The Mickey Rooney Show

The 39 black and white half-hour episodes of "The Mickey Rooney Show" were originally broadcast from 1954-55 on NBC. The series was subtitled "Hey Mulligan", a reference to Rooney's character Mickey Mulligan.

This was Rooney's first and probably least known TV series and amazingly the perpetual child star (who was in his mid-30's) is still playing a teenager. Young Mulligan is a page working for a fictional television network and has acting aspirations; generally a reprise of his eager and fast-talking Andy Hardy character.

In 1954-55 much of America had yet to purchase their first television set and even relatively experienced viewers knew little about the inner working of the networks. So the segments of Mulligan at his day job would have had a certain novelty. Segments in which Mulligan attended acting classes in the evening (with Alan Mowbray as his teacher) and segments at home with his parents (played by Claire Carleton and Regis Toomey) supplemented the network page scenes.

The writing (Blake Edwards was chief writer) is not bad by early television standards but the show itself is more interesting as a curiosity than for the entertainment value of its content. Amazingly, it has been released on DVD.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.