Get ready for another post in my continuing quest to make this blog all about High School Musical (part 2 of, potentially, hundreds). This is more of a scholarly look, because honestly, I’m seeing a huge gap in the academic community when it comes to made-for-TV Disney movies, and I’m just here to fill the need.

Sharpay Evans (blue dress) is the “villain” of the High School Musical series (technically, though, the villains really keeping our heroes down are better described as “the status quo” and “classicism”). In the first movie, Sharpay tries to keep Troy and Gabriella from auditioning for her precious musical. It was vaguely suggested, as so much was in movie #1, that she also had designs on Troy romantically, but that angle was not nearly as important as the audition plot. In the stage version (which, yes, I have seen, thank you for asking), which features an expanded book, her motivations are much more obviously confused — she spends a lot more time trying to make them into the perfect couple.

Which leads naturally to the second movie, where her motivations are more hopelessly muddled than ever. She wants Troy; she arranges the whole summer so she can spend time with him. But “getting Troy,” to her, means getting Troy to sing with her in the talent show. For Sharpay, it seems at first that romantic relationships are all about winning. She needs that trophy more than she needs Troy. Or is it all the same, really? Does she consider performing with Troy the same as being with him romantically? In a way, it doesn’t matter, because her obsession with Troy means she forces him to sing with her. Forcing him to sing with her also guarantees that she’ll win the trophy, since he won’t be upstaging her by singing with Gabriella.

So far her romantic goals and her trophy-winning goals line up fairly smoothly, if not exactly emotionally consistently. But then the rest of the staff decides to compete in the talent show together, with the help of Sharpay’s scorned brother, Ryan. A single glance at their rehearsal convinces Sharpay that they pose a legitimate threat to her trophy. This is despite the fact she OWNS THE RESORT and could just insist on winning no matter what (it’s obvious she has that power; the grumpy resort manager almost gives her the trophy, despite the fact that she didn’t end up singing in the competition at all). She can’t do it, though, because it’s actually important to her to be the best.

And that’s the key to her personality.

I can’t say anything that Maggie hasn’t already said about High School Musical 2: Havana Nights. But I can cop to the fact that I spent the first hour of my workweek scouring YouTube to get my HSM fix, and came up with the “official video” for breakout hit “I Don’t Dance,” which incorporates nearly every player I’ve ever had on any fantasy baseball team of mine. Plus Bronson Arroyo. Plenty of Jose Reyes high fives, plus David Wright exactly as I like to think of him: Sliding into home.

In case you’re not a subscriber to CosmoGirl magazine, you might not have heard that last year’s wildly popular original Disney movie High School Musical released a sequel on Friday — the sure to be even more wildly popular High School Musical 2. If you know nothing of these cultural touchstones, I can explain them using a simple analogy.

High School Musical:Grease::High School Musical 2:Dirty Dancing

Remove all the sex from the older movies, and you’ve got your fair approximations. Overall, HSM Part Deux: Electric Boogaloo was an improvement on the first. Considering they made the first one for about $5 and a sandwich, and then it went on to become the bestselling album of 2006, they had a little more to work with this time around. The songs are peppy and better produced. The choreography is fun. And Ryan is vindicated! Hooray Ryan! Our hero!

There were two numbers that our viewing party knew immediately would be the breakout hits. One was the baseball song, ironically titled “I Don’t Dance.” It’s genius in every way. The other is Troy’s big number, “Bet On It.” Troy is played by Zac Efron, and right now, he’s the hottest thing in pre-teen crushes. He’s huge. Witness, these comments. His solo number was bound to be the hit of the evening, and this one delivers.

“Bet On It” incorporates/borrows/appropriates so many cultural references, by the third time we had rewound to savor the cheesy goodness, I was taking notes. See if you can think of any I missed.

