Camp Rock

Camp Rock premiered on Disney Channel on June 20, 2008 — the 73rd Disney Channel Original Movie, arriving at the absolute peak of Jonas Brothers mania. Demi Lovato, in her breakout role, plays Mitchie Torres, an aspiring singer who can only afford music camp because her mom takes the catering job; embarrassed, she invents a richer life for herself to impress queen bee Tess Tyler. Joe Jonas plays Shane Gray, the bratty frontman of Connect 3 — a trio suspiciously identical to the Jonas Brothers, whose vocals fill the soundtrack — sent back to his old camp to fix his public image, where he becomes obsessed with finding the girl he overheard singing.

Disney had spent two years learning how big made-for-TV musicals could be, and Camp Rock was engineered accordingly: 8.9 million viewers watched the premiere, second only to High School Musical 2 among DCOMs at the time, and it re-aired on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney — only the second DCOM to do so — with an iTunes release shortly after. The finale delivers the formula's purest hit: at Final Jam, Mitchie finally sings 'This Is Me,' Shane recognizes the voice mid-song and joins her, and the duet was released as a real single for Lovato and Jonas.

The machine around it was fully cranked — the Walt Disney Records soundtrack, released three days before the movie, hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and topped the soundtrack chart for four weeks, while pajamas, dolls, and backpacks filled Target, Claire's, and Limited Too. A sequel, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam, followed in September 2010, and international 'My Camp Rock' singing competitions ran in five markets. For a certain cohort, though, the original is simply where Demi Lovato arrived — and the last summer the Jonas Brothers belonged entirely to Disney Channel.