Monday Mouse Watch: Can you actually hear swearing on the “High School Musical : The Concert” DVD? Oh $#!+

Jim Hill

17 years ago

It’s the word that every Disney executive dreads: Recall.

Officials at the Mouse House still shudder when they think back on the “Rescuers” recall of 1999. When 3.4 million copies of that newly released video had to be pulled off store shelves. All because — in just two frames out of the 110,000 that made up that 76-minute-long animated feature — you could catch a brief glimpse of a topless Playboy Playmate in a window that Bernard & Bianca flew by.

Mind you, Mickey didn’t want to spend the money necessary to pack up all of those “Rescuers” cassettes & send them back to the factory. Where they were first bulk-erased and then re-recorded using a centerfold-free dub of the film. But Disney takes its family-friendly image seriously. And the corporation will do whatever it has to in order to protect that image.

Which is why Mouse House officials are now wondering if they should recall “High School Musical : The Concert — Extreme Access Pass.” Given that they’d just learned that — on a bonus feature that’s found on this newly released DVD — one of the dancers that appears in this arena show can be heard dropping the F-bomb.

To be specific, the offensive language can be heard during the “High School Musical: On The Road” featurette. When Lucas Grabeel is taking viewers through a typical day for the cast of “High School Musical: The Concert.” The F-Bomb gets dropped as all the dancers & performers are taking part in a pre-show ritual. As they gather together in a circle backstage, psyching themselves up for the concert they’re about to give, one of the members of the cast (It’s impossible to tell just who) can be heard swearing.

Now let me stress here that this obscenity gets shouted during a point in this “High School Musical: On The Road” featurette when there is a lot of screaming & yelling going on backstage. Which is how this F-Bomb managed to slip by the folks in Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Soon-to-be Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment)’s Standards & Practices Office.

More to the point, you have to have a fairly sophisticated home entertainment system in order to be able to hear this “High School Musical: The Concert” cast member swearing. Which brings us to Disney’s current dilemma.

You see, “High School Musical: The Concert” has been available for purchase since June 26th. Which means that — over the past 14 days — tens of thousands of copies of this DVD have already been sold and are now being played in homes all over America.

So in order to get those discs back … Well, Disney will first have to officially announce this recall. Then the company will have to make free mailers available to everyone & anyone who wants to replace their copy of “High School Musical: The Concert — Extreme Access Pass” with a new F-Bomb-free edition of this disc.

And to be honest, the Mouse doesn’t want to do that. A recall like this is going to be expensive. More to the point, it’s going to damage the reputation of the company’s newest family-friendly franchise at the worst possible moment.

To explain: Disney’s “High School Musical 2” marketing campaign is just about to get underway. And Mickey has lined up all sorts of promotional partners this time around. With everyone from Danimals drinks (Which is offering one lucky prize winner the chance to host a “HSM2” movie party at their school that Zac Efron & Corbin Bleu would attend) to Wal-Mart agreeing to help push this Disney Channel Original.

It’s that retail giant’s “High School Musical 2 All Access Pass” promotion that (I’m told) most troubles Disney Company officials now. You see, all 1800+ stores in the Wal-Mart chain will soon be taking part in this two-week-long in-store event. Which — starting this coming Sunday — will encourage kids 6-through-17 to go online and register for a prize package that will include :

A trip for four to Los Angeles

A dance lesson with “High School Musical 2” director Kenny Ortega

A $5,000 Wal-Mart back-to-school shopping spree with cast members Ashley Tisdale and Corbin Bleu.

Now how are executives of this Bentonville, AR-based corporation going to feel if — just as their stores are putting up all of their “HSM2” -themed signage — they also have to pull every copy of “High School Musical: The Concert — Extreme Access Pass” off the shelves? Or — worse than that — have to deal with angry customers who are now trying to return this supposedly G-rated DVD because it contains swearing?

Can you now understand why Disney officials have been extremely reluctant to put this particular recall in motion? Given all the PR problems that this potentially is going to cause the company. Not to mention how upset the Mouse’s “HSM2” promotional partners are going to be.

Of course, one might argue that — given that this swearing can only heard on one of the bonus features of this disc (More to the point, that you can only really hear it if you have a high-end home entertainment system) — that Disney doesn’t need to recall this DVD. That it might be enough if Mickey just warned customers about where the F-Bomb is located on this particular disc. So that parents could then tell their children not to play the “High School Musical: On The Road” featurette.

Mind you, there are those that would then complain that the Walt Disney Company was only taking half-measures like this because the Mouse cares more about saving money then it does about protecting our children. So this really could be one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations.

That said, Disney executives knew that they were going to have to do something once word about this obscenity got out. Which is why the suits back in Burbank have been wringing their hands since June 29th. Which is when the news that there was a problem with the “High School Musical: The Concert — Extreme Access Pass” DVD originally began circulating within the company.

Which is why it’s going to be REALLY interesting to see what happens next. Will this be “Rescuers” redux? Or will Mickey find yet another way to defuse the F-Bomb?

Your thoughts?