The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show

MMC Talent Winners: Rudy Hazucha Trio

Cleveland Orchestra Comes to Burbank During 1956 regional auditions for talented kids were conducted by the Disney Studio. One such audition in Cleveland produced four talent winners: musicians Rudy Hazucha, Mike Bondra, Dan Rogal, and ballerina Connie Joy Teaman. The three musicians played as a trio, led by fourteen year old Rudy, a former paperboy for the extinct Cleveland Press.

How the trio came about is now forgotten. The late Rudy Hazucha (1942-2006) would become an accomplished classical musician as an adult, a proponent of the Suzuki method for teaching the violin. It may be he encouraged the younger boys to join together as an act for the Mickey Mouse Club auditions. What is known is that after winning the audition, Rudy's mother risked her husband's ire by taking the three boys out to an expensive restaurant, to ensure their tables manners were up to snuff and to give them an idea of what to expect in Burbank. The Trio flew out to California with Connie Teaman, whose mother acted as chaperone for all the kids.

Information courtesy of Rudy's siblings John Hazucha and Rose Marie Walker, and from his son Jason