Toon Talk: High School Musical Encore Edition DVD
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(c) Disney

Directed and choreographed by Kenny Ortega (who knows a little bit about obsessive fans thanks to the cult-like popularity of an earlier musical he handled for Disney, Newsies) doesn’t stray too far from the tried-and-true musical formulas of classics past, beginning with “boy meets girl�?. In this case, the boy is Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), a basketball jock, and the girl is Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens), a bookish brain. They meet-cute at a ski resort karaoke party on New Year’s Eve, and sparks fly when they are pushed onstage to sing a duet. At first hesitant, they soon give into “bursting into song�?, but when midnight strikes, this Cinderella is soon gone, so it looks like the budding lovebirds may never see each other again …

But, remember this is a musical, so it is no surprise that when school reconvenes after the holidays, Gabriella is the new kid at East High (just like Sandy Olsson at Rydell High!), home of the super-star Wild Cats basketball team and their star player, Troy. The two are reunited and they realize, thanks to that fateful song, that maybe there’s more to them then just the stock high school labels of “jock�? and “brain�?.

When flamboyant drama teacher Ms. Darbus (Alyson Reed, who made her film debut 20 years ago (!) in the movie version of the then longest-running Broadway musical, A Chorus Line) announces the school’s “winter musicale�?, Troy and Gabriella contemplate stepping out of their comfort zones to audition. Such a simple decision brings on complications and dissent from all sides: Troy’s dad (who also happens to be the school’s basketball coach, played by Bart Johnson) and best friend Chad (Corbin Bleu) worry that he’ll be too distracted for the upcoming “big game�?; fellow “brainiac�? Taylor (Monique Coleman) wants Gabriella for the Scholastic Decathlon (the “big game�? for “brainiacs�?); and the school’s reigning drama divas, Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) and her brother Ryan (Lucas Grabeel), will do anything to squash their competition for the leads in the big show (never mind that the leads are actually romantic leads, thus kind of icky for siblings to play …)

This powder keg of peer pressure comes to a boil during “Stick to the Status Quo�?, a high energy song and dance where the lines between all the various HS cliques we all know (and were a part of) begin to blur, such as a skater dude confessing his love of the cello. This number crystallizes the main theme of HSM: that you don’t have to settle for what others think of or expect from you, that you can be more then your yearbook stats say you are.

And yes, this is still a musical, so you know everything works out in time for the rousing finale, where freaks, geeks, et al join together for the big “we’re all in this together�? number called, you guessed it, “We’re All in This Together�?. (Strangely enough, they never actually get to the high school musical … maybe in the sequel.)