Ashley Tisdale covered a bunch of 80’s songs including Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” Cathy Dennis’ “Too Many Walls,” Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night,” Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth” and Whitney Houstan’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” What prompted her to butcher these classics you ask? Why, to promote Degree Girl antiperspirant and deodorant of course.

You know how when you’re surfing the web and you run into a link in the comments section on a rather respectable web site promising that if you click it you’ll see a young Jessica Alba sex tape where she receives a facial. And then you click it and it’s Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give You Up.” And then you’re filled with rage because this is the fifth time you fell for this today and you feel like punching your monitor because you slowly realize such a tape may not really exist, but you click the next link anyway because there’s still a small chance it does? Well, that’s sort of how this Ashley Tisdale cover makes me feel. Except, more punchy.

The premiere of Disney Channel movie High School Musical 2 drew 17.2 million viewers on Friday, making it the most-watched basic cable telecast of all time.

The television phenomenon starring Zac Efron, Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens was also the most-watched program on any channel (including broadcast networks) in the past 3 months.

Overall, “Musical 2″ was the most watched program on television since the season finale of Fox’s hit drama “House” logged 17.26 million viewers on May 29, according to Nielsen Media Research and the Hollywood Reporter.

“We had so much fun on the set — the movie is really a by-product of us hanging out,” Efron recently told CosmoGIRL! of making the sequel. “A lot of the funny parts are total improv. The lines aren’t even in the script — we just made them up!”

A High School Musical 3 TV movie is already in the works at Walt Disney Pictures for release next year.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. –Demi Lovato recalls with delight “my first — and my only! — fan mob scene.”

The 15-year-old had dropped by a friend’s autograph session at a Disney Studios event to say hi when suddenly a little girl shrieked her name. Within seconds, hundreds of kids clutching pens and autograph books had surrounded her.

“I was like, `What! How do you even know me?” says Lovato, rising partly out of her chair, tossing up her hands in disbelief and bursting into laughter.

“But yeah,” the actress adds quietly, regaining her composure. “It was like, `This is the coolest thing ever.”’

As the star of the latest Disney Channel original movie “Camp Rock” — which the Mouse House hopes will be its next “High School Musical” — it’s a scene Lovato might have to get used to.

“I’m getting kind of anxious, and a little nervous, because there was a picture I saw the other day of Ashley and Vanessa,” she says of “High School Musical” stars Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Anne Hudgens. “They were at a McDonald’s and there was paparazzi all over the place.

“I’m excited, though. For the most part,” she concludes.

Only time will tell whether the Disney Channel can capture lightning in a bottle twice in the same decade. Disney is clearly banking on it, however, rolling out buzz about the movie on the Internet for months, offering various “Camp Rock” tchotchkes and casting as co-stars the mega-hot pop group the Jonas Brothers. (It airs June 20 at 8 p.m. EDT.)

“People are expecting it to be the next `High School Musical.’ That would be an honor if it is,” says 14-year-old Alyson Stoner, who plays budding music producer Caitlyn Geller.

In the film, Lovato plays Mitchie Torres, a musical prodigy who can’t afford to attend a prestigious music camp filled with snooty rich kids until her mother gets her a break on the tuition by landing them both jobs in the kitchen.

Once there, she’s befriended by miscreant rock star Shane Gray, played by 18-year-old Joe Jonas. She’s also hounded by the rich girls, particularly after she’s outed as a kitchen worker, until one of them (17-year-old Anna Maria Perez de Tagle) comes over to her side.

Then, in the time-honored tradition of kid musicals dating to the days of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, they bring everybody together for a show at which the irrepressible Lovato says happily, “I get to rock the house.”

Indeed she does, say the Jonas Brothers.

“She’s a great singer. We’re writing with her for her new record,” 15-year-old Nick Jonas says by phone from Florida, where he was recently on tour with the band.

“And we’ll be introducing her on our `Burning Up’ tour this summer,” pipes up his 20-year-old brother, Kevin.

