You may think High School Musical 2 is unmitigated dreck, but enough kids (or their adults on their behalf) bought the film's CD over the weekend to push the soundtrack to the top of the pop charts, sayeth AOL News. The made-for-cable film's premiere last Friday scored 17.24 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, making it the highest-watched basic cable telecast ever.

Meanwhile, as Disney, understandably, seeks to continue riding the remarkable wave of success it's found with the hit movie series, MSNBC reports trouble may be brewing in the talks for High School Musical 3 (working title, according to IMDb: High School Musical 3: Gradu-Dancin' -- groan). The third installment of the series -- aimed at the big screen, not cable -- may have hit a speed bump, as reports surfaced Wednesday that the series' stars Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens are holding out for more money. Efron, who has already moved on to bigger (and presumably higher-paying) big-screen roles with Hairspray and the upcoming Footloose, is sizzling-hot property these days, and his on-screen charisma is a huge draw for the tween set at which the film is targeted, so it wouldn't really be surprising if the kid held out for more cash.

While most movie-watching eyes were on the theatrical box office this weekend, wondering if Superbad would surpass expectations and if The Invasion would crash, another demographic had a higher priority -- the hotly anticipated premiere of High School Musical 2 Friday night on The Disney Channel. If you don't have a tween, it might not have been on your radar, but if you, like me, have a girl between the ages of 9-12 in your house (and be honest, a lot of you high school girls were watching it too) you've been hearing of little else for weeks.

In our house, we became aware of the phenomena that is High School Musical when the first one premiered on January 20, 2006. Our daughter, then almost-nine, DVRed it and she (and we, by default) watched that movie so many times that it wasn't unusual for me or my husband to be caught absent-mindedly singing "We're All in This Together" or "Get Your Head in the Game" -- two of the shows most popular tunes -- while we bopped about the house doing chores. Then they had the karaoke version, and the version where the cast taught you the moves to the choreography for "We're All in This Together" step-by-step, and pretty soon even the two-year old was showing off his "cool moves" to company.