Pop Tween Culture

Sooooooo…You know who these folks are, right?

Well, I gotta admit that if I passed any of these “kids” on the street, I wouldn’t know them as anything other than the usual overstuffed mall rat with rich parents.  But that’s because I’m not the kind of guy who sits down and watches High School Musical — until last weekend. 

The continuing story of these kids netted 17 million viewer as tweens from all over the U.S. had parties and tuned in to see High School Musical 2.  My daughter attended one of these with her friends and they really liked the show.  I gotta hand it to the Disney Channel.  They’ve been hyping this thing for a long time now, and when they finally screened the show, it lived up to the hype (or so I heard from the tween “focus group” when we picked Maya up from the HS2/sleepover party the next morning).  Disney also kept the good times going by slightly altering the repeat viewings.  One showing had the lyrics to the songs on the screen (Karaoke style), and they had pre-recorded “video chats” with kids asking the cast members questions (who, of course, answered them in a pre-scripted way).  It was all an impressive marketing presentation, and it paid off because this movie was the highest rated TV program on basic cable. 

When you have a couple of golden eggs, what do you do?  Yep, get that goose to produce some more.  HS3 is still in the the “talking” stage, but it seems Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens think the $1 million “talent fee” is a little too little for the zing they bring to the screen.  It doesn’t take a PhD to know that a deal will be made and you’ll see HS3 on the big screen very soon.

You’re probably wondering how the movie was, right? I thought it was okay.  Some of the songs were catchy, but the actual plot was kind of stupid.  But so was the plot of Grease, and look how long that’s lasted in terms of popularity.

So…have you seen High School Musical or HS2 yet? 

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