High School Musical 2
Parents the world over have been in its evil grip for over a year. Their offspring have been wild with anticipation since the begining of this year. Finally the perfect hair and shiny teeth of High School Musical 2 has hit our screens here in the UK.
What amused me more than anything was that the UK premiere was scheduled on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur – the day of atonement. Jewish people country wide, and world wide, flock to their local synagogue to repent for the sins of the past year. Things like not buying your kids the last High School Musical CD/DVD/doll/top trumps etc… So, the good Jews that we are, we all set up our SKY+ boxes to record HSM2 for our kids at 6.00 on Friday night but while us good men and true were at the evening service our kids and wives were all comfortably ensconced infront of the TV watching the UK premiere. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the hype in our household was so great that when I got home I actually watched the repeat at 10.00 on Disney Channel +1! I have to say there was a pang of guilt. I could have gone without watching it… I could have waited until the end of Yom Kippur… I didn’t need HSM2 there and then!
When I arrived at synagogue the next day for a day of repentance the topic of conversation among the Dads at the back of the childrens service wasn’t how to be a better person in the forthcoming year, no, it was a critique of the last nights TV. Did you see it? Did your kids watch it? Did the hold out? Will they wait until tonight? Can you make us a copy on DVD cos I don’t have SKY! Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad.
After all the guilt we managed, as a family, to watch this god forsaken film about 5 times over the weekend. Worse than that, we SKY+’d (huh?) the sing-a-long version which we all sing along to. The reason we sing along to it is because we had the damn soundtrack CD for about a month! This all sounds a little obsesive doesn’t it? I joined the facebook parents support group too – just so I didn’t think I was actually going mad, on my own!
All things said and done though, it’s a fun romp, the same as the last. It has some cracking pop tunes too. Where the first HSM was like Grease without the sex and cars, HSM2 was like Dirty Dancing without the Dirty Dancing and abortions! I think the guilty pleasures of our 80’s past enables us to enjoy the guilty pleasures of our kids and that ain’t necesarily a bad thing, is it?
