The Big Tent

I've been watching The Mickey Mouse Club for the last couple of days, having stumbled on two six-hour tapes of half-hour editions of the show from the Disney Channel, recorded in 1998. This is a windfall, because the DVD I bought only has about a week of shows from the first week of the first season, cut to oddly different lengths. Disney+ also has the exact same sad, disappointing little package. This is much better. I'm hearing a pair of sisters from Los Angeles singing an upbeat harmony number right now. That's not in the set.

I have no idea when these were originally broadcast, but I think these are the same 1960s cuts we used to watch in the later rerun days of the show. There's some jumping around, but we get a lot of Spin & Marty continuity. The Spin & Marty show dominates, in fact, taking up half or more of each episode. Since each starts with the same theme song followed with a measured daily schtick, there's only time for one act before the serial starts. At the end, the credits seem to reflect each show's contents, which is why I'm guessing they're the 60s rerun. They look like an optical credit roll.

What interested me most after a while was the opening segment that goes by each and every time a show starts. Mickey is tossed on a hoop like firemen catch falling kids with, and celebrated by a cast that consists of Ranger Woodlore, Four Bears (one of whom would be Hubert), Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Goofy, The Three Pigs, Black Pete (aka Peg Leg Pete), and The Big Bad Wolf.

I noticed Pete first, and it's nice to see the company villain allowed to join in the fun, and there's the Wolf as well, cheerfully working that hoop with Mickey in it. But wait. I'd seen the longer version of the opening, and something felt off. I dug it out. It's three minutes long and starts with built-in callouts to the sponsor. Suitable for an hour-long show, maybe! The fanfare is familiar, but then we have some different bits. Pete smiles in a star-shaped cameo early on! The Wolf, on the other hand, is seen tied up, for frogmarching and ritual humiliation in the triumphal Mickey Mouse Club parade! 

The minute-long version is in there too, though, and even in this earliest opener, we have the hoop finale with Pete and Big Bad as cheerful voluntary participants. They have it both ways! I hope B.B. is getting extra pay for being tied up and kicked. That's simple stunt work, right? All cartoon characters can do it, and it pays the bills, and then everybody goes to the cookout. Well, not Ferdinand--ha ha!

.