• With his all-black ensemble, shaggy hair, and blue eyes — and with the subtext of the song, which is all about whether or not Troy’s going to be a good friend or continue being a jerk (embracing the Dark Side, so to speak) — Troy resembles Luke Skywalker to a scary degree. Later in the song, stumbling upon a rocky pool, I could swear he was about to raise a X-wing out of the water with his mind.
• In that same segment of the song, Troy sings to his reflection in the pool. My immediate thought: The Lion King, Simba talking to his dead father.
• Any time anyone walks and snaps their fingers in time they automatically owe royalties to West Side Story.
• Similarly, the leaps through the air and the long shots of him dancing his merry way along the path bring to mind a former teen classic that they’re talking about remaking, Footloose.
• At one point, Troy leaps from a grassy spot of the golf course into a new shot, which features craggy rocks with weeds sprouting out of crevices. The abrupt change in locale and his dogged insistence on moving forward bring to mind our heroes in The Lord of the Rings. Almost expected him to jump into a snow-covered mountain next.
• The song itself: Justin Timberlake junior.
• The sweeping crane shots of Troy singing his blessed heart out, with mountains in the background, sadly reminded me of the absolute worst/funniest part of the movie version of Rent — Roger’s Bon Jovi video version of “What You Own.”
• When Troy picks up some sand and tosses it to the ground: a little David Copperfield, no?
• I also saw snippets of Michael Jackson, Karate Kid, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Creed’s Arms Wide Open video. And much more, I’m sure.

Disney seems to be pretty tightly monitoring the YouTube situation, so I can’t find a link to this particular number. I’ll keep my eye out, though, so I can share this special experience with you all. In the meantime, just try to mash up all those things I listed. You’ll get a pretty accurate picture.

ETA: [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/DD8XqHUdi-4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

One of the reasons for my light posting last week was that I was knocked flat on my ass by some sort of horrendous illness that left my throat raw and throbbing. So swollen, in fact, that I woke up at six in the morning barely able to breathe. A few rounds of antibiotics and a bottle of codeine (not as much fun as it sounds) later, I’m fine.

There were some perks, though, to being drugged and couch-ridden.

1. I got to spend some quality time with my girls on the Food Network (Giada, Ina, Sandra and Paula).
2. Not being able to ingest much means I subsisted on one piece of pizza per day for three days — inching me that much closer to my goal of weighing less than a dream.
3. I cleaned out almost the entire DVR and decided that that if I hadn’t watched some of it after spending 76 continuous hours in front of the TV, then it didn’t deserve to be there anyway (looking at you, Proof. Even Jake can’t make me want to watch you).
4. And, finally, I happened upon a new show I plan on watching until its resolution — HGTV’s Design Star.

In its second season, the show is very much in the Bravo creative/gay-ish professional/competitive reality oeuvre. And, since the winner gets their own TV show, it’s kind of like Top Design meets The Next Food Network Star at a gallery opening, goes to Massachusetts, gets married, gets a labradoodle (or whatever dog is in style that season), buys a fixer-upper in an up-and-coming part of town, and adopts a baby reality show. That baby is Design Star and it has the cutest fucking nursery you’ve ever seen.

There’s really nothing on the show that you wouldn’t expect — they don’t try to reinvent the reality wheel. A British host named Clive, three judges (two ladies and Verne Yip from Trading Spaces), a giant loft for the dozen or so contestants to live in, challenges, winners, losers, blah, blah. But the show clears the all-important hurdle of getting the casting right; the contestants are lively enough to be entertaining, but talented enough to make us care.

Even though the show is only three episodes in, they’ve already shown five designers the door. There’s Lisa (self-proclaimed punk rocker), Neeraja (who possessed the exotic and statuesque good looks of an animated Disney villainess), Josh F. (young, granola, and totally doable even though you’d likely smell like patchouli afterwards),
Adriana (cute, spritely Latina), and Scott (who was portrayed in near-constant tears).

So only six remain:

Todd - the oft-shirtless surfer dude (and I mean oft. Like even, inexplicably, in interviews) who won last week for his impressive, if completely conceptual/non-practical crashing wave room.

Christina - the young Southern mommy.

Kim - who cuts hair. Seriously. She’s labeled as a “hair stylist/design enthusiast” in her interviews. But she’s made it this far, which must count for something.

“Sparkle” Josh – who is 1/4 gay man, 1/4 Miss America, 1/4 Queer Eye’s Thom Felicia and 1/4 My Little Pony. All spray-on tan and flowing blond locks, he’s a casting director’s wet dream. Luckily, he’s funny and self-deprecating enough to be totally likable and I kind of want him to win the whole thing.

Robb - as tends to be the case with reality show Robs (and, specifically, Robbs with two bs), he seems to have skated by at least two eliminations because he is a magnet for conflict. Despite being loud and seemingly unable to win the respect of the non-fratty contestants, he is wee and buff. For that, I can forgive a lot.

