The Mickey Mouse Club was one of the Disney Company’s flagship television programs in the 1950s. But did you know that there were Mickey Mouse Clubs during the 1930s? Olympia’s Mickey Mouse Club grew to over 1,500 members!
Olympia Mickey Mouse Club Opens
Times were tough in Olympia during the Great Depression. The movies proved a popular form of escapism. But while tickets were cheap, they added up. To bring in more customers, the Disney Company sponsored children’s Mickey Mouse Clubs. The first club began in January 1930. The concept took off like wildfire.
In 1930, the Capitol Theater, which had a distribution agreement with Fox Studios, decided to start a Mickey Mouse Club for Olympia kids age 12 and under. Meetings would be held every Saturday at a special children’s matinee.
Application blanks were available at the town’s official “Mickey Mouse” stores: Buster Brown Shoe Co., Capital Savings and Loans, Daylight Bakery, Kaufman-Leonard Co., Martin Hardware Co., Mottman’s, and Van’s Grocery. After filling out the forms, children picked up their membership cards and badges from the Capitol Theater box office.
Besides reducing admission to a nickel, the club would be a good influence on children, theater manager A.C. Raliegh told the Daily Olympian. The club’s creed after all was “I will be a square shooter in my home, in school, on the playground, and where-ever I may be. I will be truthful and honorable, and strive, always, to make myself a better and more useful little citizen. I will respect my elders and help the aged, the helpless and children smaller than myself. In short, I will be a good American!” The pledge was recited at every meeting.
Small wonder that the Olympia PTA endorsed the club. The club also provided cheap babysitting. It was common for mothers to drop their kids off for the two-hour “Mickey Mouse Matinee” and run errands.
Movies and the Mickey Mouse Club
The Olympia Mickey Mouse Club held its first meeting on May 10, 1930. Officers were elected later that month. Positions included song leader, master of ceremonies, courier, color bearer, sergeant-at-arms, cheer leader, chief Mickey Mouse and chief Minnie Mouse. Theater Manager Raliegh was Big Chief Mickey Mouse. There were too many nominees (and cheers) so the first group of child officers was appointed by the theater, not elected.
Membership grew quickly. By October the club was boasting that it had the highest membership in proportion to population in the United States. 63 were added in the first week of June alone. By October there were 1,500 members!
Mickey Mouse Club meetings started at 1 p.m. every Saturday. After club exercises and contests, the audience enjoyed a short, newsreel and feature film. The shorts weren’t always Mickey Mouse but included Rin Tin Tin serials and Krazy Kat cartoons. Feature films were typically westerns, action-adventures, detective stories or comedies. Movies were family friendly, which was helpful in the pre-code (and pre-rating) era.
Olympia Club for Children Had Something for Everyone
But what made “Mickey Mouse Matinees” special was the activities, not the movies. There were sing-alongs and contests. Local merchants provided prizes. Buster Brown Shoe Co. sponsored a dance competition. There was even a spelling bee one meeting!
In October 1930, members could start collecting “votes” from participating local stores in hopes of winning a “talking and singing” Hollywood doll bicycle, and other prizes. They also received 20 votes per club meeting. The prizes were handed out at the Liberty Theater in December.
27 children entered a “freckle contest” in August 1931, to be declared the most freckled kid in town. Four boys and four girls enjoyed prizes that ranged from a month of free Capital City Creamery ice cream cones to a 30-day pass to the Capitol Theater.
Besides contests, members enjoyed free giveaways. One week it was caramel corn and another it was life savers. The Olympia Creamery Co. gave away ice cream cones while the Daylight Bakery brought Mickey Mouse cookies one week and mini-Mickey Mouse birthday cakes another.
The theater also invited special guests to perform on stage for the club. In May 1930, Graybill & Son, a marimba-xylophone duo performed. The concert was organized by Mottman’s. Van’s Grocery sponsored “Grandpa Bulger” from Sperry Flour Radio “Children’s Hour” in August.
Other guests had four legs. In late May 1930, when officers were appointed, Goehrig “Gerry” Von Herr performed. A military-police dog, he performed tricks like climbing ladders and scaling walls. A gentle dog, he also let a six-week-old White Leghorn Chicken peck food off his head. The performance was sponsored by Van’s Grocery.
Santa Claus, with his bag of gifts, visited in December 1931.
Mickey Mouse Club Moves to Liberty Theater
Mickey Mouse and friends returned from their “vacation” from Olympia screens in July 1932. But now the Mickey Mouse Club met at the Liberty Theater, which also distributed Fox Studio films. Meetings were moved to 10 a.m. on Saturdays. The time was later changed to noon.
Club activities stayed the same, but now meetings were broadcast live over KGY Radio. To make things safer, a schoolboy patrol started helping children cross roads near the theater. Mickey Mouse even made a “live” appearance in February 1934.
References to the Mickey Mouse Club disappeared from local newspapers in 1934. The Disney Company phased out its support of clubs, stopping licensing new clubs in 1935. But during its brief few years of existence, Olympia’s Mickey Mouse Club had made its mark. During the dark days of the Great Depression, the club offered children a few hours of fun and friendship every week. And all it cost was a nickel.
