The New Mickey Mouse Club officially premiered starting on this day in 1977. Since Bobby, Annette, Karen, and Cubby were now grown up, Disney screened applications from 6,000 children and auditioned 550 of them before picking the dozen new Mouseketeers. According to former Disney Entertainment show writer/director/choreographer Larry Billman, the new Club first got its ears wet at Disneyland. “It was [Entertainment Director] Bob Jani who said we have the All-American College singers and band, but we don’t have performing kids, which was his inspiration as a young person — to be a Mouseketeer. So we auditioned only in California and got a live cast who performed at the park at the Tomorrowland stage. We tried to get ethnicity; we went out of our way. We had a Japanese girl, we had a Spanish-flamenco boy, and we had Shawnte Northcutte who went on to be in the next television version of the Mouseketeers.” At the time Shawnte said, “The first time I was picked to be a Mouseketeer, it was great, but to be chosen twice, I couldn’t believe it!”
