ShareThisHere are a few "Mouseke-tidbits" that Bobby Burgess, Cubby O'Brien and Sharon Baird shared during their visit to the Walt Disney Family Museum last weekend:
-- Asked to sing a song during her audition for the show, Baird got the Mouseketeer part by singing "I Didn't Know the Gun Was Loaded."
-- Over the years, they were always surprised to find out who their fans were. One time years ago, they were making an appearance and given a dressing room that had been used the day before by Three Dog Night, who'd left a trail of cheese bits, a mousetrap and a note that read, "We were your fans first."
-- Burgess once got out of a speeding ticket in Los Angeles when the cop recognized him and said he'd let him off if he told him about Annette Funicello.
-- Burgess' closest neighbor in Los Angeles is another former Mouseketeer, albeit of a later incarnation of the show: Justin Timberlake.
-- O'Brien's dad, the drummer Haskell "Hack" O'Brien, is 96 and lives in San Diego. He's the last surviving Mouseketeer parent.
-- Mouseketeer parents were not allowed on the set after the first day or two of shows. Many of the mothers spent their afternoons waiting in a lobby, knitting. O'Brien's mother knitted red-white-and-blue-striped sweaters for O'Brien, Burgess and Tommy Cole.
-- The Mouseketeers ended up doing a lot of traveling as "ambassadors for Disney," as O'Brien put it.
-- Burgess' wife, Kristin, is the daughter of "Lawrence Welk Show" accordionist Myron Floren.
-- Burgess has copies of all the Disney movies and, as a kid, named his dog Bambi.
-- The Mouseketeers had to attend school three hours a day. Among other subjects, they learned Spanish and, to this day, the three call each other by their Spanish names: Carlito (O'Brien), Roberto and Suzita (Baird).
-- Their favorite teacher was Jean Seaman, who kept their report cards in a box in her garage after the show ended. Burgess always earned A's and B's, while O'Brien's grades were more mixed, including a C-plus in spelling. "I'd still get a C-plus today," he said.
-- Host Jimmie Dodd wrote most of the music on the show, including the opening march and the slower-tempo version that closed the show: "Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company. M-I-C -- See ya real soon -- K-E-Y -- Why? Because we like you -- M-O-U-S-E."
For information about the Walt Disney Family Museum, call 415-345-6800 or visit www.disney.go.com/disneyatoz/familymuseum.
(E-mail David Wiegand at dwiegand(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit the San Francisco ChronicleSidebar to MOUSEKETEERS
