Day XVII – Battle of the Bands, er Musicals

Thank goodness I couldn't renew it, "High School Musical" I mean. I took it out of the library because the Little Props love it and also I wanted to gather intelligence about the "opposition." At the same time I checked out "School of Rock." Which I could renew (halleluiah) and we all dig.

Now admittedly "School of Rock" isn't strictly a musical, but I think it's close enough that I'm comparing Granny Smiths to Golden Delicious not Valencia.

School has real kids (10 and 11 year olds); HS has 25 year olds playing the parts.

School has the kids doing real kid stuff. I know, forming a rock band in school and performing at Battle of the Bands might seem far-fetched, but who out there didn't form a band in school? Hmm? Speak up. We all did, it's just that we stunk. These kids really do rock. The only unbelievable part is they auditioned about a million kids and put the best in one class. If we had all done that our bands wouldn't have stunk either. HS has them doing Musical stuff (dancing through a basketball game, choreographed lunch period, etc.).

School rocks, HS, well it does what musicals do. It's that singing because that's where the writer put a song sort of thing. Liza, Andrew-Lloyd, Oscar and Julie would have felt right at home.

In School the cellist becomes a monster bass player. In HS the basketball player becomes a cellist.

Zac Efron vs. Jack Black – both need a haircut, but Jack needs one because he is a real guy ("I like to eat okay, is that a crime") and Zac is, well, what he is starts with "metro" and ends in my teenage sister putting a poster on her wall that gives me the creeps. I could do with a little less JB in School, but I could round up all the Zac's in the world and launch them into space like the phone disinfectors and hairdressers in the Hitchhiker's Guide series.

There's no: Ramones, Zeppelin, Kiss, Yes, Floyd, Blondie, Styx, Sabbath, Priest, Skynard, Who, Sex Pistols, Deep Purple, (need I go on?) in HS. My kids (including my five year old daughter) actually asked me to put on "that band that sings, 'I come from the land of the ice and snow'" yesterday!

And that's what clinches it for me. My daughters watched HS and all started singing and dancing, sweeping their arms and looking longingly into each other's eyes. When they were done watching School they had "stickittothemoniosis" and were asking to get the Led out.