This week's column:Can't stop the 'Musical'

Well, iTunes has made its first full-length movie available to download for your iPod, and it's Disney Channel's "High School Musical." This seems like a logical stopgap until Disney finds a way to deposit the movie directly into kids' nervous systems, maybe through little "High School Musical" vitamins shaped like well-groomed teenagers.

The iTunes announcement is just the latest step toward complete world domination by "High School Musical," the channel's highest-rated movie ever and the nation's No. 1 album this week. Disney seems to be approaching that goal with a strategy similar to that of the long-nosed guy in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," who captured kids in big nets and, presumably, ate them.

My daughter, who's 6, loved this movie before it even aired, since her young brain was able to piece it together almost in its entirety from the lengthy promos Disney Channel aired for months in advance. If you're unfamiliar with Disney Channel programming, it consists primarily of corny series featuring attractive young actors who seem to have been placed into some kind of indentured servitude - you can imagine CEO Bob Iger herding them all into pens at the end of filming every night.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.