I used to watch this stuff in the mid 1950s when I was 8 to 10 years old. I never appreciated how much talent these kids had. In fact, I found their singing and dancing rather tedious, and wanted the show to get to the "entertainment" segments. Now, decades later, thanks to youtube, I can appreciate what I overlooked as a kid.
i remember running home from school in the 70's also to watch the reruns of the mouseketeer clyb also. this was one of the best shows on tv back then besides soul train and american band stand.
I Love The Mickey Mouse Club. So glad my Mom showed this show. My Moms Favorite is Bobby and Lonnie. Darlene and Annette are mine. . I wish I could dance like them and play drums like Cubby.
Same thing with me too! I too was born in the 1960's, and watched the original Mickey Mouse Club when it aired again in the 1970's. I arrived home in the afternoons coming from school, but I got home just in time to watch reruns of this original Mickey Mouse Club with Annette Funicello. It's a pity what happened to Annette with her illness, and the fact that she just died today on Monday April 8, 2013. She will be remembered as a mouseketeer from the original Mickey Mouse Club.
I know I am replying years later but I have just found this and have to agree with you - Annette was my favourite also - I even named my doll after her. Fifty five years later I still have her, my doll that is, and she sits proudly on my bedroom chair and my granddaughters love her as much as I do. Can't wait to show them who she was named after!
I always thought these kids were great. I wanted to be just like them, But I was lucky enough to have a best friend that was a child perfomer. I love The Mickey Mouse Club and may the love for the show go on.
Thanks for this! My fave, Darlene, gets a solo, singing “I wonder what I’ll be when I grow up….” Unfortunately she later did some check-kiting scheme and did hard time in the big house.
I loved to death those pleated skirts and learned to tap because of this show. My name is Bonnie, and yes...I loved it that there was a Mousketeer names Bonnie too.
Dear Ms. Speeg - there were 2 Bonnies on our series. First season, Bonni Kern first season only, the late Bonnie Lynn Fields [later known as Lynn Fields; we worked together for Bob Fosse on his first film vs. Broadway: "Sweet Charity". Mouseketeer Lonnie - site since 2000: google my name!
Wow wow ,,,,, I'm soooo jealous. Wanted to learn tap. Get those black patent tappers!! Was desperate to enroll in dancing school. Mom said NO. 😢 Too expensive in 56-57. Baahh. Still mad to this day.
@Nashcountryboy Don Grady's sister, Lani O'Grady, played Mary on Eight is Enough', and tragically died of drug-related issues in 2001, around the time of the World Trade Center disaster. (The family name, incidentally, is Agrati).
Wondering 😔,,,,, Has anyone written a book on the kids ,,,,, cute stories of Mouseketters? Would surely read. Just basic things. Like how long were rehearsals, what about schooling, did everyone make same salary?
I read that Cheryl Hodges died last year. I was so sorry to hear that. Karen was my favorite. She was in a car accident years ago and has been in a wheel chair ever since. She became a psychologist. Darlene became a very good country singer. Don went on to star in My Three Sons in the 60's. He played Robbie. Cubby became a successful drummer. Annette is very nice, but straight-laced. She wrote an autobiography that didn't sell because there was nothing naughty in it.
Thank you for sharing these wonderful childhood memories! I wasn't around when it aired in the '50s (I was born in 1963). I first watched the original Mickey Mouse Club when it aired again in the '70's. I remember racing home (a good mile or so) just so I could make it in time for Roll Call! :) Darlene was (and always will be) my favorite as well as Tommy.
3:54 Darlene Gillespie...from Montreal Canada !! ..On the shows, she was seriously Green Jealous of Annette... !! Later in life... Darlene was busted in a shoplifting charge and bad checks with her husband in the 90's. Did some jail time.... However, through it all, she was very talented musically.
@@libertyann439 I'm 62 days older than Doreen, 39 days younger than Mary Sartori, met Annette, Cheryl, Bonnie and "Moochie"(!) at the studios in 1957, dined with Annette, Joe and her manager in Allentown PA of all places in 1959 ... and I wouldn't trade places with you.
Since the people who originally watched this are now truly "old and gray", I wonder how many never forgot the day of the Mouseketeer Matinee? As the lyrics of the song say will happen...
You're absolutey right! Darleen was by far the MOST TALENTED of all the Mouseketeers! Even, far more talented than Annette. However, luck was NEVER on her side! What a SAD SCENARIO!
Darlene made her parents proud all right ... she served two years for defrauding legitimate parties to a class-action lawsuit ... unlike Dana Plato her nemesis wasn't drugs, it was a guy called Jerry!
@Snookiebutt : I agree Darleen was the most talented but who knows what went on behind the scenes? In later years she was in and out of jail so her stage persona may have been much different than she was in real life. Sad, really.
I, too,am an original viewer. Came home from school, sat down, and watched . Sang along with the cast, and wished I could tap along too. We went to Disneyland and saw the Mousekateers, live, and in person . Couldn't get to meet any of them. Fast forward to the 80s and sitting with my young daughter watching MMC with new eyes..
Quinnsutube4friends Your an original viewer and your not old? I'm an original viewer and I'm 71 yrs. old and my nieces were also original viewers they are 4 yrs. younger than me. We color our hair. Gee how old were you when you watched?
Bobby is most definitely gay. Lawrence Welk told him to at least TRY and make an attempt at the straight life or he was gonna get kicked off the Lawrence Welk show, so, Bobby made an arrangement with Myron Floren to marry Myron's daughter, Christie. They had 4 kids, and then Bobby said enough is enough and has been leading a very gay life ever since. How do I know? I was Bobby's very first boyfriend when he decided to come out of the closet almost 30 years ago now.
Even though I loved the show as a small child, I can see now how vapid it really was-it was Disney's deflavourizing influences that sucked the humanity out of everything he did.
+none sense I'm not certain you know what you're talking about. Walt Disney himself favored good ole American values and the importance of children and young people. It is the corporation that bears his name that has done so much damage to these values. I honor Mr. Disney. He did so much that was good and upright.
Jim Porter American values according to his strict interpretation of them as he like to mind control his employees. He was almost Soviet in the way he designed their work space and living quarters and micro managed every aspect of his employees lives. His wage scale was bizarre and draconian-some people got excellent pay while others got wages that were subsistence. He fought the introduction of unions and ratted out his colleagues to McCarthy Committee on UnAmerican Activities as "Communist" just because they disagreed with him. He kept a record of people who displeased him so he could fire them. I don't imagine Afro Americans ever came to Disneyland in the 1950's. The fantasy of his American values were restricted to white Middle class Euro Americans. The star of his film "Song of the South" was barred from it's premier in Georgia because he was black. Disney's' insipid vapid depiction of America was so sanitized that it removed the real context of America-it's rich diversity, it's rebellious activism, it's often incendiary creativity in all the arts, the charisma of it's people-the stuff the world admires and replaced it with a propaganda of compliance Puritan morality and holographic depictions of human beings. America was and is much more then the two dimensional rendering provided by the Disney machine
