TVSquad

The video below features a group of gay dudes in speedos dancing on the beach to Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA." And Disney loves it.



Seriously. In a surprising move, Disney, who owns Miley's music (as well as her soul), has allowed the video to become a hit on YouTube, and Disney employees have reportedly been e-mailing it to each other all week. It even got the seal of approval from Rich Ross, the president of Disney Channels Worldwide. Mr. Ross recently placed a phone call to the maker of the video, Esquire marketing exec Dave Fudge, just to tell him he "loved it."

Disney Family Movies, the new video on demand subscription service offering animated and live action titles from the studios' voluminous vaults, will offer a free trial Sept. 3-7 for viewers to get a feel of The Magic Kingdom's latest offering.

Subscribers to the service get access to a rotating selection of Disney's classic and contemporary films and animated shorts. Obviously, the on demand lineup is put together with the emphasis on family friendly. Each title in the selection menu remains in rotation for about a month, with new movies added weekly.

While this looks like a great thing for parents looking to have a steady inventory of safe video babysitters, the only concern is how this service might gut the programming on Disney's other cable entities -- or how it might affect the availability of DVDs.

Looks like the Disney Channel underestimated the power of Nickelodeon's iCarly. Their attempts to squash the possible threat to their Hannah Montana empire were squashed, however, when a special iCarly smashed the second episode of JONAS, the new star vehicle for the Jonas Brothers. So to make themselves feel better, and despite what Miley Cyrus may have been saying, the show will go on. Disney has picked up Hannah Montana for a fourth season, as well as Demi Lovato's Sonny With a Chance for a second.

As for JONAS, it's already been yanked from Saturdays where, despite an impressive debut, it got slammed in its second outing by iCarly. So now, it's joining the Disney Sunday lineup, where it can nestle snugly behind Hannah Montana and Sonny With a Chance. This does create a powerhouse Sunday night for the network, while protecting the two newer shows with the power of Miley Cyrus.

Disney is doing everything they can to make sure that their target demo of 9-14 year olds can't breathe without choking on the Russos of Wizards of Waverly Place. Other than that, And with Miley Cyrus talking publicly about life after Hannah Montana, whenever that might be, it's time to look to Wizards of Waverly Place's Selena Gomez. As such, Disney has renewed Wizards for a third season and even greenlit a telefilm for the property.

What they really need to do is stream it on Hulu to ensure it is. The kids are online, you know.

Yes, it's back. And once again, it's on the Disney Channel.

High School Musical 4 is returning to its cable roots and being broadcast sometime in 2010 in the House of the Mouse. The new installment will star none of the previous cast. Hopefully all the Zac Efron fans won't commit ritualistic mass suicide over this fact.

I've already written of my opinion on this franchise. My only question is will the lack of original cast simply suck in a new generation who have no associations with the original version and from whom Disney executives will feast on their child brains for years to come, or will it suck like Ace Ventura III (admittedly, I haven't seen this direct-to-DVD gem. I'm just assuming).

Honestly, they should get back one or two of the original cast, just to have a sense of continuity between the two "generations" of the films. It worked for Grease II.

Admit it ... you're obsessed with the Jonas Brothers (known in the tween world as the Jo Bros) and Miley Cyrus (known in the tween world as -- Miley Cyrus). You wake up in Hannah Montana pajamas, you eat your cereal with your Miley Cyrus spoon, and you make sure you have safe sex with your Jo Bros' IUD. But, you need more to satisfy your craving for Disneyfied bubblegum rock and pop. Thing is, you fear that you have exhausted all of your resources.

Have some faith, slightly creepy one. Fact of the matter is the Disney Channel is watching your back. Starting at 5:30 pm tonight, the network will be premiering the Jonas Brothers' newest video, as well as Miley's first video from her new Hannah Montana movie. If that weren't enough to sustain you, Disney will be broadcasting the Kids Inaugural: We Are the Future concert, which will feature not only the Jo Bros and Miley, but Demi Lovato and Bow Wow (no longer 'Little').

See? Everything will be okay. Now you can get dressed in your High School Musical pants suit and head out to your job as CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

[information courtesy of Cynopsis]

I'm just full of Disney news (or full of something) this week, aren't I? On Monday I asked the question of what happened to the Playhouse Disney schedule. This time around I'm going to talk about the entire Disney Channel. Not just the cable network, but the website as well. For both are tops in their respective outlets.

Well, tops when it comes to kids programming -- an area of entertainment that continues to grow on a daily basis. For 2008, Disney Channel was top of the heap in a number of areas. Not only was primetime programming number one for viewers ages 6-14, but the premiere of the network's newest musical, Camp Rock (which introduced us to Demi Lovato), became cable's top entertainment broadcast of the year. Cable's top animated debut also went to Disney Channel with the premiere of Phineas and Ferb.

The following item is for those of you parents out there with young children. Those of you who watch soft-core porn in the morning can disregard this post.

Did any of you notice something weird with the Playhouse Disney schedule this morning? Starting at 6 a.m. EST you get JoJo's Circus, Johnny and the Sprites and The Wiggles, and those mini-episodes that the network imports from Canada. That wasn't the case this morning. Instead we got Phineas and Ferb, Imagination Movers and Handy Manny. In addition, Ooh and Ahh, and all of the labels that it was Playhouse Disney were gone as well. By 8:00 a.m. things looked to have been corrected as Little Einsteins aired at its normal time.

