M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse may be the greatest star the Disney company has ever produced. But if that's true, then some of those produced by the Mickey Mouse Club are a very close second.
The aforementioned television show has had many variations over the years—going off and on the air from the 1950s and into the 1990s. Some versions have been more successful than others and the same is true for the child actors on the show—better known as Mouseketeers. Here are some of the most famous.
Britney Spears
Before ...Baby One More Time and before she was oopsing and doing it again, Britney Spears was a Mouseketeer on The All New Mickey Mouse Club, from 1993 to 1994.
Of course, we can't talk about Spears without talking about another former Mouseketeer...
Justin Timberlake
That's right, Spears met her future boyfriend on the show (although, they didn't start dating until a few years later). Timberlake was also there from 1993-94 and would take what he learned as a Mouseketeer (at least the singing and dancing parts) and apply it to becoming one of the biggest pop stars of the 21st Century.
JT wasn't the only member of NSYNC to have worn the mouse ears, either.
JC Chasez
JC began his run on The All New Mickey Mouse Club in 1991, a couple years prior to JT joining the cast. But he did stay until '94—thus overlapping with Timberlake and saying bye, bye, bye to the show at the same time.
BSR Agency/Gentle Look/Getty Images
Annette Funicello
Annette Funicello was actually discovered by Walt Disney. Yes, it was the big man himself who saw her at a ballet recital and decided she should be on the original Mickey Mouse Club back in the 1950s. It turns out Disney knew talent when he saw it, because Funicello became the biggest star of that original crew and went on to a career in the movies (particularly Disney films and a bunch of super fun beach movies opposite Frankie Avalon).
Walt Disney Productions - TV Radio Mirror, Wikimedia Commons
Christina Aguilera
Aguilera was another one of the 1993-94 crew—and while she and Britney Spears would later be cast as music rivals in the press, the two future pop princesses actually shared a dressing room during their time on the show.
Ryan Gosling
Many people were surprised to see Ryan Gosling singing and dancing in his Academy Award nominated performance in La La Land. But it wasn't a first for the Canadian-born star, who'd gotten his first taste of fame back in 1993 and '94 on The All New Mickey Mouse Club.
Although, even he has admitted the dancing part wasn't his forte: "I remember one time they put four of us in a dance routine, but I was so off. I was on the end, so they just pushed the shot in closer on the other three guys to frame me out."
Melenny, Frankenstein and Me (1996)
Lisa Whelchel
Most people know Whelchel as either Blair from The Facts of Life or as the runner-up on Survivor: Philippines. However, before all that she was a Mouseketeer on the first season of The New Mickey Mouse Club, which only aired for two seasons from 1977-79.
Jason Kirk/Newsmakers/Getty Images
Rhona Bennett
Singer and actress Rhona Bennett was a Mouseketeer from 1991 to 1994 and is very glad that the show is a part of her story.
A story that also includes The Jamie Foxx Show and eventually becoming a full-time member of the iconic R&B group En Vogue.
Scott Dudelson, Wikimedia Commons
Nikki DeLoach
Since 2015, Nikki DeLoach has appeared in over 15 Hallmark made-for-TV movies. But years before she found fame on the Hallmark Channel, DeLoach made her television debut as a Mouseketeer on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club in 1993 and 1994.
Ron Wolfson/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Keri Russell
Russell spent two years on The All New Mickey Mouse Club, from 1991 to 1993, and while most of the kids hired for the show could sing and dance, Russell only had one of those two skills in her repertoire. As a casting director for the show later said, "The camera loved her, so I said nobody will care that she doesn’t sing, because every girl is going to want to be her".
