Disney Kids, Honorary Mice, and Shamsters
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Mistakeneers
Those entitled to be called a Mouseketeer are on the sidebar. Prior to widespread use of the internet, some folks were mistakenly credited with, or deliberately claimed, that title. This page categorizes the three most common ways in which these misidentifications (intentional or otherwise) have occurred.
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"Who would claim to be that, who was not?"
--- Sean Connery in The Untouchables (1987)
A Limited Phenomena
There have been three incarnations of The Mickey Mouse Club: the original (1955-59), The New Mickey Mouse Club (1977-79), and the MMC (1989-96). Only the first two called their regular cast members Mouseketeers: kids who wore caps with mouse ears, sang and danced, and if only for a brief while, found fame among their peers. And the phenomena of mis-identified Mouseketeers only occurs with the original show. The second show's small cast, short time-run, and lack of personnel changes, appears to have forestalled errors and false claimants.
Honest Confusion: Serial Actors and Adult Performers
The folks most commonly misidentified as Mouseketeers are the juvenile actors who took part in the dramatic and educational serials shown on The Mickey Mouse Club, and who are listed in the Serials section of this website. They are quick to correct interviewers who tag them as Mouseketeers, but its been a losing battle for fifty years. Writers with deadlines love anything that avoids wordy explanations, and alternate labels, like "serial actor" (which this website favors) or "Disney Kid", for non-Mouseketeers are seldom used and less commonly understood by the general public.
A smaller group of people that sometimes turn up on lists of Mouseketeers are certain adult performers associated with the 1963-65 syndication of the original show. This mainly includes Julius Sumner Miller (Professor Wonderful), and to a far lesser extent, Annette-lookalike Ginny Tyler, comics Skiles and Henderson (Hub and Bub), and magician Bob Towner (Marvelous Marvin).
Finally, a number of television stations packaged the show, both during the original run and in syndication, with locally-made children's programming, usually with an adult host. These local actors were sometimes confused in the minds of young viewers with the Mouseketeers, particularly when Jimmie Dodd would pop up in the local studio on publicity tours.
Leveraging a Nuance: Honorary Mouseketeers
Honorary Mouseketeers, the largest group of whom consist of the Talent Winners, present a slightly different problem. Part of that problem was again journalistic sloppiness: writers tended to label any kid who had been on the show, whether serial actor, newsreel subject, guest star, talent winner, or simply a casual visitor to the set one day, as a "Mouseketeer". The distinction between 'Honorary Mouseketeer' and the real thing was lost to those with little interest in the show. Yet such is the cachet attached to being a real Mouseketeer, that many friends and relatives of Honorary mice tended to claim the full status for the person they knew.
A few of these Honorary Mouseketeers were probably not loath to allow others to do a bit of bragging on their behalf, particularly if they were no longer actively performing. Most talent winners, though, likely discouraged any attempt by others to boost their status. However, one young lady was a bit tardy about doing so, and wound up in a People magazine pictorial alongside of the real Mouseketeers. A tad embarrassing no doubt, especially since her husband worked in television and she may have run into those same Mouseketeers from time to time. Ouch!
Outright Imposters: Mouseketeers That Never Were
The desire to impress others, and the inclination to identify with those we like and admire, are part of the human condition. Once in a while, these tendencies overpower the better judgement of certain individuals. When this happens, the folks affected tend to follow several patterns of behavior: those who impersonate the identity of a real Mouseketeer; those who use their own or a fictitious name when claiming Mouseketeer status; and those who swear that someone else they knew personally was a Mouseketeer. All three types seem relatively innocuous. Certainly there haven't been any news reports of folks profiting by their impersonation, in the way, for instance, that the notorious Lee Aaker imposter (exposed by Paul Petersen) attempted.
The earliest Mouseketeer imposters I've heard about started showing up in the mid-1960's, though its certain there were some even during the show's original run. Summer camps seem to have provided especially fertile ground. It's hard to tell from these stories who was fooling whom. One guy posted on his website several years ago that Doreen was a counselor at his summer camp in the Catskill Mountains, in 1965. Group photos he also posted, show sure enough, there was a counselor named Doreen, but she was definitely not the Mouseketeer. Another guy recalls being at a camp in Missouri in 1980, when a counselor confessed to being Cubby O'Brien.
Some shamsters were quite inventive. One lady from South Carolina told her friends that she went by the name "Becky" on the show, because her real eight-letter first name wouldn't fit on the sweater. She was tripped up accidentally by someone who believed her, and complained on a Disney forum about her being left off the official list of Mouseketeers. Yet another fellow who used to frequent a bar in Southern California, convinced the regulars he was a Mouseketeer, and even autographed a group photo as "Mouseketeer Kenny". A visitor to the bar saw the photo and informed a free-lance writer, who did an online exposé on the unknown imposter.
Most Mouseketeer imposters went no further than telling a few people about their past "glory", and quite likely, most very quickly wished they had never done so. Its the sort of thing that is never forgotten, and often crops up unexpectedly in conversation years afterwards. But one shamster achieved a much wider audience for his deception.
Bob Klosterman (1946-2003) was, on the face of it, the last guy you'd think would need to pump up his confidence by flogging around a tale of being a Mouseketeer. Klosterman was a high-powered Hollywood executive who headed up the MTM television production company from 1988 to 1993. He later relocated to Eagle River, Idaho, where he engaged in developing various entertainment projects. Bob evidently told quite a few folks that he had been an original Mouseketeer. His story was that he contracted a slight form of polio at age five, took up dancing lessons to overcome it, and was subsequently recruited by the Disney Studio for The Mickey Mouse Club.
Now there may be a grain of truth in his story. Quite a few groups performed on Talent Roundup Day, and not all the participant's names are known. So it may be a case of an Honorary Mouseketeer being promoted by friends and family. For Bob died unexpectedly of a heart attack in early July 2003, and someone convinced the Los Angeles Times to print an obituary notice that cited him as "one of Disney's original Mouseketeers". What's particularly sad about this is when real Mouseketeer Charley Laney died in 1997, the LA Times was one of the newspapers that declined to take notice of it.
Bob Klosterman was listed as a cast member on IMDB for at least five years, and is still in their database, though he's recently been removed from the show's entry. However, he remains listed as such at TV.com, and on various Mouseketeer lists scattered about the web.
