Exclusive: High School Musical 2 Recalled For Lead-Based Paint
Wednesday, August 15, 2007 at 1:15PM BURBANK, CA -- Executives with the Disney Channel today notified the Consumer Products Safety Commission that it was instituting a voluntary recall for nearly 2 million copies of its highly-anticipated soundtrack to the High School Musical 2 movie, scheduled to be aired on the Disney Channel this Friday.
"We know that many families were planning on listening to this CD over and over and over and over and over and over...... and over" this week, said Phyllis Bronwick, Assistant Vice President for Public Relations with the Channel. "It comes as a tremendous disappointment to us that we discovered that the Chinese manufacturer of our CDs was also using the plant to produce lead-flavored chocolate bunnies."
"Although the likelihood that the amount of lead in each CD will produce an adverse health effect in the standard 8-year-old listener is small -- c'mon, people, it's not like they're eating the things -- we have decided in the interest of safety to issue a voluntary recall," Bronwick said.
Jonathan Sanderwhite, a Tampa, Florida parent of three kids, said he wasn't entirely surprised by the recall, adding, "Have you seen the acting? I mean, talk about leaden!"
Disney executive Bronwick refused to comment on whether the radition emitted by iTunes downloads or the televised movie could also be harmful to listeners or viewers.
But many families are saying they don't plan to take any chances. "I don't care -- it's Metallica for our iPods and Superbad for our Friday night movie," says Sanderwhite.
In other news, Disney Channel executives also denied that their popular show Hannah Montana had been pinpointed by the Federal Aviation Administration as one of the main causes of significant air travel delays this summer...
OK, admit it, a small part of you (maybe a large part of you) wishes this whole High School Musical thing would go away. It's overly hyped and relentlessly peppy.
But it's Not. About. You.
Your kids are going to buy this regardless of what you've said about it. Or haven't said about it. Cursing the soundtrack or saying how bad it is (regardless of whether or not it's true) won't have a single bit of influence on your kids in this regard. Complaining that it's not good enough music is for people who have never once taken the easy road in cultural, culinary, or any other contexts.
I've avoided talking about High School Musical 2 or its predecessor for a number of reasons, the primary reason being I've never seen the original. We don't have cable and, more importantly, our daughter isn't quite yet in the HSM demographic.
I've heard the soundtrack and it's just OK. It's not horrible, but there are some nuggets in there. In particular, I've heard "Breaking Free" done by more 8-year-olds than I can count at city music recitals, and it's a song that holds up under the shakiest of renditions.
But that song, like the others, or like the new song in the video below, is little different from songs considered "adult." There's little distinguishing it from what you'd hear on "Magic 96.7," or whatever it is in your neck of the woods.
It might be music for kids, but it's not really children's music...
Reader Comments (4)
You know, while we were letting my oldest one watch Star Wars for the first time this weekend and marveling at it's coolness, I was looking forward to the future of our movie watching and music listening and thinking exactly this about my daughter's choices a few years hence. Not that my son's choices will remain quite so cool, either, of course. But, HSM and and various other things of "the like" push more buttons for me. And I was reminding myself that it's about what they like. Its NOT. about. me. And it's probably not ALL that bad, either.
I do have a few songs my Miley Cyrus and Hayden Panettiere (from the Bridge to Terabithia soundtrack), and the kids do enjoy that sugary pop sound from time to time, so I guess its inevitable that HSM is in our future.
I love the part in the video where the guy is so emotionally wrought by the "music in me" that he's writhing and pounding on the piano for emphasis. Totally goony. But my students all LOVE LOVE LOVE HSM. They connect with it and it gives them a LOT of joy. Who am I to argue?
I realize that there are some downsides to HSM et al., but anything that connects with so many kids has got to have some merit to the thing, even if we as parents don't quite connect to it.