Demi Lovato's debut album, Don't Forget, enters The Billboard 200 at #2. Lovato played the female lead in the Disney Channel's TV movie, Camp Rock. She also sang three songs on the soundtrack, which tops the million-unit sales mark this week. One of them, "This Is Me" (a duet with Joe Jonas), became the album's biggest hit. Lovato, 16, is the latest in a long line of performers to parlay exposure on Disney TV shows into hit records of their own.
Annette Funicello was just 12 in 1955 when the original The Mickey Mouse Club premiered and quickly became a baby-boomer obsession. Annette had four top 20 hits in 1959 and 1960, including "Tall Paul" and "Pineapple Princess." The latter was from her album, Hawaiiannette. (It was a more innocent time.)
Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were regulars on a revival of The Mickey Mouse Club in 1992-93 (as was future Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling.) All three burst to major pop stardom in the late '90s. Even more remarkably, all
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