Though the story has familiar elements (Romeo and Juliet, character
going against what he’s expected to be) High School Musical
obviously makes connections with its audience. Now, the Disney
Channel massive hit comes to DVD. The show is also being taken
on the road with a new High School Musical Concert Tour. The first
showing pulled in 7.7 million viewers with an estimated 34 million
by the end of the run. The great soundtrack doesn’t hurt things either
(it’s been on top of the Billboard soundtrack chart for a while). It has
the usual Disney Channel overacting, but overall I really enjoyed the
show thanks to the soundtrack. The musical numbers cover all the
bases, urban pop, salsa, ballads, etc.
I don’t think that the Disney Channel knew the impact that this show
would have. The ratings were enormous - 34 million people have
watched the show by some estimates. They repeated the show in
several different versions, a sing along version (which is on this
DVD) and a dance along version. They also use the show’s stars in
promotions, commercials, etc.
High School Musical is presented in fullscreen as it was shown on
television. This is a little disappointing since clips from the show
on thefeaturette appear to be letterboxed at 1.85:1. Why wasn’t a
separate anamorphic widescreen version released?
Review from M&G.com