“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” features singing, dancing and soap-scrubbed wholesomeness.

And that’s just among patrons in the theater lobby.

“Last night high school and college girls were singing ‘High School Musical’ songs while they waited in line,” Cinemark Movies 8 general manager Chris Menezes said.

The first two installments of Disney’s wildly successful “High School Musical” franchise were aired on the cable Disney Channel. The latest offering in the trilogy opened in theaters nationwide at midnight Friday.

Menezes said lines snaked through the lobby and beyond for that showing, and Friday afternoon hordes began gathering well in advance of the day’s first matinee.

Kris Gleason of Mankato was there with a gaggle of antsy young girls in tow.

Has mom seen the previous HSM musicals? Silly question.

“Oh, about a thousand times,” Gleason said. “I have TiVo.”

“High School Musical” has been called the “Grease” of a new generation. The latter, released in the 1970s, is regarded as the gold standard for teen movie musicals.

“Maybe for teen musicals, but not for ’tween musicals,” Gleason said.

The distinction is valid because while “Grease” carried a libidinous, rougher edge rife with teen hormonal angst, the squeaky-clean “High School Musical” is geared more for the grade-school set.

Ten-year-old Megan Kalina of Mankato said she loves HSM for its “singing and dancing.”

But what about the boys?

To that, Megan pleaded the fifth by way of a bashful smile.

“Oh, you like Zac,” her mother Janene Kalina told her.