High School Musical 2: What the Hell?

Okay, so the whole High School Musical aka Disney Crack, caught my attention when I was subbing 6th grade last year. I had never heard of the movie before the day I subbed, but for the kids this was old hat. All the girls in the class knew ALL the words to ALL of the songs (and most had dance moves...). Even the boys in the class had all seen it. What the hell happened?

It turns out that HSM 1 was Disney's most watched thing of all time. I don't know how they promoted, where they promoted, but somehow this made for cable movie got like 11 million kids to tune in - and that was before the release to DVD. So Friday night we had the premiere of HSM: 2. Did it do well? Try nearly 18 million viewers, the most watched cable show ever. The Sopranos finale had near 12 million viewers in comparison. This really is something else.

I've only seen the first movie, and I can vouch for it sucking. It is exactly what you would expect it to be, perhaps worse. It looks like every other show to air on Disney. The lighting in perfect, everyone has perfect skin, everyone dresses in new clothes and has blindingly white teeth. All races are represented, much like the Village People except without costumes. The songs weren't special. But, I'm not their target audience, obviously, and they did something right.

Here's a link to an article about the hysteria surrounding HSM2. I also caught a little bit about this on NPR Friday, and that reviewer predicted a Broadway version. I'm sure that's correct, but I'd be equally surprised if there isn't a Hollywood release coming next year. Does anyone have any disturbing experiences surrounding this bizarre craze? ...Or maybe just theories or anecdotal reports about the greatest thing since Debbie Gibson and Tiffany?