Jonas Bros head to class in new series

Los Angeles-Want to fill up a room early in the morning? Schedule the Jonas Brothers for your TCA press presentation.

Now the trio, which started with Disney Channel as performers of a theme for someone else's original series, gets its own comedy show called Jonas. It's set in the teenagers' high school, where they are just three typical students. Only outsiders react to the band's stardom.

 

The band's younger brother is also in the series, which Gary Marsh, entertainment president of Disney Channels Worldwide, described as The Monkees meets Flight of the Conchords.

The band is playing at the inaugural, but they've already met their First Fans: President-elect Barack Obama's daughters. Nick Jonas said they walked in on the two girls playing ping-pong back stage at Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. Nick added he played ping-pong with them, but the girls won. He folded under the pressure of playing in front of the Secret Service, he confessed. 

The 21-episode show debuts in May.

 

When originally announced, the show was to cast the boys as spies, but "their cover was blown by Dick Cheney," joked executive producer Michael Curtis. In reality, as the band's popularity grew, the spy concept "didn't feel quite right," he added, so a more real-to-life concept was developed.

In addition to the series, the band will also show up on the channel Feb. 16 with channel mate Hannah Montana. Disney Channel will debut new music videos from each act in one night, a scheduling move Marsh quipped was equivalent to The Beatles and the Rolling Stones appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show on the same night. Also debuting that night will be an original movie, Dadnapped. 

The much anticipated videos, including one from the upcoming Hannah Montana movie, will be telecast Jan. 19.
Marsh added that it is "the intention at the moment" to have a second Camp Rock movie for the channel later this year. A script is being written now, he said.

Executives also introduced the channel's next crop of hoped-for tween faves; the cast of Sonny With a Chance,including Demi Lovato, who will also be featured in the channel's inaugural ball line-up from Washington next week; Brandon Mychal Smith, Tiffany Thornton, Sterling Knight, Allisyn Ashley Arm and Doug Brochu. The show has been described as the tween set's 30 Rock and debuts Feb. 8.

Noting that the production data indicates that many of the cast members are from Texas, a critic asked if the kids knew each other before being cast for the show. In perhaps the best quip of the critics' tour, Marsh said Texas "is where the Disney genetics lab is."

The show-within-a-show So Random includes many comedy sketches, which Marsh said could have a natural home as online content.

Lovato said she's "ecstatic" about performing in Washington D.C., where she will perform two songs of her new CD, but added she just prays she doesn't fall down.