Will - not necessarily the biggest personality on the block, but probably one of the more impressive designers thus far.

The show airs on Sundays on HGTV. It’s entertaining enough, and it’s way better than spending time watching Big Brother 8 or reruns of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Do I even need to tell you who this is referring to?

“He grew up in California. He has a younger brother named Dylan. He’s a Libra. He’s dating Vanessa Hudgens. He’s in ‘Hairspray.’ His first big thing was ‘Summerland.’ He had a gap in his teeth, but he got that fixed. He went to Hawaii with Vanessa. That’s common knowledge. We saw him at the ‘Today’ show two weeks ago, but I didn’t get his autograph. His hair is amazing,” Regina said.

High School Musical 2 airs for the first time this Friday.

I am not being at all ironic when I say everyone should watch VH1′s new show, The Pick-Up Artist. Yes, it is funny (it is, after all, hosted by a man named Mystery and his two wing-men J-Dog and Matador), and it is slightly gross (the aim is to get a bunch of losers laid), but it is fascinating.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before my love of the book The Game by Neil Strauss. In it, Strauss, a freelance writer (he wrote this and this, among other things), immerses himself in the somewhat underground world of professional pick-up artists, eventually becoming a master PUA (as they say) himself. There are also lots of celebrity anecdotes. Mystery was a big character in Strauss’s book, one of the “experts” he eventually befriended.

The book is addictive. Watching the show is like watching some of the ideas outlined in the book in action, which makes it pretty addictive, too. (Queasy, sometimes. I am not saying that being a professional PUA is a noble or worthwhile endeavor. I’m just saying it’s interesting — partly for the very reasons it makes you queasy.)

If you read the book, it becomes clear that these guys have not just found clever, insidious ways to seduce people, they’ve managed to define very specific ways that people relate to one another. They examine the body language, the reactions of the group you’re talking to, the ways to keep a conversation going. Yes, they are using this knowledge to cold-heartedly seduce — but it’s still an insightful look at human psychology.

I realized while watching The Pick-Up Artist that what Mystery is doing, in essence, is teaching men how to be better, more interesting people. Don’t be a creep. Don’t scare people away. Stop being so annoying. Always have something interesting to say. Even knowing that Mystery and his pals are manipulating the conversation, I would MUCH rather talk to them than any one of the pathetic contestants on the show, just because they actually seem like they have something to say.

Apparently the only way to get these dweebs to become better people is to tell them they’re going to get laid as a result. Well, whatever works.

As I type this, Tifauxers Maggie and Kyle are on a tropical cruise, most likely rocking out in the karaoke lounge to the theme song from The Nanny, and Freebird (both of which I’ve seen Maggie and Kyle, respectively, do live, without any need for the scrolling lyrics in front of them. Also, is Freebird one word? I’m not googling it. Don’t post angry comments about my lack of knowledge). That means it’s up to me and Tifaux Dan to hold down the fort for a week. If it were after August 13 I would be in no way nervous about that (HELLO, SEASON PREMIERE OF THE HILLS! I’m not as entranced by the current trailers as I was by last season’s pregnancy test stunner, but I do get goosebumps every time Intern Whitney remarks that Lauren might be better off without Heidi and Lauren calmly responds “I am so far” in a quiet, soulful voice) but, it isn’t, so it’s time to get creative.

LUCKILY, today I get to say the words I’ve wanted to say for months. MY BOYS IS BACK ON! Wooot! Holla at ya, TBS!

I used to think that loving My Boys was more shameful than, say, not realizing after 4 years as an english major and 4 years as a “publishing professional” that the title of the book was not, in fact, The Unbearable Likeness of Being (that was a rough conference call, let me tell you). I was wrong. You really do have something for everyone here– ambiguous mixed-gender relationships, jokes about beer, comedian Jim Gaffigan (whom The Boyfriend tells me fantabulous at stand-up, except that The Boyfriend would never say the word fantabulous), and a hot chick who knows a lot about baseball. When we closed on the first season, lead character P.J. had just made out with her best friend Brandon, much to my dismay as I chalked up another loss for team “Really, I have a platonic male best friend and I’ve never seen his underwear.” New episodes start tonight at 10 on TBS.