As was the case when the first “High School Musical” film debuted in 2006, most of its teen stars, although unknown to mainstream audiences, already have followings among the demographic of 8- to 13-year-olds.

Lovato developed a cult following as one of the stars of “As the Bell Rings,” the five-minute mini-show Disney uses to fill breaks between its regular programming. Stoner, who appeared in both of the “Cheaper by the Dozen” films, voices Phineas’ precocious girlfriend in the Disney cartoon series “Phineas and Ferb.” Perez de Tagle, whose grandmother is prominent Philippine singer-actress Sylvia La Torre, plays the tone-deaf singer, Ashley DeWitt, on the Disney series “Hannah Montana.”

“And I’m an actual singer!” she says emphatically.

“Being able to finally sing good on `Camp Rock’ is … ” she adds before dissolving into laughter during a recent interview at a Hollywood studio.

There, the actresses have scattered laptop computers, cell phones, schoolbooks and stuffed animals across tables as they rush off to pose for pictures between bites of lunch.

They say they became friends years before their current project, having bumped into one another at auditions and acting classes.

“I met Demi on a show called `Just Jordan,”’ says Perez de Tagle. “Ever since then we kept in touch. She visited me on the set of `Hannah Montana’ and we switched phone numbers. And then, all of a sudden, we were like, `We’re going to be on “Camp Rock”!”’

The three say the friendships made filming the movie easier.

Even when they had to dance all day long for days on end, they had each other for support, says Lovato.

And even when the movie’s producers took them to a remote location in Canada, “where there was no Internet or phone service and there were bears,” they still had one another, Stoner adds.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

See, this is what happens when you try and revive an era!

Ashley Tisdale is releasing an album of shitty oversynthesized songs from the ’80s. Not just any songs, but ’80s staples like Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night,” Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

So long as she doesn’t f^ck up any Bananarama tracks we’ll be cool. But if she so much as sings one lyric from “Love in the First Degree” I just might have to find her and beat her to death with my dildo.

Experience the horror for yourself below.

Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”

More massacring of ’80s covers after the jump!

Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”

Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night”

Ashley Tisdale and Jared Murillo looked like a perfect couple running together. Ashley looked good in her exercise gear. You know what they say about couples who do everything together – they stay together.

Ashley and Jared were rumored to be in Salt Lake City, Utah. She had to finish her movie, High School Musical 3, with Disney. The couple kept a low profile and avoided speaking to the press to reduce rumors and gossip mongering on their relationship.

Anthony Michael Hall can hardly wait for the ban to be lifted on his discussing “The Dark Knight” plot and his mysterious role in the hugely-anticipated “Batman” flick — which, as he told us a year ago, he’s legally prohibited to do having signed a confidentiality agreement.  However, “I can tell you this: It’s the biggest movie of my career.  I can’t wait for people to see it,” says the actor who rose to fame as a Brat Pack teen movie star, put in six seasons starring in “The Dead Zone” — and plays a cult member who masterminds an airline hijacking in this Saturday’s (5/24) “Final Approach” thriller on the Hallmark Channel.

He says making the July 18 release feature was an experience of a lifetime.

“Basically, we shot in Chicago and London.  Heath Ledger, who obviously isn’t with us, sad to say, did a great job.  He plays the Joker.  I worked with him and with Christian Bale a lot.  I had the most fun with Gary Oldman. I really was honored to work with Gary and to spend some time with him. We have a lot of mutual friends. We would joke and talk about everything but show business.”

As far as filmmaker Chris Nolan, Hall feels, “He did a great job reinventing this Batman franchise by making it darker. I think the consensus view of the previous films was that the franchise had gotten out of control, that it was a little bit goofy and over the top, especially in the Joel Schumacher versions.  But what Chris Nolan did was brilliant. He started by hiring Christian Bale, a British actor who, by the way, according to Chris, was the first actor through the door. Then surrounded him with other great actors — and I just feel so honored to be considered worthy to be part of the company.”

