The kids from East High will be back, in just five days.

Disney's "High School Musical 2" will premiere Friday evening on the Disney Channel, and teens and tweens are atwitter with anticipation.

Jake Shillady of Lititz is hoping to mark the occasion with a "High School Musical 2" party in the basement of his family's house.

For Jake, "High School Musical" has particular significance. He played the lead character, Troy, in Lititz Elementary School's spring theatrical production of "High School Musical."

His mother, Jaime Shillady, said that after seeing Jake and his friends in the play, and after listening to them sing the hit songs from the show day in and day out, she came to love "High School Musical" as much as her kids do.

"High School Musical," she said, "is good, clean family fun."

It's that and more — it's become a pop-culture phenomenon.

The original "High School Musical" movie debuted in January 2006. Disney made the TV movie for $4.2 million. According to press reports, it has earned $1 billion. There are not only "High School Musical" CDs and DVDs, but clothes, books, backpacks, dolls, games, and all manner of licensed products. There's been a concert tour, and now there's an ice show.

"Can you spell mother lode?" joked Nancy Robinson, who analyzes consumer trends for a Minneapolis consumer research company, Iconoculture. "The mouse," she said, referring to Disney, "knows how to make money."

Stacey Irwin is an assistant professor of new media at Millersville University, and an expert on children's television and media literacy. She said, in an e-mail, that "High School Musical" is "what Disney is good at."

It's part "Mickey Mouse Club," part Frankie-and-Annette and Gidget, and "part slick, well-produced music video," Irwin said.

No doubt parents enjoy it, too, but they should be wary, Irwin said. They may feel that Disney, as a programming entity, is "safe," she said. But, she added, "It is important for parents to also look at the branding and incredible sales job going on. Young people watch a TV movie and a spiral of buying products associated with the brand just keep coming onto the TV."

She believes — and said research backs her up — that "the Disney Channel, as a company, is just marketing within marketing. The commercials are about Disney things. The promos and commercials market each other ... I watched Disney on Sunday nights as a child for many years with my parents. But it was not Disney 24/7 with commercials in between that exposed Disney products."

Boy meets girl
"High School Musical" is set in Albuquerque, N.M. It is the story of a basketball star named Troy Bolton (played by teen heartthrob Zac Efron), who meets a pretty and brainy girl named Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens), on New Year's Eve, at a vacation resort. The two are thrown together on stage, and they make beautiful — and completely G-rated —music together.

When Troy goes back to East High, he discovers that Gabriella just has enrolled there. This development recalls the Danny-and-Sandy relationship in "Grease," but in "High School Musical," there are no pregnancy scares or pressures to have sex — there isn't even a kiss.

"Lips never touch, and the beat still goes on," noted Robinson of Iconoculture.

In the shiny, happy halls of East High, the conflict has to do with extracurricular activities. When Troy and Gabriella contemplate trying out for the school musical, the school's reigning drama-club queen is thrown into a tizzy, and the established order is threatened. The brainiacs and jocks plot to keep Gabriella and Troy where they're thought to belong — on the academic decathlon and hoops teams, respectively.

But this isn't "Mean Girls," or even "The Breakfast Club."

"There's no angst, only discovery and a search for identity," Robinson said. "It's experimentation with life on the mild side, not the wild side."

The nice thing about "High School Musical," she said, is that "this really is a success story on so many levels. It's kind of 'American Idol' brought down to, 'I can do that.' "

And it's a modern reworking of the old Mickey Rooney, "I've got a barn, we can put on a show," kind of movies, she said.

"High School Musical" fits this generation of youngsters, who are close to their parents, and don't really have much to rebel against, Robinson said. They take "cautious risks," she said, but "their rebellions are very soft."

In the first movie, Troy chafes against the expectations of his father, the East High basketball coach, who wants him to lead his Wildcats team to a championship. In the end, Troy tries out for the school play, but he stays on the basketball team, and he wins the big game, fulfilling his father's dream. And his dad sees Troy singing on stage, and realizes that music also can be a part of his son's life.

