One of the things that drives Blacklight buggy, the playing the same song over again and again and again and again and again and again, isn’t a new thing. Back in the dark ages (okay the 1970s), a teeny-tiny Gwendy was wandering around her playroom, wearing felt mouse ears with her name embroidered on them and singing along to a battered record (remember those? big ole plastic thing that scratched easily?) with various Mickey Mouse Club songs (okay I know have the urge to jump up and down on the couch singing “today is tuesday you know what that means” but I have the feeling Blacklight will come out of his lair and be all “what the frosted poptart” ,”it’s Thursday/Friday/Saturday” and “have you been eating soap again?”). The 1970s version of the New Mickey Mouse Club hadn’t hit the air yet and we didn’t have things like DVDs but I was the Mickey Mouse Club.
So speed ahead thirty plus years (oh God I am the OLD!) and is it any wonder I stumble across Jennifer Armstrong’s Why? Because We Still Like You: An Oral History of The Mickey Mouse Club and shove it in my book bag humming “M-I-C-K-E-Y….M-O-U-S-EEEEEEE” as Blacklight asks how much longer we’ll be at the library? The Mickey Mouse Club is awesome sauce.
Now even though I’m a grown up (okay, Blacklight really has to stop laughing at me!) I had no idea about the true story of The Mickey Mouse Club. Don’t get me wrong. Jennifer Armstrong’s book is NOT an expose of horrible, perverted things involving the Mousetekers, Uncle Walt and his brother Roy. If any of that happened, the Mousetekers aren’t telling. What Why? Because We Still Like You focuses on the original series and is the chance to learn first hand what is was like to audition to be a Mouseteker. And what happened when against the odds you got the job but only lasted a season. Or were on the B-team. Did you even know there was a B-team of Mousetekers? Or how talented some of the Mousetekers truly were?And what happens after The Mickey Mouse Club. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera weren’t the first or only scandalous gals to rock mouse ears!
If someone says “M-I-C” and you respond “K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E”, then Why? Because We Still Like You needs to be on your must read list. Because the Mousetekers are more than just the lovely Annette. Because you really do like them…