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The Mickey Mouse Club

The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that aired intermittently from 1955 to 1996 and briefly 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 child, tween or 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 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The character of Mickey Mouse appeared in every show, not only in vintage cartoons originally made for theatrical release, but also in the opening, interstitial, and closing segments made especially for the show.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, who had previously voiced the character theatrically from Steamboat Willie to Fun and Fancy Free.

The first official theater-based Mickey Mouse Club began on June 29, 1929, at the Fox Dome Theatre in Venice, California, alongside a showing of the Mickey Mouse short The Gallopin' Gaucho. This would later expand to other states, including the Fox Theatre in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on November 30 and the Elsinore Theater in Salem, Oregon, on December 21, with more than 60 other movie theaters hosting clubs across the country by March 31. The Club released its first issue of the Official Bulletin of the Mickey Mouse Club on April 15, 1930. By 1932, the club had one million members, and in 1933, its first UK club opened at Darlington's Arcade Cinema. This didn't last long as Disney began to phase out the club in 1935.

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". 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, 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 and closing segments. Nine 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 weren't under contract for the entire run 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, 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. 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 to which they belonged are listed for each season):

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