We have now reached our official limit on the special 'Days' that the government puts on the calendar. I mean 'Take a Shower Day' is a good one and 'Touch Someone Else Day' sounds both pleasant and creepy, but 'National Flashlight Day'? I really have to put my foot down on this one. Especially when it's being honored by a television show, for Pete's sake!

No, NBC is not airing a 3-hour primetime special on the day (though, it certainly would help their bottom line). Disney Channel is actually the culprit this time around. On December 21st, the official 'Flashlight Day', Disney will be airing three back-to-back-to-back episodes of its Playhouse Disney series Handy Manny that feature the newest character, Flicker. For those of you who don't watch Manny on a regular basis, Flicker is a tiny Spanish-speaking flashlight that will, I guess, allow Manny and his tools to work in dark places from now on.

The Disney Channel has ordered six additional episodes for the third season of their ridiculously successful series Hannah Montana. The series stars teen icon Miley Cyrus in an effort to maximize her exposure before she is sacrificed for the harvest.

This brings the number of total episodes of the season to 30. When does any show get thirty episodes per season? The number I've always understood to be the maximum is 24 (and that's only for a series that is actually called 24). My guess is they're trying to wring as much they can from Miley before she goes to her inevitable solo career. Perhaps Disney should just create a new character for the franchise: Miley Mouse.

As a side note, Disney has also ordered more episodes of The Suite Life on Deck, a series I've never heard of but I'm sure parents of very young children will be sick of before too long.

It was the first theatrical release of the franchise. The first two were direct-to-television movies on the Disney Channel. However, High School Musical 3 stomped the competition with a $42 million opening and the number one spot for this past weekend.

Given the amount of merchandising and publicity the entire franchise has (walk into any Toys R Us to see it), this outcome is really no surprise. It's a wonder the second movie wasn't released directly to the theater rather than the Disney Channel.

I was once forced to watch the first movie and found it to be this generation's version of Grease. I understand the franchise for what it is: a saccharine, watered-down, feel-good musical for kids that have the depth of a potato chip using the same sort of music sung by Britney and her pop kin. I just don't get the appeal. But then, I'm not the target demographic.

But even if this particular franchise ends, the market for Disney kid's movie musicals will sadly drive onwards. Two words: Camp Rock.

I have a tween-aged girl in the household, so we watch a fair amount of Disney Channel. I'll come clean and even announce that Miley Cyrus, The Cheetah Girls, and Demi Lovato share iPod space with AC/DC, Jeff Beck, and Aerosmith. Hey, those Disney Channel tunes are catchy, and they're easy to dance, I mean, walk to. I draw the line at the Jonas Brothers, though.

But about 10 minutes into the new Cheetah Girls: One World movie the other night, my daughter looked at me and said, "I was really hoping these Cheetah Girls movies would get better." Yeah, me, too.

I actually liked the first two movies, in 2003 and 2006, respectively. The second, directed by High School Musical alum Kenny Ortega, was a downright cute tale about the Girls' escapades in Spain.

What should come as no surprise to anybody: Disney is now hard at work to the sequel of its High School Musical trilogy follow-up, Camp Rock. The Disney Channel is hoping to broadcast the sequel in spring or summer of 2009.

The first Camp Rock debuted to 8.9 million viewers on Friday night, the second highest viewership ever for the network (but still far below the 17.2 million they got for High School Musical 2).

Give Justine Bateman credit: She could have been typecast after playing the dippy, fashion-obsessed Mallory Keaton on Family Ties, but she's been able to build a nice career for herself over the last twenty years by playing interesting supporting roles in movies like The TV Set and series like Desperate Housewives. But she's also been -- just like 75% of the people in Hollywood -- an aspiring writer, struggling to get her scripts produced (and you think having connections helps ... she knows Michael J. Fox and her brother is Jason Bateman, and she still couldn't get her scripts produced).

But now she can add "sitcom writer" to her credits; she just wrote an episode of The Disney Channel's hit Wizards of Waverly Place, according to the New York Daily News. Apparently, she's a friend of executive producer Peter Murrieta, and she got to know some of the show's writers during the writers' strike. So, when the strike ended, she was invited to write an episode for the show.

Give credit to the House of Mouse: they really know how to use their media empire to the fullest when it comes to premiere events. Especially if it is a made-for-TV movie featuring the popular (but not Hannah Montana popular) Jonas Brothers. That's why Camp Rock, the newest musical movie from Disney, is premiering on not one channel, not two channels, but four media outlets in four days.

The festivities begin on June 20th. That's when the malls will be empty as millions of tween and teen girls flock to their high-definition televisions to watch Camp Rock on Disney Channel. The next day, the movie moves over to ABC, making it the first made-for-TV Disney Channel movie to premiere on the company's parent network. The day after that, June 22nd, Camp Rock will make its way over to ABC Family, where it will be a bit more family-friendly than some of the shows and movies that air on the cable network right now. Finally, on Monday, June 23rd, the movie will premiere on Disney.com in beautiful DXD.