The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show

"Today is Tuesday, you know what that means! We're going to have a special guest!"

After the usual animated title song, Mickey's daily solo introduction saw him in white tie and tails, playing a grand piano. Reminding the audience that "a very special guest star" was arriving, he would ask "Everyone neat and pretty?", to which the Mouseketeer voice-over chorus would reply "Neat and pretty!".

For the Newsreel Segment, Tuesdays in the first two seasons featured Harry Corbett and Sooty the Puppet, an act filmed in Britain and shown in many Commonwealth countries. The segment was bracketed by sponsor messages and bisected by a commercial break. Sooty's mild antics were often more entertaining than the guest stars following.

"So get out the broom, and sweep the place clean!"

The Mouseketeer Segment started off with the day's special song, Today is Tuesday, followed by roll call, and the lead-in to the guest star. This was filmed once per season, using the Red Team, then recycled for every Tuesday show. For the first season, the Mouseketeers wore their usual uniform with the addition of "travel" jackets for a more formal appearance. The set was very basic, a few pillar cutouts and a mock portal with a backless throne within it.

For the second season, special costumes were designed, blazers and bow ties for the boys, with pinafores, white gloves, and small berets for the girls (no mouse ears). The set was again simple, but functional, standard portable stage doors masking as dressing room entries. The musical arrangement was altered to allow a special tap routine performed by Sharon Baird, Lonnie Burr, and Bobby Burgess. When the shows were later repackaged for syndication, this dance highlight was generally cut. Today it can only be seen on the middle episode of Video Volume 7 for the Mickey Mouse Club. Because of the set arrangement, this was the only time that Roy Williams and Jimmie Dodd sounded off in the middle of roll call.


For the third season, the daily songs, dances, and roll call, were all replaced by the generic We're the Mouseketeers number. Following this, shows with guest stars would cut quickly to a Mouseketeer doing a very brief spoken introduction.

Following the canned openings came the actual guest star performance. In the first season, the White and/or Blue teams would form the audience, and occasionally interact with the guest star. During the second season, the Blue team would handle the hosting chores, with Red team members sometimes used to make it look like someone was watching. The "audience" reaction shots were filmed separately from the guest performances, giving them a generic flavor and sometimes leading to continuity goofs. During the third season Tuesdays were turned over to cartoons, and the few guests stars appearing did so on Mondays or Wednesdays.

The Serial and Mousekartoon segments would follow the guest star performance. The serial episodes and cartoons were different every day, with no distinctions for day of the week.

After the cartoon there would be the usual features: Doddism and/or promotional message, then an Alma Mater variant. At the start of the first season Jimmie's closing messages usually announced the next day's show, but this was dropped midway through the year. Mickey then reappeared for the signoff, sans the grand piano.