Mouse of the House

My down-with-Caillou campaign has gotten an unexpected shot in the arm from Mickey Mouse. Now, instead of repeatedly asking to watch Caillou, Tiernan repeatedly asks to watch Mickey Mouse.
The folks at Disney can pat themselves on the back. They have another devoted follower of the Disney Doctrine, my son is a full-fledged Mouse-Ear believer in the Disney way.
They can pat themselves on the back, for coming up with an ingenious way to indoctrinate a new generation of Mousekateers, namely the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Which introduces Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Daisy and Pluto to the under-five set by essentially stealing all the best aspects of tried-and-true shows such as Dora the Explorer.
The all-animated show is on Saturday and Sunday mornings and it is worth checking out. I was never much of Mickey devotee myself, but the show is actually pretty good. Each show puts Mickey and the gang on some sort of quest, there is the “will you help us?” plea to the viewer, there is a Disneyed version of Dora’s Backpack, which contains items that will help Mickey along the way, there is a celebratory song. It is very formulated. A formula that apparently works.
Oh an important side-point here; the theme song and the celebratory song are both performed by the one-time darlings of the high school//college nerd-set, the band They Might Be Giants. TMBG, as they are known to fans/geeks like myself, are getting a lot of work from the folks at Disney. They also do the theme to Higgleytown Heros, also on the Disney Channel. I am a fan of the band, my brilliant wife is a fan. I have many of their CDs, including the two that were released to be children’s music, “No” and “The ABCs.” In college I used to ....ehm... watch other people get high while listening to TMBG. I’ve seen the band live on numerous occasions. I am a fan. I always said the band had a certain cartoonish quality to their music. I was right. By the way. TMBG are also doing the music for the new Dunkin Donuts “American Runs on Dunkin” commercials.
Ok, back to Mickey Mouse and the clubhouse. I can tolerate this show because, it is not Caillou, and it still has some of the classic Mickey Mouse Club schtick, like roll call and “See ya real soon.” And I feel as though, I have some sort of cosmic connection to the Mouse. I grew up watching Annette in reruns of the original Mickey Mouse Club. I was too old for the next incarnation of the club which featured Brittney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera and we never had the Disney Channel until I got married - never watched it until I had kids.
Tiernan is now completely under the spell of the mouse. My wife took him for walk last night, and they came across a plastic Mickey Mouse bank on a trash heap. He flips out and has to have it. So, they bring it home, wash it up and he sleeps with it. He would not let it out of his hands. Not his sight, his hands.
He woke up with it this morning and would not put it down to put a shirt on. I thought I’d be the benevolent dictator/dad that I am I, and take a field trip to the Disney Store and get the boy a plush Mickey to sleep with.
Now, we have a 15 inch plush Mickey and a 15 inch plush Goofy, as well as a 7 inch Mickey and of course the bank which is still in the bed. The first person that tells Tiernan that Mickey lives in Disney World and he can visit Mickey will get blackballed from the O’Rourke Clubhouse.
“See ya real soon.”