And, on the off chance that you have nothing to do for the hour before that, you should devote some time to figuring out which of your local stations is ABC Family just so you can watch Greek.

A frighteningly precise interpretation of my college days.

Maggie already previewed Greek, which I first heard of via their slightly odd social networking site where you can go through “virtual rush” and cruise through all of the Greek houses as well as the engineering club and athletic club (this kind of reminds me of the board game Barbie: Queen of the Prom where you have to become a club president, get an afterschool job and save money, buy a dress, and find a boyfriend and get him to go steady with you before you can become Queen Of The Prom. It’s that easy).

The quick catch up: Casey is rush chair of her sorority. Her boyfriend cheated on her with one of her pledges. Her younger brother has a Jesus-loving roommate in the engineering honors dorm, and decideds to pledge the fraternity of Casey’s fun-loving slacker ex-boyfriend. The younger brother also has a friend who’s a member of the cheating boyfriend’s fraternity and has yet to admit to anyone (including… himself) that he’s gay. None of this actually matters. What matters is, outside a few cringe-inducing moments of over-acting (most of which come to us at the hands of Younger Brother Rusty), the writing is hilarious and fast paced and contemporary and more CW than ABC Family. If you paid for your friends in college (as I did, no shame), you’ll recognize the girl who plans 8 mixers in a row with a “pimps and hos” theme, and if you didn’t, you can congratulate yourself on having morals while you wished the girls living next door to you in college demonstrated a similar propensity for running around their lawn in their panties. Monday, 9 pm, ABC Family.

Apparently summer is the time when odd spin-off networks premiere their “college life” series. Cristin just covered The Best Years on the N. I’m ashamed/proud to say I watched the premiere of Greek on ABC Family.

Let me say up front that I am completely unqualified to judge the realism/pointed satire of this show, as my college had no fraternities or sororities (instead we had this. ugh). But that may be why I’m fascinated by the process. What are these “pledges” and “bids” of which you speak?

The show follows a brother and sister as they navigate life on campus, in particular Greek life. The sister is a super-popular and sorority-obsessed. The brother is a nerdy freshman engineering major who wants to experience “real” college life, so he decides to rush a frat. There are two main frats: the snooty clean-cut one run by the sister’s boyfriend, and the Animal-House-esque one run by the sister’s ex-boyfriend-who-obviously-is-still-hung-up-on-her- but-is-hiding-it-under-a-mask-of-asshole-ish-ness. The ex-boyfriend’s name is Cappie, which I only remember because the frat is Kappa Something, and it is completely ridiculous that his name is also Cappie (pictured). I’m very much hoping that’s a nickname. There are some shenanigans involving illicit hook-ups and sibling solidarity. Some people get punched in the face. Some people have to sneak out through the window. In the end, due to the fact that the real asshole is obviously the current boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend is way more fun, the brother accepts a bid at the Animal House frat.

For all its obviousness and occasional groan-worthy dialogue, I was surprisingly entertained. A bunch of the jokes landed. My favorite was this exchange between the siblings:

Sis: I don’t want to be a social piranha.
Bro: Pariah.
Sis: What? I don’t know what you’re saying.
Bro: It’s social pariah.
Sis: Look, no one wants to hang out with a piranha.

I’m not saying I’m going to add it to the TiFaux’s list, but when there’s nothing else on, it’s a good time-waster. I’d be interested to hear the opinion of someone with actual knowledge of Greek life (ahem, Cristin). Luckily they’re re-airing the episode on Friday! Right after they re-air the direct-to-TV sequel to Bring It On, the one with Hayden Panettiere!

It’s a bleak TV landscape out there. Especially when So You Think You Can Dance takes a break for the fourth of July and leaves me all alone with nothing but The Best Years on the N to watch.

To be fair, I’ve always had a soft spot for fictional depictions of college life, ever since the writers of Saved By The Bell and 90210 unwittingly sent their respective casts to the same fake college but ignored my pleas to script a scene where Zach and Donna get it on. Usually I fill this need with reruns of Felicity, but then The N stepped up and started giving me something I could feel, and you know they mean business because (a) it has a Degrassi lead in and (b) it’s about an orphan. People love orphans.

