The rise to fame of Mickey Mouse is a case of rags-to-riches, rodent-style. "Walt Disney had been working to exhaustion on my first film, 'Plane Crazy,'" reminisces Mickey. "In those days I was poor as a church mouse. Didn't even own a pair of shoes. When the picture was finally previewed, I looked for the nearest hole." The pint-sized performer figured it would be a flop — but the public thought otherwise. There followed the celebrated "Steamboat Willie," and, later, "The Lonesome Ghost," in which Mickey first teamed with Donald Duck and Goofy. A high point came when Mickey joined Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra to do "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in "Fantasia." By October, 1955, Mickey had been a star for twenty-seven years, had appeared in no less than 125 films, and had covered with glory his creator, Walt Disney, who publicly saluted him as "the little fellow who made everything else possible." With a background like this, his entry into TV was a natural. And the staggering success of Mickey Mouse Club is now a video legend... […]
