This post is part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst in Money 2008 feature.

Well, 2008 has come and gone. If you were looking to be entertained over the past 12 months, you had a lot of choices. From Batman's battle with the maniacal Joker to Hannah Montana singing her little heart out in 3-D, there was something for everyone. Let's look at five of the hottest properties that made their way into the heart of the cultural mindshare in '08.

Up first is The Dark Knight, the second iteration of director Christopher Nolan's new vision of the Caped Crusader. That movie killed at the box office, and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) could not have been happier. Knight scored almost $1 billion at the global box office. More than half that number was captured in the domestic marketplace. There's no question that the movie mesmerized the collective intellect of the audience. There's also no question that Heath Ledger, who tragically passed away earlier in the year, impressed everyone with his portrayal of the chaotic and cruel Joker villain. I, however, do have a question. Is it just me, or was Knight not as awesome a film as the hype makes it out to be? I saw it, thought it was okay. I don't know, I'm just not sure that this new entry in the cinematic Batman mythos would have brought in as many bucks if the notoriety of Ledger's death wasn't attached to these particular reels of celluloid. To be honest, I didn't think Ledger did that unique of a job. And I thought The Joker's voice was annoying, almost sounding like Sam Raimi -- did anyone else happen to think that? Maybe it's just me. Nevertheless, I salute the success of Knight and respect the project for the impact it had on theaters 'round the world.

As a Disney (NYSE: DIS) shareholder, the High School Musical juggernaut is important to me. It means money for the company. It means a point of distinction for Disney that adds value to its content and differentiates it from other media businesses such as News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX). It means that tweens have something realistic to relate to that reflects their own days of breaking out in song while walking through school (okay, that was a joke).

But I was disappointed to hear that a reality show extension of the brand is having a tough time in the ratings. According to this blog post at The Hollywood Reporter, the show, called High School Musical: Get in the Picture, had the worst ratings on Monday night. It's some sort of competition show with a prize related to being in some sort of video in the Musical franchise.

I'm not sure of the specifics, but my main concern is that it couldn't offer any competition to CBS (NYSE: CBS) or General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC. Remember, Disney's big model is to take its content and spread it around to enhance the value of the company's other platforms. It's all about the synergy. Unfortunately, it didn't work this time. I honestly thought that ABC would have seen huge numbers from the kids on this one. It makes me wonder if Musical might be getting long in the tooth.

There's good news and bad news for shareholders of Disney (NYSE: DIS). The good news, according to data published in this Hollywood Reporter article, is that the latest Disney Channel movie, Camp Rock, achieved better ratings than the first High School Musical movie. Rock attracted 8.9 million eyeballs while the first Musical brought in about 7.7 million viewers. The bad news is that Rock unfortunately couldn't match the success of the second Musical project, which captured the attention of over 17 million viewers.

This movie is extremely important. Disney execs want to find out if they truly know the formula for creating new fads for the kids. This is definitely a strong start, although I thought the movie's ratings might come a little closer to the second Musical film since all we've been hearing about lately is how hot the Jonas Brothers act is right now. It at least should have brought in over 10 million viewers.

I don't know, maybe it's me, but I just don't feel the same kind of buzz for this project as I do for the Musical franchise. Here comes the interesting part: Can Disney grow the movie from here? That will depend on how fickle the Disney Channel audience actually is. Don't fool yourself, the powers that be at Disney are under pressure to form a suitable pipeline of intellectual properties to replace the aging Musical and Hannah Montana brands. Make no mistake, they are aging quickly, as these kinds of things don't have terribly high half-lives.

Shareholders will want to see the Jonas Brothers and Camp Rock really grow into a merchandising phenomenon in the coming months. No matter what, though, the cable channel is a great asset, and it is a strong competitor of Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Nickelodeon network.

Disclosure: I own Disney; positions can change at any time.