Mickey Mouse March

"(The) Mickey Mouse (Club) March", is the opening theme for the The Mickey Mouse Club television show, which aired in the United States from October 1955 to 1959, on the ABC television network. (The first two lines are: Who’s the leader of the Club that’s made for you and me? M-I-C-- K-E-Y-- M-O-U-S-E!) The song is reprised with the slower "it's time to say goodbye" verse, at the end of each episode. The song remains popular as a children's music standard and is Mickey Mouse's official theme. In the show's opening, the song is partially performed by the characters Dumbo and Jiminy Cricket.

The song was written by the Mickey Mouse Club host Jimmie Dodd and was published by Hal Leonard Corporation, July 1, 1955.^[1] Dodd, who was a guitarist and musician hired by Walt Disney as a songwriter, wrote other songs used over the course of the series, as well, such as the “theme day” songs sung on the show.

Cover versions

Julie London covered the song on her 1967 album, Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast, Mannheim Steamroller covered the song as the final track on the album, Mannheim Steamroller Meets the Mouse (1999).^[2] Andrew W.K. also covered the song, on the Japanese-only release of the album Mosh Pit On Disney (2004).

Parodies

The song has been parodied multiple times, and one such notable version, "Monday Sucks," has accumulated popularity after a 2003 Adobe Flash animation became popular on the social networking site Newgrounds. The song describes the internet trope of the hatred of Mondays. The song has even ventured so far as to be aired on WKTG-FM in Madisonville, Kentucky on Monday mornings.

In popular culture

• In M*A*S*H season 5 (1976-77), Hawkeye Pierce sings the M-O-U-S-E line of the song after Radar O'Reilly spells out a name. The episode was first aired in December 1976, but depicts events in 1952, three years before the song was published.

• In Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam War film Full Metal Jacket (1987), American troops sing the song to ironic effect at the film's end, as they march out of the city at the Battle of Huế.^[3]

References