The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that aired intermittently from 1955 to 1996 and returned to social media in 2017. Created by Walt Disney and produced by Walt Disney Productions, the program was first televised for four seasons, from 1955 to 1959, by ABC. This original run featured a regular, but ever-changing cast of mostly teen performers. ABC broadcast reruns weekday afternoons during the 1958–1959 season, airing right after American Bandstand. The show was revived three times after its initial 1955–1959 run on ABC, first from 1977 to 1979 for first-run syndication as The New Mickey Mouse Club, then from 1989 to 1996 as The All-New Mickey Mouse Club (also known to fans as MMC from 1993 to 1996) airing on The Disney Channel, and again from 2017 to 2018 with the moniker Club Mickey Mouse airing on internet social media.
The character of Mickey Mouse appeared in every show, not only in vintage cartoons originally made for theatrical release, but also in the opening, interstitial, and closing segments made especially for the show. In both the vintage cartoons and new animated segments, Mickey was voiced by his creator Walt Disney (Disney had previously voiced the character theatrically from 1928 to 1947 before being replaced by sound effects artist Jimmy MacDonald).
The first official theater-based Mickey Mouse Club began on January 11, 1930, at the Fox Dome Theater in Ocean Park, California, with 60 theaters hosting clubs by March 31. The Club released its first issue of the Official Bulletin of the Mickey Mouse Club on April 15, 1930.[1] By 1932, the club had one million members, and in 1933 its first UK club opened at Darlington's Arcade Cinema.[2][3] In 1935, Disney began to phase out the club.[4]
The Mickey Mouse Club was hosted by Jimmie Dodd, a songwriter and the Head Mouseketeer, who provided leadership both on and off the screen. In addition to his other contributions, he often provided short segments encouraging younger viewers to make the right moral choices. These little "homilies" became known as "Doddisms".[5] Roy Williams, a staff artist at Disney, also appeared in the show as the Big Mouseketeer. Williams suggested that the Mickey and Minnie Mouse ears should be worn by the show's cast members. Inspired by a visual gag in The Karnival Kid,[6] he helped create these ears, along with Chuck Keehne, Hal Adelquist, and Bill Walsh.
The main cast members were called Mouseketeers, and they performed in a variety of musical and dance numbers, as well as some informational segments. The most popular of the Mouseketeers constituted the so-called Red Team, who appeared each day in the show’s opening roll call & closing segments. 9 of those Red Team Mouseketeers were kept under contract for the entire run of the show (1955–1959):
Other Mouseketeers who were Red Team members but did not star on the show for all three seasons included:
The remaining Mouseketeers, who were members of the White or Blue Teams, were Don Agrati (who was later known as Don Grady when he starred as "Robbie" on My Three Sons), Sherry Alberoni, Billie Jean Beanblossom, Eileen Diamond, Dickie Dodd (not related to Jimmie Dodd), Mary Espinosa, Bonnie Lynn Fields,[8] Judy Harriet, Linda Hughes, Dallas Johann, John Lee Johann, Bonni Lou Kern, Charlie Laney, Larry Larsen, Paul Petersen, Lynn Ready, Mickey Rooney Jr., Tim Rooney, Mary Sartori, Bronson Scott, Margene Storey, Ronnie Steiner, and Mark Sutherland.[9] Larry Larsen, on only for the 1956–57 season, was the oldest Mouseketeer, being born in 1939, and Bronson Scott, on only the 1955–56 season, was the youngest Mouseketeer, being born in July 1947. Among the thousands who auditioned but did not make the cut were future Oscar-winning vocalist/songwriter Paul Williams and future Primetime Emmy Award-winning actress Candice Bergen.
The 39 Mouseketeers and the seasons in which they were featured (with the team color which they belonged to are listed for each season):
Notes: Cole and Day were originally Blue Team members, but were promoted to the Red Team later in the first season.
Johann, Petersen, and the Rooney brothers were all let go early in the first season. Dallas's brother John Lee replaced him, while Dodd and Steiner were hired as replacements for the Rooney brothers.
