Mickey Mouse Club

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The Mickey Mouse Club (MMK) was started in the 1950s as an editorial part of the comic magazine Micky Mouse of the Ehapa publishing house.

For the club members, a separate statute with 12 paragraphs was drawn up, in which it was stated in paragraph 6 that “the most important task of every club is to do as many good deeds as possible”. Paragraph 3 stipulates that MMK members are "polite to all adults, especially their parents and teachers".

Club members were encouraged to set up a club where they lived and to elect a club manager, a secretary and a club cashier. The club manager had to ensure that “there is always something going on in the club” and to organize hikes, sports competitions and games, relief campaigns, theater performances, club afternoons, handicrafts, reading and singing lessons. It is not known whether such an extensive program ever actually took place in one of the clubs.

At the time, avid collectors of Mickey Mouse books also found a removable coupon corner in each booklet. With 15 vouchers you could order an MMK club pin, with 20 vouchers there was an MMK sleeve crest and for 25 vouchers an MMK pocket book. A golden MMK badge of honor could also be awarded for particularly meritorious achievements.

In the magazines, the editorial part for the club members was in issues 1/1956 to 1/1976 on the center pages of Mickey Mouse , initially as MMK Nachrichten , later MMK Zeitung and MMK Magazin . Based on the results of a reader survey in 1975, the editorial section was removed from the magazine after 993 issues. However, the last MMK magazine in issue 1/1976 had the number 995 because in 1961 the numbers 216 and 217 were accidentally skipped.

backgrounds

In the 1950s, more and more cultural “achievements” spilled over from the United States to Europe and were viewed here with moral worry lines. In Germany in particular one could not make friends with various new styles. Jazz and rock 'n' roll were defamed as "Negro music", adventure novels and science fiction as "trash literature " and " dime novel ". The comics imported from America were branded as "people's dumbing down". In 1955 an attempt was made to have comics banned in court. The attempt failed, however.

In the first German “Mickey Mouse” magazine from August 29, 1951, the editor felt compelled to include the note: “ You don't need to buy these wonderful magazines in secret, you can wish them every month. You will soon notice that the adults also enjoy it quietly. "

To reassure the morality guards, various actions were taken to highlight the “harmlessness” and “cultural value” of the comics. Obeying the parents and teachers, doing a good deed every day and taking the youth off the streets with various actions were the only understandable goals of the Mickey Mouse Club and they found favor with the morality guards. Mickey Mouse and Nick Knatterton and Prince Eisenherz were classified as “morally harmless”. Besides, the idea with the vouchers in the various magazines was a thoroughly successful marketing campaign that led to many new buyers and readers.

See also

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