachers, families and other area residents who became involved. If you aren't fully convinced that the HSM phenomenon is something special, wait until you see this film.

Check out the High School Musical Photo Gallery!

Early last year, while all eyes were on the breakout hit High School Musical, the premiere of another new Disney Channel production titled Hannah Montana generated similar excitement among the millions of kids and tweens that comprise the network's audience. A scripted comedy series with music about a girl named Miley Stewart who keeps her identity as an international pop-music superstar named Hannah Montana a secret so she can experience the life of a normal teenager when she isn't performing, Hannah quickly became one of the biggest franchises in the history of the network and made a superstar out of Miley Cyrus, the young actress and singer who plays the title character. The success of the series was only the beginning. The Hannah Montana album became the first television soundtrack to debut at No. 1 on a Billboard chart. Miley joined the recent sold-out Cheetah Girls concert tour for several performances in character as her alter ego. The inevitable Hannah Montana products followed, including a popular clothing line. And Miley is working on an album as herself, rather than Hannah.

Click here to read the rest of Miley Cyrus on Season Two of Hannah Montana

As detailed in yesterday's column, Friday Night Lights, The Wire, Broken Trail, The Shield and 24 are among my choices for the top ten programs of 2006. Here are the remaining five:

Click here to read the rest of High School Musical and American Idol are Programs of the Year

With starring roles in the hit movies Halloweentown III: Halloweentown High, High School Musical and Return to Halloweentown behind him, and the eagerly anticipated High School Musical 2 coming up next year, Lucas Grabeel is now one of the most popular young actors on the Disney Channel. But he is becoming known for his guest starring roles on more grown-up fare, as well, including Boston Legal, Veronica Mars and Smallville. He's also branching out as a musical performer (he'll be part of the two-month, nationwide High School Musical concert tour that kicks off at the end of November) and in movies. In fact, Grabeel called to do an interview with MediaVillage reporter Maya Motavalli from St. Louis, Missouri, where he is currently filming the independent feature Alice, co-starring Alyson Stoner, Luke Perry and Penny Marshall. Grabeel had just returned to St. Louis after a drive to his hometown of Springfield, Missouri, for a "real quick" visit with his parents. After the interview he was heading to a local studio to record songs for Alice. The movie isn't a musical, Grabeel says, "but there are songs in it… my character in the movie has a garage band."

Click here to read the rest of Exclusive Interview! High School Musical Star Lucas Grabeel Tells All -- Part Two

With starring roles in the hit movies Halloweentown III: Halloweentown High, High School Musical and Return to Halloweentown behind him, and the eagerly anticipated High School Musical 2 coming up next year, Lucas Grabeel is now one of the most popular young actors on the Disney Channel. But he is becoming known for his guest starring roles on more grown-up fare, as well, including Boston Legal, Veronica Mars and Smallville. He's also branching out as a musical performer (he'll be part of the two-month, nationwide High School Musical concert tour that kicks off at the end of November) and in movies. In fact, Grabeel called to do an interview with MediaVillage reporter Maya Motavalli from St. Louis, Missouri, where he is currently filming the independent feature Alice, co-starring Alyson Stoner, Luke Perry and Penny Marshall. Grabeel had just returned to St. Louis after a drive to his hometown of Springfield, Missouri, for a "real quick" visit with his parents. After the interview he was heading to a local studio to record songs for Alice. The movie isn't a musical, Grabeel says, "but there are songs in it … my character in the movie has a garage band."

Click here to read the rest of Exclusive Interview! Return to Halloweentown Star Lucas Grabeel Tells All -- Part One/a>

Disney Channel tomorrow night will debut Hannah Montana, another live-action comedy series targeted to older kids and tweens. Hannah joins an impressive lineup of similar programs on Disney, including That's So Raven, Phil of the Future and last year's hit The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, but unlike those shows Hannah features original music in every episode. This seems to be the perfect time for Disney to launch a weekly comedy with music, as enthusiasm for the network's mighty High School Musical is still going strong and young Disney Channel viewers are eagerly awaiting another original production with music produced just for them. Hannah will certainly benefit from that growing expectation. Heavy on-air promotion on the network throughout the ongoing High School Musical phenomenon won't hurt, either.

Click here to read the rest of MediaVillage Exclusive: Miley Cyrus Talks About her New Disney Channel Series Hannah Montana

Before High School Musical came along, the Disney Channel program that was generating the most buzz was the kid-com The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Thru February it is Disney's highest-rated series of the year among kids 6-11 and tweens 9-14.

Click here to read the rest of MediaVillage Exclusive: Dylan and Cole Sprouse of Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody

Zac Efron, who stars as singer and basketball star Troy in Disney Channel's High School Musical, recently talked with Maya Motavalli of MediaVillage about the movie, its music and his on-screen kiss with co-star Ashley Tisdale. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.

Click here to read the rest of Exclusive: High School Musical star Zac Efron Talks with MediaVillage About the Making of the Movie and Its Smash Soundtrack

Best known to Disney Channel viewers as Maddie, the sweet candy counter girl in the network's hit series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Ashley Tisdale also stars as the talented and scheming Sharpay in the network's original movie High School Musical. She recently talked with Maya Motavalli of MediaVillage about her roles, her co-stars and her music. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.

Click here to read the rest of Exclusive! High School Musical Star Ashley Tisdale Talks with MediaVillage About Her Acting, Her Music and Her Role on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody

You may not recognize the names Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale, but if you have children or find yourself near any kids, mention them and you'll suddenly be the center of attention.

Click here to read the rest of MediaVillage Exclusive: Stars of High School Musical Tell All