What Disney hid in their High School Musical series

Which are beloved world-wide......

Had a massive mess-up in my bill for heating. I have all my running costs automatically deducted, but was informed of a massive change, and got the steepest bill I have ever run into. Luckily, I can cover it. Luckily....

So I got depressed, and ordered a dvd. For many months, I have been seeing references to a show named 'Glee'. From the Today Show to Joe.My.God, it has been cause for a lot of discussion on blogs. No, it isn't like American Idol. It is just a series. About a high school, and their glee club, and they are losers, and this teacher inspires them. So much for the Disney aspect.

Everyone has been to high school. Glee Club was sort of the cellar. I was in the sub-cellar.... not the right side of the tracks, didn't have the right clothes, things happened, it was the worst four years of my life, but I survived it somehow.

This show is pushing the envelope so hard, all the 'wholesome' myths get blasted to smithereens, and I have only seen the first disc. Which ran about four hours. Now I know why so many people love it.

There are so many plusses, I can hardly begin to count them. Abstinence cheerleaders, (in Ohio) and one of them gets pregnant and wants to hang it on the one guy she never slept with, and convinces him it happened in a hot tub. Mean teachers, empathetic ones, and nuts in between. A totally out-there gay kid who comes out in the first four episodes, kicking the one winning goal in a football game to impress his father.

And woven through all of this, spectacular music numbers. All of these young people are so talented, they leave you speechless.

I only ordered it after seeing a half-hour interview with the 'villaness', the coach of the cheerleader team. She is one mean woman. All the chemistry works. And I was dismayed to find a familiar actress who already played a really mean role in 'Nip/Tuck', and she is at it again, she does it so well....

As per usual, they split the first season into two parts, and the second will come along in a few months. That is no fair. Power cycling is neat. No ads, a linear story line, tightly written, amazingly well acted... Get the DVD.

No saccharine. No Disney. And some truth. Love it.