For the show's fourth season, only a small amount of new footage was filmed and was interspliced with material from previous seasons. It is believed[according to whom?] that only six of the Mouseketeers—Funicello, Gillespie, Tracey, Burgess, Pendleton, and O'Brien—were called back for the filming of new material, while Cole and Baird were merely used for some publicity material.
Other notable non-Mouseketeer performers appeared in several dramatic segments:[5]
These non-Mouseketeers primarily appeared in several original serials filmed for the series, only some of which have appeared in reruns. Other Mouseketeers were also featured in some of the serials, particularly Annette Funicello and Darlene Gillespie.
Major serials included:[5]
The opening theme, "The Mickey Mouse March", was written by the show's primary adult host, Jimmie Dodd.[5] It was also reprised at the end of each episode, with the slower "it's time to say goodbye" verse. A shorter version of the opening title was used later in the series, in syndication, and on Disney Channel reruns. Dodd also wrote many other songs used in individual segments throughout the series.
Each day of the week had a special show theme, which was reflected in the several segments. The themes were:
The series ran on ABC Television for an hour each weekday in the 1955 and the 1956 seasons (from 5:00 - 6:00 pm ET), and only a half-hour weekdays in 1957, the final season to feature new programming.[10] Although the show returned for a 1958 season and these programs were repeats from the first two seasons, recut into a half-hour format. The Mickey Mouse Club was featured on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Walt Disney's Adventure Time, featuring reruns of The Mickey Mouse Club serials and several re-edited segments from Disneyland and Walt Disney Presents, appeared on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Although the show remained popular, ABC decided to cancel it after its fourth season ended, because Disney and the ABC network could not come to terms for its renewal.[5] The cancellation of the show in September 1959 was attributed to several factors: the Disney studios did not explain high profit margins from merchandise sales, sponsors were uninterested in educational programming for children, and many commercials were needed to pay for the show. After canceling The Mickey Mouse Club, ABC also refused to let Disney air the show on another network.[11] Walt Disney filed a lawsuit against ABC, and won the damages in a settlement the following year; however, he had to agree that both the Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro could not be aired on any major network. This left Walt Disney Presents (initially titled Disneyland, later retitled Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color when it moved to NBC) as the only Disney series which was left on prime time until 1972 when The Mouse Factory went on the air. The prohibition which prevented major U.S. broadcast networks from airing the original Mickey Mouse Club (or any later version of it) was disputed when Disney acquired ABC in 1996. Although it would not air on ABC again, Disney ran it on the Disney Channel's "Vault Disney" block from 1998 to 2002.
Although the series had been ended in America, many members of the cast assembled for highly successful tours of Australia in 1959 and 1960. The television series was very successful in Australia and was still running on Australian television. The cast surprised Australian audiences, as by then they had physically matured and in some cases, bore little resemblance to the cast of youths with whom Australians were so familiar. Mainstream television did not reach Australia until 1956, so the series screened well into the 1960s when the back catalog expired.
In response to continuing audience demand, the original Mickey Mouse Club went into edited syndicated half-hour reruns that enjoyed wide distribution starting in the fall of 1962, achieving strong ratings especially during its first three seasons in syndicated release. Because of its popularity in some markets, a few stations continued to carry it into 1968 before the series was finally withdrawn from syndication. Some new features were added such as Fun with Science or "Professor Wonderful" (with scientist Julius Sumner Miller) and Marvelous Marvin in the 1964–1965 season; Jimmie Dodd appeared in several of these new segments before his death in November 1964. Several markets expanded the program back to an hour's daily run time during the 1960s repeat cycle by adding locally produced and hosted portions involving educational subjects and live audience participation of local children, in a manner not unlike Romper Room.
In response to an upsurge in demand from baby boomers entering adulthood, the show again went into syndicated reruns from January 20, 1975, until January 14, 1977.[12] It has since been rerun on cable specialty channels Disney in the United States and Family in Canada. The original Mickey Mouse Club films aired five days a week on The Disney Channel from its launch in 1983 until the third version of the series began in 1989. The last airing of the edited 1950s material was on Disney Channel's Vault Disney from 1997 to September 2002. During the baseball seasons in 1975 and 1976, WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois, aired the show on a delayed basis due to Cubs baseball coverages.
