The "Mouseketeers" were an assortment of variously gifted, mostly non-professional California kids selected by Walt Disney as the core around which the Mickey Mouse Club, Disney's second network television venture (after Disneyland), was produced. The pervasively popular show quickly became one of the major crazes of the mid-1950s, and the "Merry Mouseketeers," sporting black beanies topped with round mouse ears, became enduring icons of a newly affluent, post-war America. The original show, begun in 1955, was syndicated from 1962 to 1965, again in 1972, and in an abridged format on the Disney Channel in 1983. Two up-dated (and very politically correct) versions appeared in 1977 and 1989, but it was the Cold War Mickey Mouse Club and its Mouseketeers that achieved true cultural immortality during its relatively brief but massively assimilated run in the 1950s. The show's popularity was unprecedented in its time, and its nostalgic appeal and cultural impact continued to...