M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

This past week I stumbled across a folder related to Mickey Mouse while working on a research request for someone.  There was a portion of the folder dedicated to Balaban & Katz company memos that piqued my interest.  As I began to dive into the documents, I found that they were all related to a rather large series of shows and giveaways among a group of B&K theatres.

In 1956, over the course of six consecutive Saturdays, eleven participating theatres in the Chicago area hosted two hour long programs for local Mousketeers.  Each program featured 90 minutes of cartoons and shorts followed by giveaways.  For 25 cents, kids could attend and receive a Mickey Mouse Club membership card that also served as a raffle ticket.  Giveaways included television sets, bicycles, ice cream bars, and even an all-expense paid trip to Disneyland!

The documents related to these giveaways detail best practices, suggestions to engage the community (get a local personality to do the drawing), safety concerns (allow enough light in the auditorium), and other advice to theatre managers.  It was a how-to of planning and executing a large-scale theatre promotion.

There are no records on how successful this series of shows was and I don’t know how frequent promotions like these, but I was excited to see such a detailed series of papers documenting the planning process nonetheless. If you know of other such large-scale events or attended one please let me know.   – Patrick Seymour,  archivesdir@historictheatres.org

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