Annette Funicello and Tim Considine were reunited on The New Mickey Mouse Club in 1977. Darlene Gillespie and Cubby O'Brien were also reunited on another episode of the same series.[citation needed]
31 out of the 39 original Mouseketeers were reunited for a TV special, which aired on Disney's Wonderful World in November 1980. Paul Williams – who hosted the special – and Tim Considine were named Honorary Mouseketeers during the special.
Cast members Annette Funicello, Bobby Burgess, Tommy Cole, Sharon Baird, Don Grady, and Sherry Alberoni were reunited on the 100th episode of The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, during the show's third season in 1990.
Mouseketeers Doreen Tracey, Cubby O'Brien, Sherry Alberoni, Sharon Baird, Don Grady, Cheryl Holdridge, Bobby Burgess, Karen Pendleton, Tommy Cole, and Mary Espinosa performed together at Disneyland in Fall 2005, in observance of Disneyland's 50th birthday, and the 50th anniversary of the television premiere of The Mickey Mouse Club.
In 1977, Walt Disney Productions revived the concept, but modernized the show cosmetically, with a disco re-recording of the theme song and a more ethnically diverse group of young cast members. The sets were brightly colored and simpler than the detailed black and white artwork of the original. Like the original, nearly every day's episode included a vintage cartoon, though usually in color from the late 1930s onward. The 1977 Mouseketeers were part of the halftime show of Super Bowl XI on January 9, 1977.
Serials were usually old Disney movies, cut into segments for twice-weekly inclusion. Movies included Third Man on the Mountain, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones and its sequel The Monkey's Uncle (both starring Tommy Kirk), Emil and the Detectives (retitled The Three Skrinks), Tonka (retitled A Horse Called Comanche), The Horse Without a Head (about a toy horse), and Toby Tyler (starring Kevin Corcoran). In addition, one original serial was produced, The Mystery of Rustler's Cave, starring Kim Richards and Robbie Rist. Often shown were scenes from animated Disney films, from Snow White to The Jungle Book billed as "Mouseka Movie Specials".
Theme days were:
The series debuted on January 17, 1977, on 38 local television stations in the United States, and by June of that same year, when the series was discontinued, about 70 stations in total had picked up the series. Additional stations picked up the canceled program, which continued to run until January 12, 1979; 130 new episodes, with much of the original material repackaged and a bit of new footage added, and a shortened version of the theme song, was produced to start airing September 5, 1977. Since the 1970s, the series has aired only briefly and sporadically in reruns, and only on the Disney Channel's Vault Disney nighttime block (1997-2002). Unlike its 1950s predecessor and the 1989/1990s series that followed, which had DVD releases of select episodes in July 2005, this version has not had a DVD release and has been largely forgotten by many, including many kids of the 1970s who made it their club. On November 20, 1977, "The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World" was shown on The Wonderful World of Disney. WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois, also aired this version on a delayed basis in 1977 and 1978 during the Cubs baseball season due to game coverages. Action for Children's Television successfully got the show canceled because of their objections to the types of commercials that aired during the program. It also aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1978 to 1980.[13]
The cast of 12 (five boys and seven girls) had a more diverse multiethnic background than the 1950s version. Several 1977–1978 cast members went on to become TV stars and other notable icons.
The show's most notable alumnus was Lisa Whelchel (born in 1963, in Littlefield, Texas), who later starred in the NBC television sitcom The Facts of Life, which ran from 1979 to 1988, before becoming a well-known Christian author, and overall runner-up, and winner of the $100,000 viewers' choice award, on the fall 2012 season of the CBS television reality series Survivor. Mouseketeer Julie Piekarski (born in 1963 in St. Louis, Missouri) also appeared with Lisa Whelchel on the first seas