For every woman who has looked aghast across a restaurant table as her date spouted something like the following: ”Waiter, I’ll have your cheapest champagne” or “If I want to get a hooker when I’m in Vegas, my wife is just going to have to understand” — Soapnet has a contest for you.

(For the record, those quotes are taken from two real dates)

The soap opera cable network, owned by the Walt Disney Co, is offering a “virtual boyfriend” to the woman with the absolute worst date story for a six-week Valentine’s Day promotion that kicks off Jan. 4.

The woman most afflicted – and willing to talk about it on soapnet.com — will get a year’s worth of flowers, candy, jewelry, and loving text messages from her virtual beau, presumably to ease the pain of her spectacularly bad date karma. With a virtual man, the winner gets all the romantic perks of a real boyfriend without excuses. Like the guy who said he was taking  ”Russian lessons” that turned out to be daily visits to his shrink, or another fella who insisted on tanning with ball bearings between his toes when he felt “pasty” all over. 

(Again, all true stories)

The cable soap opera network also will run six episodes of “Greg Behrendt’s Wake Up Call”, a sort of romantic repair show hosted by the eponymous “He’s Just Not That Into You” author and stand-up comic, as well as romance-themed movies that Soapnet promises are not “gooey.”

Cash-strapped commuters who wish they could disappear into a magical land with talking animals, take heart! The Walt Disney Co will be handing out free subway rides in the busiest U.S. subway stations to promote the DVD release of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” on Dec. 2.

Disney says it hopes to “spread a little magic” to strap-hangers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Miami and San Francisco who may not be aware that the Pevensie kids in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books — on which the films are based – were transported there while waiting for the subway.

The DVD will be available on standard definition and Blu-ray formats and will include the usual featurettes as well as a special DisneyFile, a copy of the film that can be downloaded and viewed on portable devices.

The studio has high hopes for  “Caspian”, which did relatively middling business of about $420 million  at theaters worldwide – a little over half its predecessor’s box office take — but is expected to be a top seller during the holidays.

Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay, Ryan, Chad and Taylor were “all in this together” for almost three years,  so when it came down to the final day of filming for “High School Musical 3: Senior Year”  tears were flowing on set.

The latest movie in the Disney franchise, which opens in the U.S. on Oct. 22, sees the six main characters graduate East High School, and although Disney is already planning a fourth installment in a couple of years time, many of the stars won’t be coming back.

“Knowing it was the last time we’d be together was extremely emotional,” recalled Vanessa Hudgens, who has played math student Gabriella Montez since 2006. “We’ve been through so much together, we have become a really close-knit family.”

“The last day was horrible. We couldn’t stop crying and we had to do one more scene. We were in hair and makeup, crying our eyes out, and the assistant director was saying ‘ we need to go’  and hair and makeup was saying ‘ we can’t get their makeup on them they won’t stop crying’, ” she said.

Zac Efron, 21,  who plays basketball-crazy Troy, said the final graduation scene “was our sign-off”.

 ”It was very emotional, the last day on set. No one was expecting it. We knew it was coming but it was something about that moment — it had such finality.

“ It felt like we were closing a curtain with the biggest performance of our lives yet to come,” Efron said.

Can  “High School Musical” survive without Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay and their friends. Disney thinks so. What do you say? 

   
Oprah Winfrey is going to the Big Easy — at least in the fictional world of animation — by joining the cast of an upcoming Disney movie set in New Orleans during the jazz age. 

  
In “The Princess and the Frog,” which is set for release in late 2009, Winfrey will play the mother of the main character Princess Tiana, who in turn will be voiced by “Dreamgirls” star Anika Noni Rose.
    
The talk show queen has a dozen acting credits in her career, including voice work for  last year’s “Bee Movie.”
    
“The Princess and the Frog” marks Disney’s first return to traditional animation since its 2004 “Home on the Range,” which earned mixed reviews. The movie made $104 million worldwide, less than its production budget, according to Box Office Mojo. 
     
    

Fans of High School Musical have just a week to count down before Disney releases the first global look at “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on Tuesday said that from July 13, a high-energy trailer for the third movie about Troy, Gabriella and their friends at  East High School will be shown on Disney Channels in several countries as well as on Disney.com. Hosted by Zac Ephron (Troy Bolton) and Vanessa Hudgens (Gabriella Montez), and including the song “Now or Never” from the upcoming movie, the trailer features footage from the film slated for a release on October 24.

Angelina Jolie’s new action assassin movie “Wanted” opens this weekend against the gentle-natured Disney-Pixar animation “Wall-E“ – two movies aimed at different audiences in a classic case of Hollywood studio “counterprogramming.” The different mix of movies is unlike last week when in an unusual move, two studios opened comedies against one another: “Get Smart” and “The Love Guru.”

“Get Smart” won the weekend box office sweepstakes with a roughly $40 million haul that beat expectations while “Love Guru,” disappointed with a paltry $14 million. In the case of “Wanted,” which is aimed at young adults, and “Wall-E,” a family film, both are expected to perform well and continue what has been a robust summer box office in the United States and Canada.

Box office watchers tell the Hollywood Reporter that “Wall-E” could blow past the $47 million opening weekend of the 2007 Disney-Pixar animation film “Ratatouille” and easily earn $50 million or more in domestic ticket sales. “Wanted” is seen hitting the mid-to-high $30 million range, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Part of the equation is simple math, G-rated “Wall-E” opens in more than 3,900 theaters, while R-rated “Wanted” is in just under 3,200 theaters.

Critics like both “Wall-E,” which is about a robot who cleans up Earth’s ravaged environment, and “Wanted,” which is based on a graphic novel series about a secret fraternity of assassins. “Like Charlie Chaplin’s best silents — a clear influence — ‘Wall-E’ is pure visual magic,” critic Rafer Guzman wrote in Newsday. “Before ‘Wanted’ reaches the end of its wild course, the violence that’s been nothing but oppressive becomes genuinely if perversely impressive …,” Joe Morgenstern wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)