Pizza and Movie night...

I was SHOCKED to learn that none (no, not one) of my regular creative collaborators had seen this one.  I mean, you have to have been living under a rock for the past four years to not know about the High School Musical franchise.  It's a multi-billion dollar industry unto itself and has almost singlehandedly (with the addition of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) kept Disney's feature-film unit in the black.  It was directed by Kenny (Dirty Dancing) Ortega, by the way...

The only other reason I can think you might not have heard of HSM is because you don't have kids.

And that's real.  Niki and I wouldn't have watched it except that our kids were totally into it.

HSM1 and HSM2 were television events--both the highest grossing events in cable TV history--and our kids were glued to the screen for each.  They dressed up, they practiced the songs, they did their own talent show featuring six performances they'd rehearsed for a month and a half.

Just like 'FAME' was for us when we were kids.

The story is simple, boy meets girl, boy and girl start falling in love, boy almost loses girl, boy gets girl back in time for a final song and dance number.  Add in a 'I'm a jock but I love to sing and dance...' subplot and a cast of endearing and typical high school characters and you've got something.  Top it all off with great song and dance numbers and a glossy look/feel and there you go.

A billion dollars and counting.

Of note is the fact that Disney puts out a bunch of these type of TV events each year (heard of 'Camp Rock'?) then watches to see if any of them gain traction.  The ones that do, they put the Disney marketing machine behind.  With HSM they saw it begin to catch and threw EVERYTHING they had behind it.  You can buy HSM socks and sun glasses and sunscreen and pillows and toothpaste and deodorant and clothes and CD's and books and stickers and microphones and bikes and basketballs and on and on and on.

It's worth noting that my son got into basketball because of HSM1 and remains a budding athlete to this day as a result.

It's also worth noting that even Disney doesn't know what's going to work and what's not.

And, as ever, it's all about the kids.  Most parents' purchasing patterns are impacted (if not dominated) by their kids' tastes.

So from that we all find encouragement to keep doing what we think is right and good and are reminded to try and set ourselves up to support/market our projects/ideas with whatever resources we have when we find them to be working.  Also, we're reminded (with our movies and our Churches and our businesses) to keep the kids and the family market in mind...that is unless you're only into doing more mature fare, which is fine but knocks you out of the 4 quadrant market.

We saw HSM3 twice in the theater and bought the deluxe edition DVD the first day it was out. My kids are downstairs watching it right now, for the fourth time since we got it yesterday.

If you can't beat 'em, learn from 'em.  Gotta' love you some Disney.

(Vanessa Hudgens 'aint bad [a near carbon-copy of a certain wife of mine I met fifteen years ago...] either...)

T