Disney's 'Jonas' doesn't quite pop

The premiere of Disney's neo-Monkees act Jonas did OK in the ratings Saturday night, puling in 1.6 million in kids 6-11 and 1.6 million in tweens 9-14.

In the first demo, it's the lowest-rated live-action series premiere for a Disney Channel show in nearly four years. Among tweens, Jonas matched the premiere of Sonny With a Chance in February.

Jonas didn't do poorly, exactly -- it was the highest-rated show of the night among both demos, beating Nickelodeon's Fairly OddParents (though losing among Nick's 2-11 target). It's just that one expects the premiere of a show by a heavily promoted major Disney brand like the the Jonas Brothers to make a bigger splash. The premiere comes after a disappointing March performance for the Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experience movie.

Disney points out Jonas was the network's first series to premiere on Saturday night in eight years, so therefore some slack should be cut. But, you know, they put it there. If Disney thought Jonas would perform better on another night, they shouldn't have debuted it on Saturday. I mean, really. "I threw my toy into the pool and it got wet."

(And, no, Disney, nobody is actually calling your show JONAS. Marketing hacks always think they're being clever by doing stuntpunctuation, not understanding that their press releases will say one thing and everybody else will say another. Sure, Apple eventually convinced everybody to grudgingly accept "iPod." But even Fox doesn't get to be called FOX, and Yahoo doesn't get the exclamation point. Companies: You get to pick your name, but your brand is not so profoundly cool that it somehow bends the very laws of grammar to its will).

And here's this South Park clip (warning: language). Unlike the Jonas Brothers, it never gets old ...

Oh, and Sunday night's broadcast ratings have been delayed by Nielsen.