TVSquad

So, if you're a High School Musical fan and if you live in New York, New Jersey, or California, you're in luck. To promote the new reality series, High School Musical: Get in the Picture, ABC is hitting beaches on both coasts with free ice cream, games and prizes. The promotional tour will begin this weekend and continue all month leading up to the premiere of the series. The show, hosted by Nick Lachey, will feature talented teens from all over the U.S. as they compete for a chance to be in the next High School Musical.

As if anything to do with High School Musical needed any more promotion...

The schedule for the tour is after the jump. High School Musical: Get in the Picture premieres on Sunday, July 20th from 8-9 p.m. on ABC.

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).

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Vanessa Hudgens talked about High School Musical and Zac Efron's hygiene. (Yep, you read that second item correctly.)

About High School Musical 3, Hudgens, who is currently on location shooting San Francisco, says that she thinks the crew is done after the completion of the trilogy. She also reveals that her character gets accepted to Stanford.

Hudgens also refutes reports that beau Zac Efron doesn't shower. (Has anyone else heard this? Am I just not hip to the goings on of tween dreams like Zac Efron? Maybe I should pick up a Tiger Beat magazine.) She says, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Whoever came up with that is completely idiotic. He showers! He showers! ­Believe me, he does."

So, there's no more High School Musical after this one. Looks like Camp Rock, which stars the Jonas Brothers, will be Disney's new cash cow.

[via Yahoo]

I know you've all been wondering if the Jonas Brothers squash the machine that is Zac Efron. Well, they can ... kind of. Camp Rock averaged 8.9 million viewers on Friday night. That's more viewers than High School Musical, which had 7.8 million for its debut. However, 8.9 million pales in comparison to last summer's 17.2 million (ZOMG!) viewers for High School Musical 2. And it proves that the Efron is unstoppable and more bankable. In fact, High School Musical 2 is the most watched non-sports program on cable.

Joal Ryan of E! Online points out that Camp Rock could still beat High School Musical overall, "The Jonas Brothers are far bigger stars than Efron or any of his costars were in January 2006, when the first HSM premiered." He goes to say that the real test of Camp Rock will be if it has the ability to rule the ratings in the inevitable many, many reruns.

Are you still trying to figure out what to do when all of your favorite programs leave the air for the summer? I was thinking about maybe going outside. I'm told it's nice. ABC has other plans for our eyeballs though. They've signed up Nick Lachey to host a new reality show (I know... boo reality) based on the hit Disney franchise, High School Musical.

At the moment the show is called High School Musical: Summer Session, but apparently that isn't official. Casting calls kick off this weekend, with a premiere set for June 20th. The network is obviously hoping to cash in on some of the success their sibling Disney has seen with the movies. I wouldn't be surprised to see Disney sweetheart Miley Cyrus guesting on the show to bring in her throngs of fans.

A day hasn't gone by where we haven't received some sort of tip or email asking us, the TV Squad, how to get on [insert reality show here]. Unfortunately no, Simon Cowell does not work for us, and Donald Trump isn't my BFF, so we really can't help all that much.

The folks at RealityWanted.com often send us a list of new and existing reality shows that are looking for new, er, talent, and they've given us permission to make mention of them here. We'll try to make this a regular feature as often as we get a new list.

This time we have Styledome, High School Musical: Summer Session and other new shows.

I think that at some point, all TV fans imagine what would happen if we mashed two shows together. I came across this video for a mash-up between Lost and Magnum, P.I. It asks the question, what would happen if Thomas Magnum was one of the survivors of Oceanic flight 815? It's really clever and really funny.

And then I got an e-mail from the folks at Cut Up TV (not associated with the video above). Fans of shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000 will love it. What they do is take footage from TV shows and movies and...well, you can see for yourself after the jump, where I've placed a video montage of their content (the site has individual videos for each show). What if the Tom Hanks film Cast Away was a sitcom, complete with laugh track? What if Survivor was mixed with Dances with Wolves? What if there was a new drama on NBC titled Law and Order: High School Musical? Well, a lot more tweens would be watching NBC, that's for sure.

I love the internet!

