Mickey's 50

The show explores and explains Mickey's enormous and almost immediate popularity. His phenomenal success was due to Walt's insistence on releasing his first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, with sound, which was brand new in 1927. Prior, Mickey was featured in a Plane Crazy, which parodied the Lindburgh solo trans-Atlantic flight but was silent. Walt held Plane Crazy back from release and issued Steamboat Willie with sound instead resulting in immediate recognition for the mouse. The pattern of satirizing events of the day, especially hit movies, marked Mickey's rise to popularity.

The 90-minute special highlights the beloved cartoon character as a great actor, athlete, musician and Lothario. The show also features Mickey as a great merchandiser. His countenance appeared on myriad products from breakfast cereal to soap generating millions in licensing revenue for Walt Disney Productions, even at the great depression raged.

Mickey's 50 is a love letter to the little mouse with more than eighty stars and celebrities paying their respects.

Since this year marked Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday, I originally looked on YouTube hoping to find this particular ep of "The Wonderful World of Disney" celebrating Mickey's 50th that I first watched at age 10. All I found on YT were three segments of stop-motion animation of MM collectibles in live action that was directed by and starred one Mike Jittlov. The segments were titled "The Collector", "The Rat Race", and "Mouse Mania". All three were pretty entertaining. I finally managed to once again see the whole thing on the DailyMotion site. We're treated to various clips of MM's cartoons and stories of Walt Disney's career that resulted from the success of them. Plenty of celebrities of the time, some of whom are still around and active today, offered their congrats to Mickey. Of particular notice was that Elton John didn't wear his trademark glasses when appearing, Bruce Jenner hadn't turned into Caitlin yet, and O.J. Simpson was just a former football player and wasn't accused of a brutal crime at the time! This may have been the first time that I realized that the Annette Funicello that appeared in Skippy commercials at the time was the same one who was in the "Mickey Mouse Club" as a teen (earlier that morning, I also discovered that she once dated teen singer Paul Anka who was made to break up with her by Uncle Walt himself, which then inspired Paul's song "Puppy Love, when Casey Kasem-on his "American Top 40" program-told that story before Anka's song "This is Love" debuted that day on his radio show). Mickey's 50 was entertaining to watch then, and it still is now, 40 years later! Happy 90th birthday, Mickey!

I don't remember much about the full show, but there is a stop-motion sequence by Mike Jitlov called Mouse Mania which I believe was featured at the end of this show. It's about two minutes long and set to a variation on Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley's Baroque Hoedown. Jitlov appears in the sequence as a patient in a psychiatrist's office. He seems to be explaining his "Mickey Mania" as Mickey toys and souvenirs start popping up around the room until it's filled with dancing and parading toys led by an animated clay Mickey Mouse. The piece utilizes old Mickey merchandise from the Disney Archives as well as contemporary souvenirs from Disney parks at the time. If you watch closely at the end, you'll see the credits for the sequence. On a drum is painted "Christopher Barczak - Cameraman" and later "A.D. - Deven Chierighin" arranged with the toys.

This portion of the show is currently available on the Disney DVD, "Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse In Living Color, Volume 2".

Although it wasn't on the DVD release, I seem to remember this ending with Jitlov driving away in his Volkswagen Beetle which has its own set of giant mouse ears. But that may be from another show.