Mouseketeers: The First "Mousketeer"

Chubby Parker – King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O (buy)

You all know about how the Mikey Mouse Club and the "Original" Mouseketeers got their start in the 1950s as part of Disney televised variety show, but do you also know about the legend of "the first Mouseketeer"?

Way back in 1928, only five years after the Walt Disney Company was established by brothers Roy and Walt Disney, things were looking pretty bleak for the fledgling company. The world just wasn't ready for a talking mouse. So that's when the Disney brothers got the idea to join forces with a rising singing star called Chubby Parker (and his Old Time Banjo).

Paker and the Disney Brothers together wrote a full length animated feature to be called King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O as a vehicle for Parker's singing, Minnie Mouse, and four brand new cartoon creatures: A courtin' frog, an owl, a bat, and a bumble bee.

Just as the show was about ready for the final touches the stock market crashed, the project was scrapped, and the "first Mousketeer" disappeared into obscurity, leaving behind only this theme song. It's actually pretty good.