TODAY’S THE BIG DAY!!!!

The sing-along continues as Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Monique Coleman, Lucas Grabeel and Corbin Bleu all return for High School Musical 2, premiering tonight @ 8PM ET/PT on The Disney Channel.

If you’ve one of the lucky ones who have Disney on Demand and already watched HSM2, don’t give away any spoilers in the comments. Thanks!

High School Musical author Peter Barsocchini recently talked about the original movie:”The first night it aired, the texting numbers a all the major cell phone carriers went up during the movie. Kids were texting each other: ‘Turn this on,’ ‘Zac’s cute,’.”

20+ pictures inside of Zanessa… More Here! »

The cast and crew pose together at the world premiere of High School Musical 2 held at the Downtown Disney District at Disneyland Resort on Tuesday in Anaheim, Calif.

Pictured: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale (in BCBG Max Azria), Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Olesya Rulin, Chris Warren Jr., Kaycee Stroh, Ryne Sanborn and director Kenny Ortega. Who can ID the other three adults??

Poor Corbin Bleu is missing out all the great publicity because of his music tour. Poor guy!

The Early Show aired their High School Musical 2 segment on Monday morning with Zac Efron, Monique Coleman, Ashley Tisdale, Vanessa Hudgens.

Vanessa mentioned that there’s a love triangle square in High School Musical 2. “It gets really complicated,” she said.

We’ll just have to tune into the premiere when it airs the Disney Channel on August 17th to find out between who!

Watch the High School Musical 2 cast get interviewed below!

The cast of High School Musical 2 — Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman — made a special appearance on Thursday’s taping of Good Morning America (Lucas Grabeel was MIA).

There’s an interview with the whole cast, a little song and dance, and a dance-along. GMA slyly had a video tape submission of little kids asking Zanessa how many boyfriends and girlfriends they have. Both Zac and Vanessa didn’t fall for it the bait and answered that they have “many.”

UPDATE: After being asked that question and right before the commercial break, Zac smiles, approaches Vanessa and holds up one finger. Could that symbolize one girlfriend, perhaps?? Wink, wink.

The Insider also has “footage” from the Hairspray premiere of Vanessa confirming that she’s dating Zac. You can watch it here but it seems bogus since you never actually SEE her say yes. It’s just good video editing. Yaknowwhatimean?

Watch the video of HSM2 on GMA below!

The first ones to speak to Just Jared on the red fuchsia carpet at The 2007 MTV Movie Awards was the cast of High School Musical — Ashley Tisdale, Monique Coleman and Corbin Bleu. They were my first interviewees on the red carpet at an awards show… ever!

Here’s some background: Each press outlet is designated a certain space behind a barricade and a floor marker with your outlet’s name is taped onto the carpet in front of you. JustJared.com was sandwiched between UK’s national news agency Press Association and syndicated columnist Beck/Smith.

Ashley was the first one to recognize my floor marker, point to it, show it to co-stars Corbin and Monique and laugh about it.

When asked if she reads my blog, Ashley responded, “Of course I do! I definitely check out Just Jared!” (blush)

Who was Ashley excited to see at the Awards Show? “I’m just excited to see the MTV reality stars. I’m definitely a big fan of The Hills.” (Lauren Conrad, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt all stopped by to talk with Just Jared!)

We then touched upon Ashley meeting one of her fave singers, Jessica Simpson, which was documented on YouTube.

On Simpson’s break-up with John Mayer, Monique said, “I heard they got back together though… but you know, he said, she said!”

“He said, she said!” Ashley giggled (it’s the name of the first single from her debut album Headstrong).

Corbin commented on just getting back from their High School Musical tour in Latin America: “We did the same show out here in the USA but we did it in [Argentina], Chile, Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico. In Sao Paolo, we had an audience of 70,000 people (their largest live audience yet).”

When asked how fans vary from country to country, Ashley chimed in saying, “[The fans in Latin America were] so excited. They don’t get much of that over there. It’s typical in Hollywood for us to be here. But they were just amazed we were actually there.”

Come on USA High School Musical fanatics, the fans in Latin America have gotten you beat!

Future plans for these stars? Ashley will be a shooting a new film this August, but refused to spill any of the details about it. Why? “I’m superstitious,” she laughed.

Corbin will be touring with Drake Bell and teen pop duo Aly & AJ this summer. Monique is searching for her next step after High School Musical 2.

The trio didn’t share much on the topic of High School Musical 2 spoilers but they did mention the opening scene to the film will be the upbeat jam, “What Time Is It?”

The music video for “What Time Is It?” debuts on Saturday June 9th in @ 7:55PM/6:55c on The Disney Channel.

Here are two behind-the-scenes shots from the “Got Milk?” set.

Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Monique Coleman and Ashley Tisdale look at one of the High School Musical “Got Milk?” outtakes from the photoshoot. On-screen and off-screen couple Zac and Vanessa, aka Zanessa, even signed copies of the HSM DVDs in between takes. Video here.

High School Musical 2 premieres Friday, August 17 @ 8PM ET/PT on The Disney Channel. T-minus 77 days!

More pictures inside of the HSM2 cast…

More Here! »

The cast of High School Musical 2 poses for the latest Got Milk? advertisement — Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Lucas Grabeel, Monique Coleman, Ashley Tisdale and Corbin Bleu.

Below are some old and new High School Musical 2 movie stills.

High School Musical 2 premieres Friday, August 17 @ 8PM ET/PT on The Disney Channel.

GO WILDCATS!

The New York Times featured a fantastic article about the upcoming High School Musical 2: Sing It All or Nothing!. I almost peed in my pants while reading it from all the excitement.

Here are 5 things I learned about High School Musical 2 and its cast:

• Dance number “I Don’t Dance” pits Ryan and Chad’s teams against one another. It sets a baseball game to a musical score that fuses elements of hip-hop and swing.
• There’s a new song called “Fabulous” has Sharpay and Ryan float around in lounge chairs in a pool and “pass around beach balls in a Busby Berkeley-like sequence.”
• Zac wasn’t featured much on the High School Musical soundtrack because his “deep baritone had been deemed an uneasy fit with the rest of the cast” but he’ll be singing own stuff in the new movie and in Hairspray.
• Lucas Grabeel’s younger sister, Autumn Grabeel, is Monique Coleman’s personal assistant
• And here’s a little synopsis of High School Musical 2: “Sharpay Evans, the rich girl whom audiences loved to hate in the original movie, is on a campaign to woo Troy, the basketball coach’s son, away from Gabriella. The setting is a luxurious country club owned by Sharpay’s father, where Troy, Gabriella and their East High classmates have all landed summer jobs. Instead of a school musical, the source of conflict (and more than a few songs) is the club’s annual talent show, and Sharpay is scheming to get Troy to perform a duet.”

And one Zac Efron quote had a little OUCH factor, which stuck out to me: “Personally, I feel no competition with the cast because I’m not going for the same things they are. A lot of them are doing teen music things, and tours, various TV deals and other Disney TV movies and Disney albums. That’s the last thing I want to be doing at the moment. I’m setting my sights a little bit higher.”

High School Musical 2 is set for an August 17 release.

Pictured: Zac Efron is Troy Bolton, Vanessa Anne Hudgens is Gabriella Montez, Ashley Tisdale is Sharpay Evans, Lucas Grabeel is Ryan Events, Corbin Bleu is Chad Danforth, and Monique Coleman is Taylor McKessie.