What Do High School Musical 2 and the Sequel to Freakonomics Have in Common?

Freakonomics and High School Musical have a lot in common. Both were surprise hits that had no reason to be commercial successes, but managed to do well by not taking themselves too seriously.

My kids and my wife love the original High School Musical. I kind of like it myself. It is played an average of three times a day in my house. So we have been eagerly awaiting the sequel, High School Musical 2, which premiered on Friday. The verdict: my six- and seven-year-olds liked it okay, but I could not believe how bad it was. It was shockingly awful.

I’ve been trying to figure out what made the movie so incredibly terrible. I think the only possible answer is that they started taking themselves seriously. Do others who saw it agree?

Anyway, to answer the question posed in the title of this blog post … Let’s hope the answer is “nothing.”