MEANWHILE: Dean Cain plays the FBI agent who has to contend with Hall’s twisted bad guy and his threatened nuclear destruction in “Final Approach,” which also stars Lea Thompson, Ernie Hudson, Tracey Gold and Richard Roundtree.  Cain also has the family movie “Ace Of Hearts” newly out on video, and the big screen “Five Dollars a Day” comedy with Chris Walken and Sharon Stone in the can.  “I’m one of the folks that Christopher Walken and his son (Alessandro Nivola) encounter along their way.
Everyone gets conned,” says Dean.

He tells us, “I’ve been enjoying mixing things up lately.  It’s been interesting with the writers strike and what projects are going and not going – having everything slow down for awhile, then speed up, then slowing down again with the possible actors strike.”  He’s been making the most of the hurry-up-and-wait pattern in the industry of late.  “I’ve had some nice down time with my son.  He goes to school three minutes away” says Dean, referring to his Malibu home.  “He visited the ‘Final Approach’ set one day, but he’s six years old. He’s seen enough of my movies shooting.  If something’s not exploding, it’s not that fun.”

THE INDUSTRY EYE: The “Reno: 911” police department will be doing their bit for the war effort in an upcoming episode – in their inimitably skewed way, of course. “Clemmy and Deputy Garcia help train some Iraqi soldiers to use weapons and other things they might need to know,” reports Wendi McLendon-Covey, who plays promiscuous Dep. Clementine “Clemmy” Johnson on the Comedy Central show returning for its sixth season Thursday (5/22). “We think we’re doing some really good training and end up with egg on our face, as per usual.”

Meanhwile, McLendon-Covey is the celebrity spokesperson for Cops4Causes, a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring together members of the law enforcement community to raise funds to help those in need. This year seven deputies and police officers will ride 545 miles from San Francisco to L.A. to raise money for the AIDS pandemic. “They’re having a kick-off party in Los Angeles May 22 at Eleven Nightclub and Restaurant with legendary disco diva Martha Wash performing,” says McLendon-Covey, who first began working with Cops4Causes a couple of years ago. “I hosted an event for them in Ventura, CA, for the Special Olympics.  They were cops really reaching out to the community.  It was really inspiring and I told them ‘I’ll do whatever you want, whenever you want. I’m totally down with this organization.” For tickets or info, go to www.cops4causes.org.

THE SMALL SCREEN SCENE: “Suite Life on Deck” — the upcoming spinoff of The Disney Channel hit ‘Suite Life of Zack & Cody” — will not just have a new location, but new faces report stars Cole and Dylan Sprouse.

“Some regulars are leaving, and we have some new regulars coming in,’” says the irrepressible Cole, whose revamped show debuts in September.  “Ashley Tisdale is gone because she is busy doing ‘High School Musical 3.’ And our Mom, played by Kim Rhodes, will be gone because we are schooling on a ship now.” So we won’t see either of Zack and Cody’s parents? “A-parently not,” quips Cole, adding everything else on the show is “very much the same, except they’re really aging Zack and Cody.”

Marisa Miller becomes the first to debut in the number one position on Maxim Magazine’s Hot 100 list, which was just released this week. And oddly enough, Marisa had previously never been included in the Hot 100 list, but this was an exceptional year for the model. Not only did she grace the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit edition, she was added to and took home the number one spot on Maxim’s Hot list.

Marisa was followed by Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, Eva Longoria Parker, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Elisha Cuthbert, Eva Mendes, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan and Ashley Tisdale to round out the top 10.

Actress Megan Fox, who was FHM’s Sexiest Woman in the World in 2008, was only garnered the number 16 position. Other women who were listed are Rihanna, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Jessica Alba, Hilary Duff, Heidi Klum, Jessica Simpson, Charlize Theron, Gabrielle Union, Mariah Carey, Cameron Diaz and Mischa Barton.

And pulling off a trifecta for “The Hills” stars, Heidi Montag, Lauren Conrad and Audrina Patridge all made the Maxim Top 100 list, in addition to everyone’s favorite reality star and MySpace queen, Tila Tequila. However, congratulations are in order for Marisa Miller!

Bonus Marisa Miller Photos: