This site is dedicated to the 1977 syndicated kids show "The New Mickey Mouse Club". The Disney produced show ran Monday thru Friday for two seasons in select television markets in the United States and abroad.

The Wiki includes short synopsis of all the known shows for both seasons, special appearances, bio's, lyrics, a list of collectibles, interviews with the cast and fan memories. (Okay, truthfully it doesn't include any of that right now but it will, as we get rolling.)

To take a look around, use the Navigation Bar on the left

If you'd like to be part of the editing team for this site, you must be a member of Yahoo's NMMC Club in good standing.

An Introduction

There are television shows that are considered classics. Though the language may be a little dated or the show in black & white, it can still entertain the mainstream.

Then there's shows Like the New Mickey Mouse Club.

Why Was it Cancelled?

In January of 1977 The Disney Company released the "New Mickey Mouse Club". The show was the second of three Mouse Club's produced to date and certainly the most obscure, lasting only two seasons before becoming a Disney footnote. Why did it disappear? The show was expensive.

Shooting two and a half hours of television a week takes a big crew and Disney's fortunes had changed since the show began. A year after it's debut, NMMC was doing okay, but okay couldn't justify it's costs, so it was cancelled and that was that.

Why Hasn't it Ever Been in Rerun?

That's a question all fans of the show ask and the least complicated explanation is, it was a victim of bad timing.

In the 80's, Disney created the third Mickey Mouse Club for their new Disney Channel and they didn't need a show from the 70's confusing young, impressionable, merchandise buying minds.

In the 90's the Disney Channel couldn't decide who they should be. Their Jekyll & Hyde approach to TV was happy new family programming in the daytime and Disney programs from the Walt years after the Witching Hour. NMMC fell somewhere in between so it didn't make the cut.

Now in it's tween worshipping years, Disney Television has no room on any of it's networks for old Baby Boomer shows. Boomer's (and the shows they loved) have been thrown out with the bathwater. For NMMC fans, our beloved show has another problem. It hasn't aged particularly well.

Why Isn't It On DVD?

NMMC is a victim of it's time. Trapped in the trappings of the era, the New Mouseketeers were dressed in pastel polyester jumpsuits (Even Mickey was animated in a plum colored one-piece) and matching hats, while performing Jazz-Hands numbers to a disco-like sound track, filled with the waga-waga of Moog synthesizers. That is not "Classic Television".

Like the ever-so-70's shows of Sid & Marty Croft, NMMC is no longer classic kids entertainment, but it is "Cult Classic". In fact, Kroft's "Lidsville" and Disney's NMMC have a lot in common.

Both the Kroft's and Disney were trying so hard to be relevant they overdesigned their shows. The elements they employed to make the shows cool right now, also made them moldy oldies within minutes of being aired.

While too-slick design is what gives these shows cult potential, what makes shows like The Bugaloos or NMMC a true cult classic is what's going on under the surface.

Underneath the disco ball exterior of NMMC was a group of talented kids singing and dancing their hearts out. These kids meant well. They weren't trying to be hip, they were doing the job asked of them . The director wants Prozac happy, the soundtrack is over synthesized, the sets are modern art sparce, but you can see kids perfecting their craft and learning to sing, dance, act, hit their marks and entertain, all with varying degrees of success.

Kids who loved the show recognized that the New Mouseketeers were the real deal. They all had their talents but no one seemed to have the whole package. Can they sing, act, do comedy, interview guests and dance?*
Well, almost. Their imperfections made them almost us and almost us seemed attainable, something to shoot for, something worth watching.

Now What?

If NMMC had been made by any other company we might have a shot at lobbying for a weekend marathon on TV Land (A network who loves cult TV) or get Rhino Entertainment to make a CD/DVD Box Set, but our show was made by Disney. They don't play well with others and they don't do cult.

We are hosed.

In spite of this, a few of us have chosen to remember Mickey's Disco Mouseketeers. We have made our peace with rainbow suspenders ,ears with brims and monogrammed coveralls and have moved on to enjoy the show for the way it made us feel as kids; entranced empowered & entertained.

I dedicate this site to those disenfranchised kids who loved a club so 70's, Mickey keeps it double locked deep in the bowels of his Magic Kingdom, hoping geeks like me will just stop reminding people he once wore a purple jumpsuit.

Fat chance Mick.

I have a wiki and I know how to use it.




*If contestants on "American Idol" had to be as good in all these categories, Simon would have slit his wrists in the first season. The good ideas always come too late.