Samantha Best (get it?) has been in foster care for the last ten years following the unexplained death of her parents, but we meet her on the day she begins her freshman year at Charles University which, as far as I can tell, is supposed to be Harvard. The foster care people have impeccable timing and just as Sam is headed out the door to embrace her new future, there’s a young girl in front of Sam’s old house clutching a stuffed animal stepping out of a van marked CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES just in case we aren’t quick on the uptake. As soon as Samantha sets foot on college she bumps into the Dean of Admissions who not only recognizes her on sight, but knows her dorm room offhand and escorts her there, casually reminding her that her scholarship doesn’t cover the required meal plan and that if Sam doesn’t come up with a way to pay for it, she’ll be kicked out of school. I immediately become convinced that this show is written by a bunch of people who did college via the internet. This hunch solidifies itself when a group of toga wearing guys in hard hats “streak” Sam’s first hall meeting. Please oh please let her have a bitchy roommate who, after their rocky start, will be the means by which Sam learns many lessons that cannot be found in books, even at the prestigious Charles University.

You rang?

Sam’s first few days are a whirlwind of meeting her Ice Queen of a scholarship benefator, discovering her floor’s co-ed showers when she walks in on a guy in a towel who had “accidentally” hit her with a football on the quad earlier, and ditching the geeky friend she made at orientation in order to don Kelly Taylor minidresses and hit Colony, the Peach Pit After Dark of CU. Oh, and making as many references as possible to the fact that she’s an orphan from Southie. I put the closed caption on and recite the lines in a Good Will Hunting accent for awhile and the show becomes at least 85% better.

Then tragedy strikes when her jolly fat guy friend drunkenly falls off their dorm roof (I know. I didn’t see it coming either). The two other witnesses (aforementioned bitchy blonde roommate and towel wearing basketball player guy) immediately go along with the plan to tell no one they were witnesses, having never seen I Know What You Did Last Summer. But Sam, because she’s an orphan and therefore has morals, comes clean to the Dean so that jolly fat guy’s family can know that his death was accidental and not a suicide. Sam takes the fall (heyo!) for the whole group and is told she’ll be expelled as the result of it, because that’s how they do things? at ivy league schools? when someone actually does the right thing? instead of covering their own ass? But Sam’s Ice Queen Mysterious Benefactor threatens the Dean old school style (by promising to withhold money) in order to keep Sam at Charles, and returns all questions as to why she’s taken such an active interest in Sam with a cold and distant look meaning, naturally, that we’ll soon find out that she’s either Sam’s mother returned from the dead or her long lost godmother stepping in when Sam most needs her, Sirius Black style.

I’ve been complaining lately that television has abandoned us, but I was just scanning through the programming guide and it turns out that I have abandoned TV. There is a show on like every channel at almost all times. So why is the list of upcoming recordings on our TiFaux Arrested Development on HDNet (even funnier in HD!), The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report? It turns out even though there are lots of things available to watch it’s nothing I want to watch. Here’s a review of the shows I won’t be watching tonight.

ABC’s The Next Best Thing: Who is the Greatest Celebrity Impersonator? No point. It’s Kevin Federline. Zing! Next!

CBS has a repeat of Criminal Minds. Is that the one with Mandy Patinkin? Do I look like I’m 55?

FOX continues So You Think You Can Dance. I don’t think I can dance, so I don’t know why they’re accusing me like this. I saw that Robert Altman dance movie The Company—which had actual good dancers, but a complete lack of situations—and that burned me out for dance-related entertainment for a long time.

Last Comic Standing on NBC. I can’t get behind this one on principle. A competition like this is never going to find good comics. It’s going to find filler for “Comedy Central Presents” shows. My stand-up friend Tim McIntire said it best on his blog: “I would try out if it really was a fight to be the last comic standing. I would definitely want to be on a show where I could hide in the living room and smash comics who are better connected and more telegenic than me in the face with a piece of rebar… It could be like Highlander – if you kill another comic, you get all his jokes, until there really was only one comic standing, with a notebook and a samurai sword, bombing at the Comedy Connection because it’s all tourists.”

PBS has a show called Bear Island which sounds like Stephen Colbert’s worst nightmare. But also kind of cool.

The CW has a new teen soap-opera called Hidden Palms. Which I thought was a porno featuring mostly under-the-table handjobs, but it’s really The O.C. II: Don’t Call it That.

Take that Jackie Harvey!