Parental perfect
It's no wonder, Robinson said, that parents have embraced "High School Musical." "Everybody is kept clean and bright, with stars in their eyes shining. ... It's perfect for tweens, and it's perfect for the parents who fear for them."

In recent years, parents have been worrying over cliques, peer pressure, bullying and relational aggression among girls.

In "High School Musical," these social problems are presented as "completely surmountable," Robinson said, noting that all the East High kids need to overcome these problems is to have a positive attitude and an openness toward others.

In "High School Musical," she said, relational problems are "a reason for song and dance." The characters sing about "Breaking Free," and they sing, "We're All in This Together."

The grownups interviewed for this story agreed: This is high school as people wish it could be.

Not sold on it
Kate Benitez, who's going into the 10th grade at Elizabethtown Area High School, doesn't buy the movie's idealized depiction of high school.

"It's too skippy, la-la-la-la-la-la," said Kate, who was participating in a Fulton Theatre Young Actors Workshop last week, at Franklin & Marshall College.

Contrary to what is shown in "High School Musical," "the popular jock type usually does not hang out with the nerdier quiz bowl type," Kate said.

And usually, she said, "people do not have secret passions for cooking or baking or whatever." In her experience, she said, high school students don't have hidden depths.

Moreover, she said, "people don't sing entire songs about how you should be different and do your own thing." More likely, they'd sing about how everyone should be just like them.

"And they wouldn't be singing, they'd be texting, actually," Kate said, wryly.

Kate said "High School Musical" recalled for her the "Once More, with Feeling" episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," in which a spell is cast that causes everyone to break into song and dance.

She contended that "High School Musical" mostly appeals to the younger set, to kids who haven't yet experienced the realities of high school.

David Allan, assistant professor of marketing at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, said young kids want a picture of high school, and "High School Musical" gives them one. When kids watch movies, they're looking for fantasy and maybe an escape from reality, he said.

"We all want to see the better side of things," said Allan, whose daughter is a "High School Musical" fan. "That's not such a bad thing."

Unlike "Grease," the movie to which it often is compared, "High School Musical" is contemporary, and so kids can relate to the fashions, the music, the setting, Allan said.

Every generation needs something to call its own, something that makes them feel connected to one another, he said.

People who came of age in the 1980s had the Brat Pack movies ("Pretty in Pink," "The Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Candles," "St. Elmo's Fire").

This generation of youngsters has "High School Musical," Allan said.

It may not even matter if "High School Musical 2" lives up to the original movie, Allan said, because the "High School Musical" franchise has been established.

In the sequel, summer vacation arrives and scheming drama-club diva Sharpay — hoping to lure Troy away from Gabriella — gets Troy a job at her family's swanky country club. To Sharpay's dismay, Troy gets his East High pals, Gabriella included, jobs at the country club, too. Amid the singing and dancing, Troy has to choose between loyalty and ambition.

Tween thing
Katie Ellis, 10, was at Fulton's Young Actors Workshop last week. As an aspiring actor, Katie particularly enjoyed the work of Disney stalwart Ashley Tisdale in "High School Musical." Tisdale played the scheming drama-club diva, Sharpay.

"I think it's a really good story," Katie said. "It's cool that they're coming out with a sequel."

Tween sisters Evelyn and Eleanor Frick, who also were at the workshop, said they liked the first movie's don't judge-a-book-by-its-cover moral. The choreography and songs were great, too, the sisters said.

Eleven-year-old Amanda Boak played Gabriella in Lititz Elementary's staging of "High School Musical." She said she loved the first "High School Musical" movie, and is really excited about the sequel.

"I think the message of the movie is not to stay in your little box ... to open up and make friends," Amanda said. "It has a good story, but it presents it in a way that kids really like."

Her friend and co-star, Jake Shillady, said, "I think it's probably one of the best movies they've had for kids our age."

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Suzanne Cassidy is a staff writer for the Sunday News. Her e-mail address is scassidy@lnpnews.com.