Jump In!

Jump In! is the 69th Disney Channel Original Movie, which premiered on January 12, 2007. It was released on Disney Channel UK on April 27 2007. The movie, starring Corbin Bleu from High School Musical and Keke Palmer from Akeelah and the Bee, revolves around a young boxer, Izzy Daniels (Corbin Bleu), who trains to follow in his father's footsteps by winning the Golden Glove. When his friend, Mary (Keke Palmer), who harbors a secret crush on him, asks him to substitute for a team member in a Double Dutch tournament, then, Izzy discovers a hidden passion for jumping rope and in the meantime, he finds himself falling for Mary. Filming took place from June-July 2006 in Toronto, Canada. 3.4 million viewers watched this movie in the UK coming first in its timeslot.

Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Izzy Daniels (Corbin Bleu) is a star boxer and the son of a golden-glove champion. His eight year old sister, Karin, is crazy about Double Dutch and Izzy is asked to take Karin and her friends to a Double Dutch competition, where Mary and her team are entering. Izzy has often seen them Double Dutch and is always bothering them, but during the competition he acts out of character, standing and cheering along with everyone else.

Izzy finds he has a crush on his friend and neighbor Mary (Keke Palmer), a member of the jump team The Joy Jumpers, who place fourth in the tournament. They make the city finals, but when Yolanda, the fourth member of the team, decides to quit and join their rival team, The Dutch Dragons, they face the prospect of forfeiting the tournament. Izzy, after learning of Yolanda's departure, quips "Why, did she finally figure out Double Dutch is lame?" Mary then challenges Izzy to speed jump, and when he does it much better than they expect, they ask him to join the team, but he refuses because of what his friends might think. When the other members of the Joy Jumpers, Keisha and Shauna, ask him to fill in until they find a permanent replacement, he finally relents. His conditions are that they practice before school and in his dad's boxing gym, where no one's going to watch. Mary also has a crush on him.

Meanwhile, Izzy has a boxing match with Rodney Tyler, the school bully, determining who will win the "Golden Gloves", which goes to the best boxer. Izzy beats him, but Rodney doesn't accept it. He claims he just got lucky and pushes Izzy for a rematch. Izzy says no, and walks out of the gym.

Izzy improves tremendously at Double Dutch, and begins to love the sport. He tells the Joy Jumpers that he'd like to be on their team permanently, and they happily agree. Izzy and Mary starts to fall in love with each other and share a romantic moment and a kiss on their fire-escape. However, when Rodney finds Izzy jumping Double Dutch before class, he snaps some photos, prints them and hangs them all over the school. He then tells Izzy, "So that's why you won't give me a rematch! 'Cuz you're too busy jumping Double Dutch!" Izzy becomes mad and says he'll do the rematch. But in the middle of the fight, he tells Rodney that he's sick of being mad and that he's not going to let his anger control him. He walks out of the match and Rodney runs after him, intent on beating him up. But he trips on the cords surrounding the ring, giving Izzy a chance to get even. Instead, he just walks out. Mary tries to convince him not to quit their team but Izzy coldly ignores her and wants nothing more to do with her and the team. Mary is disappointed in him and she leaves.

The only girl boxer, Tammy, understands how Izzy feels. She gives him a pep talk on how she never quit boxing when the guys teased her, and that he shouldn't quit either, just because they made fun of him.

Meanwhile, Mary, Keisha and Shauna meet up for the city finals, but without Izzy, they feel like giving up. Izzy then walks in and asks, "What, were you really gonna start without me?" He apologizes and Mary smiles and hands him a uniform. They change their name to the Hot Chili Steppers and all is forgiven as the tournament begins. They get first in the compulsory, then second in speed. This ties them with the Dutch Dragons and the freestyle will determine it all. The Hot Chili Steppers get first, and go on to the State Championship.

After their performance, Izzy notices Rodney in the crowd, and asks him for a truce, which he accepts. Izzy had finally won the respect of his dad Kenneth (David Reivers) and Mary's love.

The narrator in the story was Rodney, and he was telling the story to kids, so the movie was depicted to be a story which Rodney was telling, he also states to one of the kids that Izzy and Mary are now a couple. The film closes with Izzy teaching his dad to jump rope with the help of his little sister, Mary and the other girls.

Characters
Isadore "Izzy" Daniels (Corbin Bleu), a young man who is a boxer that later joins his neighbor Mary's double dutch team. He struggles to live up to his father's dreams after the death of his mother. He begins to fall for Mary after a while. Sometimes it is hinted that he has a romantic past with Mary.
 * Izzy Daniels -

The single father (David Reivers) of Izzy and Karin Daniels (Kylee Russell).
 * Kenneth Daniels-

The girl next door (Keke Palmer) who is seen as an over-the-top perfectionist who enlists Izzy's help in joining her double dutch team. She is secretly in love with Izzy but always denies it. She tries to hide it by constantly insulting him. Sometimes it is hinted that she has a romantic past with Izzy.
 * Mary Thomas-

Shauna & Kiesha (Shanica Knowles and Laivan Greene) are Mary's loyal "girlfriends" on her double dutch team. They know about Mary's secret crush on Izzy and they occasionally mention it and knows that she is lying when she denies it.
 * Shauna & Kiesha-

Karin (Kylee Russell) is Izzy's younger sister. She is a "people person" and quite bossy at times. She looks up to her neighbor, Mary.
 * Karin Daniels-

Production
The film was originally set to star Raven Symoné and be named Double Dutch, but due to unknown reasons it was later revamped into Jump In! with Corbin Bleu.