To prove that any money-making franchise develops copycats, Nickelodeon will be making their own version of High School Musical. This one will be called Spectacular!

The Viacom-owned studio will begin shooting this television musical next month. It's about a female preppy choir singer in high school that falls for a badboy rocker. The studio claims that the musical numbers will be performance-based rather than spontaneous such as in HSM. In short, it's the story of Jerry Lee Lewis minus the pedophilia.

Here are the weekly cable ratings, by number of viewers.

This is the second week in a row that Monk gets the number one slot in the cable ratings, and Psych is in the top ten for another week too. That combined with yet another strong showing from Monday Night RAW (both hours) and USA must be a happy network. High School Musical makes it into the top ten yet again, which is pretty good considering it has already been shown, what, 20 or 30 times? No Hannah Montana this week though.

1. Monk (USA)

High School Musical star Zac Efron underwent emergency surgery this past Tuesday to remove his appendix according to his publicist. Recently, Efron has signed on to star in the theatrical release of High School Musical 3: Senior Year and was one of the stars of the movie Hairspray.

Maybe it's the cynic in me, but this smells of cover-up. Too many self-destructive celebrities have started under the Disney umbrella (such as Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears) and it wouldn't surprise me if this were more the case.

According to MSNBC, Vanessa Hudgens has signed on for Disney's High School Musical 3 reprising her role of Gabriella Montez. She's even getting a pay increase. This is despite the infamous compromising (i.e. nude) photos of her that circulated around the Internet not too long ago.

I was coerced into watching the original High School Musical by my niece. It was accurately described by my brother as "Grease, the Next Generation". It was cute, but nothing great. Like any old codger, I fail to understand why this phenomenon even took hold. But, it did. (On a side note, I don't even get why any parent would name their kid "Sharpay" unless they were really cruel.)

What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• We all know what happened to Jerry Seinfeld after his show ended, but what happened to Man Hands, The Drake, Susan Ross, and Crazy Joe Divola?
• Tim Goodman has a podcast interview with David Duchovny.
• With this writers strike, could the Heroes season finale actually air in December?
• Don't worry, High School Musical fans: Vanessa Hudgens is going to be in Part 3.
• Here's a new way advertisers are trying to sneak past all you commercial-skippers. Actually an old way.
• MSNBC isn't happy with something Tucker Carlson said on his show.

What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• Three reasons why Stephen Colbert will be our next President.
• Here's video of Alec Baldwin from Thursday's 30 Rock. An instant classic.
• Tim Goodman has an interview with Ricky Gervais.
• Are you a Blue-ray person or an HD person?
• Has Vanessa Hudgens been fired from the next High School Musical flick?
• Before they were stars: America Ferrera, Rainn Wilson, Ellen Pompeo, Erica Durance, and Josh Holloway.
• Ben Karlin talks about his experience on The Daily Show.

Breathtaking vistas? Wild animals? Vibrant culture? Life Is Wild, the new fish-out-of-water drama on the CW promises all these things, and yet, doesn't quite deliver. It's more of a "Life Is Mild" -- a generic family drama set in a lush South African locale -- that strips all the color out of the scenery by weighing down its story with bland characters played by nondescript actors stuck in unoriginal situations.

For real excitement and back-stabbing familial drama in the South African wild, check out the spectacular Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet. My family may be late to the game (Meerkat Manor is now in its third season), but those meerkats have us absolutely riveted. And maybe that's why I had a hard time getting excited by Life Is Wild. There's no real sense of danger. Unfortunately, this fictionalized African drama just can't compete with the real life-and-death struggles of those photogenic meerkats.

Here are the weekly cable ratings, by number of viewers.

1. Monday Night Football - New Orleans vs. Tennessee (ESPN)
2. High School Musical 2 (Disney)
3. Sky High (Disney)
4. Sky High (Disney)
5. College Football - Auburn vs. Florida (ESPN)
6. Rock of Love (VH-1)
7. WWE Monday Night RAW - 9pm (USA)
8. WWE Monday Night RAW - 10pm (USA)
9. High School Musical 2 (Disney)
10. SportsCenter - Mon (ESPN)