The Mickey Mouse Club
From Muppet Wiki
The Mickey Mouse Club was Walt Disney's first continuing television series. Launching in 1955, the series used the image of star Mickey Mouse in introductions and occasional cartoon shorts, but the majority of the program was devoted to the Mouseketeers, including a young Annette Funicello. Serials and wildlife films (the latter predecessors to the shorter animal inserts on Sesame Street) rounded out the package.
Several revival attempts followed in later years, including The New Mickey Mouse Club (1977) and the more successful Disney Channel Mickey Mouse Club (MMC), which ran from 1989 until 1995.
In 1990, an "I Want to Be..." segment of MMC was filmed featuring Muppet fan Joe Apel, whose dream was to become a Muppet performer. Apel met Jim Henson and other performers, filming Muppet*Vision 3D, but following Henson's death, the sketch was shelved and never aired. When it was announced that the show was looking for fans of Henson's, they received many responses, including one from a young John Tartaglia. Fans were asked to write an essay expressing why they'd like to meet him. When it came time for producers to decide on finalists, they couldn't decide between John and Joe. However, Joe was closer to Los Angeles where Muppet*Vision 3D was filmed, therefore producers chose him.
The original series was spoofed in Muppets Tonight episode 105, as "The Kermit the Frog Club". A more minor reference appeared in the Dinosaurs episode Network Genius, in which the schedule board lists "The Mickey Test Patterns Club" as one of the networks programs.
Mouseketeers
The Mickey Mouse Club coined the term "Mouseketeers", a joking reference to the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers. The term was picked up by Sesame Street in the 1980s, when Oscar the Grouch started his own club, the Grouchketeers. (EKA: Episode 2040) Big Bird followed suit in the 1990s with the Birdketeers. (EKA: Episode 3154)
Since then, the number of "-keteers" clubs has grown to include the Ducketeers, the Bobketeers, the Countketeers, the Spaceketeers and the Seventeenketeers.
Connections
- Wally Boag guest starred on The Mickey Mouse Club October 4, 1955
- Fred Newman hosted MMC from 1989 until 1994
- Keri Russell performed on MMC