Jump In! is the 69th Disney Channel Original Movie and went into production in 2006. Earlier titles for the film included "Jump", "Jump In" and "Jump Start", with some early trailers even showing the "Jump Start" title.

Karin Gist and Regina Hicks are credited as writers on "Jump In." They are also writer/Producer, writer/ Executive Producer respectively on the sitcom "Girlfriends."

Doreen Spicer, the original writer of "Jump In!", is credited as co-Developer and Supervising Producer of The Proud Family.

Frank Fitzpatrick composed the original score for the film and wrote and produced 2 songs for the soundtrack, including the single "Jump to the Rhythm", a co-production with Nashville’s Keith Thomas featuring Jordan Pruitt. 

Promotion for the film began in the Summer of 2006, with a poster appearing in the program for the High School Musical Tour. Advertisements highlighted Corbin Bleu's association with High School Musical and ran heavily during re-airings of that film. Several videos from the film were also put into heavy rotation on Disney Channel, airing during breaks in regular programming.

Corbin Bleu became very good at jumping and even performed some of his own stunts like the donkey kick and pushups, but he did have a stunt double for some of the jumping like back flips and individual jumping. At the end of the movie, Andy Royalle makes a guest appearance as one of the jump-ropers.

Reaction
Jump In! broke the record previously set by The Cheetah Girls 2 as the highest rated DCOM premiere with 8.2 million viewers. and garnering a 5.4 at the Internet Movie Database. It was later beat out for highest ratings by High School Musical 2 (Corbin Bleu also starred) on August 17, 2007 which gained 17.24 million viewers compared to Jump In!'s 8.2 million.

Special screenings

 * Jump In! and Dance It to the Limit: A special screening of the movie with a special dance-along to Push It to the Limit, hosted by the male announcer of Disney Channel.
 * Jump In! Jab & Gab: A special screening of the movie, in which viewers play the online game, Jab & Gab and send shout-outs to their friends, family or the cast of the movie.
 * Jump In! Pop up Edition: Gives viewers an inside look on different parts of the movie, while popping up on your television. This special screening aired Friday, June 1st on Disney Channel.

Trivia

 * Normally during the premiere of a new DCOM, teaser trailers and promos for the next DCOM would air. But in this case, the big news released during the film's premiere was for the Kim Possible season four premiere.


 * Originally the movie was to star Raven-Symone and was called "Double Dutch" but was scrapped due to Raven working on other projects.


 * The duration in which each scene changes to another, there would be a New York City subway train. The train shown was the number 1 line. In reality, the number 1 line only reaches from Van Cortlandt Park 242nd Street in the Bronx, down to South Ferry in Manhattan. The number 1 line does not run in Brooklyn, where the story takes place.


 * When it premiered in the U.K, information on High School Musical 2 was shown.


 * Jump In!'s working title was "Jump Start"


 * ''Mary (Keke Palmer)'s age is never mentioned. Although, her love interest Izzy (Corbin Bleu) may be a little older than she is.


 * In the movie, the group that Izzy Daniels is in is called the Hot Chili Steppers. This is an obvious parody of Red Hot Chili Peppers, a real-life rock band. The version in Spanish dubs the name Salto Extrapicante. This led to a failed lawsuit in March 2007.


 * During the final contest, an actual champion Double Dutch team from Brooklyn makes a cameo. They just happened to be in Toronto for a tournament at the same time the movie was being filmed.


 * This is the third Disney Channel Original Movie to have a "What's What Edition". The first two were High School Musical and The Cheetah Girls 2, and the fourth, fifth and sixth were High School Musical 2, Camp Rock and The Cheetah Girls: One World.

DVD
The DVD release of Jump In! carried the subtitle "Freestyle Edition" and was released on April 3, 2007. And July 2, 2007 in the United Kingdom.

Special features include the following:
 * Keke Palmer's "Jumpin'" Music Video
 * T-Squad's "Vertical" Music Video
 * Behind the Scenes Featurette - "Learning the Moves"
 * Making of Featurette - "Inside the Ropes"


 * Avery Normandin, who appeared in High School Musical (1 and 2), made a cameo in this film during the song "Push It To The Limit", and he also appeared in the fighting match between Izzy and Rodney.

Soundtrack
A soundtrack featuring songs from the movie was released on January 9, 2007. The full soundtrack could also be heard on the official Jump In! website. It was removed on January 5, 2007. It debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200 on January 17, 2007, with 49,000 copies sold, and rose to #3 in the next week, selling 57,000 copies. In its third week, it fell to number nine with 44,000 copies sold. In March 2007, the album was certifed Gold by the RIAA. As of July 8, 2008 the album has sold over 600.000+ copies within the U.S.

Track listing

 * 1) "It's On" - NLT
 * 2) "It's My Turn Now" - Keke Palmer
 * 3) "Push It to the Limit" - Corbin Bleu
 * 4) "Vertical" - T-Squad
 * 5) "Where Do I Go From Here" - Sebastian Mego
 * 6) "Jump to the Rhythm" - Jordan Pruitt
 * 7) "Jumpin’" - Keke Palmer
 * 8) "Go (Jump! Mix)" - Jupiter Rising
 * 9) "I’m Ready" - Drew Seeley
 * 10) "Gotta Lotta" - Prima J
 * 11) "Live It Up" - Jeannie Ortega
 * 12) "Jump" - Lil’ J
 * 13) "Let It Go" - Kyle