MMC lives on

Tonight was unexpected. After running some early evening errands for work and making dinner I found myself with nothing to do. LIFE Group was last night, so I didn't have a lesson to worry about until next week. The bills are paid...even my checkbook is balanced. My room could be cleaner, but that's normal.

Somehow I decided to visit YouTube and do a search on the Mickey Mouse Club (MMC). When I was in elementary and middle school this show was my absolute favorite. Nothing else even came close. To this day, I don't think I've ever been such a fan of any other show, musician or movie. Here are just a few examples of the obsession I had with this show:

1.) We had the Disney Channel just so I could watch the show.

2.) I used to record just about every episode. (Uh, no, I don't have those tapes anymore and I never watch them.)

3.) I made mixed tapes of the songs they sang on the show. I would use my dad's stereo and put the mic up to the TV speakers. In some of the recordings you can hear my bird chirping and me saying, "Shhhh" to my dad.

4.) In 6th grade my parents announced that we would be going to the Disney/MGM studios, where they filmed the show, for Mother's Day. Two things made me very excited: there was a possibility that we'd get to see a taping of the show and I knew that there would be plenty of MMC merchandise for me to purchase. Unfortunately, the show was on hiatus when we were there so I only got to see the set and have my picture taken with the lifesize cut-outs they had of some of the cast members. I had also saved up all of my money from my birthday, Christmas and anywhere else I could get it in order to maximize my shopping experience. I don't remember exactly how much I had saved, but I know it was over $100. I walked out of that theme park broke, but with two bags full of MMC stuff. Whatever they had, I bought...even a MMC fanny pack! My mom became concerned that my dad would get upset with me for spending all of my money so she covered for me and carried one of the bags so it looked like she'd done some shopping, too. I still don't think my dad knows about that.

Anyway, back to my search at YouTube. I searched "Mickey Mouse Club" and to my great delight, several videos came up. The first one I watched was the opening credits from either the second or third season of the show. I got a smile out of that.

I continued on and decided I should try searching the names of some of the cast members that I liked a lot. Britney Spears and some of the guys from nsync were on the show, but they weren't my favorites. My favorites have gone on to do some notable things, but aren't as big as the others. I thought Ryan was cool and he's done some big movies like The Notebook and he's got a film coming out this fall called Half Nelson that is getting a lot of buzz. As for the girls, in the first seasons of the show, I thought Tiffini was the greatest. But then they introduced Keri Russell and I had a new girl. She has since been on a show called Felicity and is going to be in the new Mission:Impossible movie. I also read she's going to be doing some make-up ads.

So I did a search on "Keri Russell," and found some of the most hysterical videos. The one for "Live and Learn" really had me rolling. I haven't laughed that hard in a while. These videos are so cheesy that I couldn't help but enjoy watching them. I used to think the kids on that show were so cool. And I wanted to be like them so much.

It was so great to watch these videos and get all nostalgic about the show, good memories from those times and simply laugh at myself. And while I never did get on MMC, my mom and dad did eventually buy me the jacket that they had on the show. And if you think I ever wore that jacket to school and told random people that I had been on the show, then you might be onto something.