Werther wasn’t original, Werther was a HACK. Werther was about as original as a Disney channel original movie. Und so ve haf another stunning rediscovery from the Dead Sea Scronelldos:
High School Musical, the book. Or rather, The Junior Novel, which in addition to sounding twice as stupid, suggests there is a senior novel. Some kind of parent version that’s just as bad, but with a considerably stronger sense of entitlement, not to mention a Denny’s discount. I suppose Da Vinci code cash in books would meet that need, though they have a ripeload more pages. Probably better songs, too.
Those little yellow letters do indeed spell out Based on the hit Disney Channel Original Movie.
See? Ehhh well, that’s why I read it to you!
The orange triangle bears “With 8 pages of photos of the stars!” The stars surely being the proofreaders, the typesetters, the screenplay goons and the adaptation cronies. And also the wizard who made those rainbow kids in the cover picture float like that.
I love a book with illustrations, but I suspect these photographs would leave me disappointed. Similarly, there must be better ways to keep angsty teens quiet than to convert their noise to print.
I discovered some time I after this book that not only was the actual High School Musical –that is, the musical version– quite popular, it was extremely popular. I don’t know if it was any good, nor do I presume as much; considering that one of the most beloved of the genre is the extremely wretched Grease, I wouldn’t put much faith in it.
Yeah, well, you’re not far behind.
And any thing which depicts standard high schools as properly functioning, nevermind harmonious entities is reprehensible in additional ways.
Disney didn’t even bother to give this thing a title. They just used the category genre slot label they built before any filming, writing or thinking was done. “Hey, the boss wants a high school musical by Thursday. You two thousand, get on it. I need jocks and geeks obsessing over matters of passing importance, STAT.” Meanwhile, my masterwork, a rocketship made entirely out of corn has dawdled almost unfinagled for over a year.
During my requisite needlessly complicating research, I learned that the subject was sufficiently succussful to allow for a high school musical 2.* Yet save for a few misplaced artifacts like this one (I may have actually moved it from elsewhere, but I no longer recall doing so), I would never have known about either. Just like Lindsee Lohan and a wide assortment of Duffs, who I long refused to believe were actually famous. That’s the power of the Disney machine. It can cultivate these genetic, generic horrors in total secrecy, advertise the hamburger helper out of them yet manage to have them only be seen by the specific people who will love them unconditionally and buy all things associated with them, which apparently includes novelized music. And somehow this is a lot of people. This and the STAT function on calculators are my current top two non-understood things. It’s true I’m not in contact with the public at large, or even the public at small, but I know things! I caught wind of facebook, I knew about Sour Skittles, I learned about Halo 2, I heard about nights out in the school yard, I found out about yoooooooou.
No! Only 25 on the Hot 100! Like, gag!
*to anyone who insists Disney will make a sequel to anything, I remind that there has never been a Meet the Deedles 2. Still, we ought to be aware that for sixty-three years there also was no Bambi 2.
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Yamamanama sez:
Novelization of a made for the Disney Channel movie? What is the world coming to?
Ravensburger sez:
Pieces!