Not really. She was the one receiving all the fan mail at the Disney studios so it made financial sense. Even though she was rather talentless compared to say Darlene.
While 'Spin and Marty' was the benchmark of the Mickey Mouse Club serials, it is my opinion that 'Annette' was the best showcase of the selected Mouseketeers.
Annette was alleged to be a "ballerina", but was too stiff overall to be much of anything. As a little kid, I was kind-of surprised that she became "THE" Mouseketeer. I guess Disney was obsessed with her for some reason, so elevated her place in the group.
The music supposedly "heard" from the record player was added in the sound mix. Notice also that there are cuts to several camera angles and shots on other kids while the music plays. More evidence that the music was mixed in Post-production. They did the record playback while filming the dancing, but the music was not recorded from the stage, if that is what you are suggesting.
Drew nearly giving out playing the harmonica, Val (Doreen) and Cheryl in the back trying and failing to be polite during the song, the classic Annette glare when Laura knocks the cake in her lap, Laura’s unapologetic smirk afterwards. This party was a mess🤣🤣🤣🤣
She was a good actress. When she was cast on THE VIRGINIAN, she played a more likeable girl. Roberta Shore had quite a career as a young person, then went on to live a normal life when she got into her 20s from what I learned.
@mandog917 Not everyboday. This was a depiction of "Middle Class" life in the 50s. We had neighbors across the street who had a maid. The husband was an automotive engineer for Ford, and his wife as an administrator in the school system. My father was a postal worker and later laborer for a university. But we lived in a neighborhood where such things were possible.
I'm surprised that Walt Disney approved of the point in the script where Steady takes Annette home as late as 11:50 p.m., while the rest of the group was just getting into high gear). Most teens of that era generally had to be home a good deal earlier than this.
Saturday night, midnight was common in rural and small town Sauk County Wisconsin. I was a tee ager in the early sixties, worked at WRDB radio a couple hours north iof Chicago in Reedsburg WI. BIG rock station was WLS Chicago. We got two of their Major announcers, Art (I forget) and Dick Bionde to come all that way to host a dance at a school gym,,, FREE. (A benefit but I forgot that the cause was.) Art______ co nfided in me that the station contract required them to do a few localized benefits each year a hundred miles or more outside Chicago in towns where a local station played rock. This with promotiona; announcments actually helped WLS not just with PR but by taking OUR listeners away from us and to THEM. That was not newsto me. So I did "plug" advertisments for local young people hangouts, "Malts are free forr the next gten inutes at Phils Cozy Corner IF yyou say Scott sent me!" Also played requests naming the callers. So.... Art said their latest rateings showed us second only to WLS from 8 to 10 outside of the Chicago area.So,,, Our schools benefit request was chosen for those two heaadliners! Smart marketing for them,,, for us,,, and a good cause too!BUT these days that kind of solid PERSONAL based. everybody wins thinking is gone in our culture. We are no longer smaertg enough tgo thinl. Only computer logic is followed and no one makes that logic follow what humans of smart AND GOOD intent combined wants. Much easier to just program then just for dollars to bring in with no human equations specified into it.
Dear UA-cames and those who loved the original Mickey Mouse Club, It is my sad duty to tell you that Don Grady (ne Agrati), who was an original Mouseketeer for one season but went on to greater fame on 'My Three Sons' as Robbie Douglas, has passed away after a battle with cancer. He was 68 years old and will be greatly missed.
Steady is absolutely awful..the way he treats the sweet girl who loves him so much.. too bad they did not have her walk away from him ...stand up to him so h we could think about the way he treats her...ha ha ha. Still such a sweet movie...love it!!!!
Yep. Along with a booming middle class and families that are still large by today's standards, a lot of housework still took way more time then too. So hiring a maid was very common for families with secure salaries.
Sharon Baird and Bobby Burgess were the best dancers of all the mousketeers. Somewhere floating around is a videp of Sharon dancing at age 8. Incredible.
Why does Laura constantly raise her voice at Annette? I would have said something but, Annette Is showing a better example by not stooping to Laura's level.
I agree. She was really cute. Upon first seeing her in this series, I kept thinking she looked adorable, and also familiar, but could barely place where I had seen her before. That is until I looked it up and found out that it was Doreen. And at the same time, I found out that she was British, but learned the American accent fast.
The Abernathy's maid is played by Helene Marshall, who was the daughter in law of longtime writer/director George Marshall. She is one of the few (then) adult cast members of the MMC serials who is still alive.
The 50s, which I was a part of, wasn't at all like you see in this serial, although it was a lot less intense than it is today. Disney always presented a rosy, well-mannered high-class portrait of life----by insistence of Walt Disney himself. The "country girl moves into rich high-society" theme was a popular one with Disney, one he used often. "Pollyanna" (1960) is probably the best example.
Maybe the kids were allowed to stay out later because all of their parents had known each other for years, so they felt that their kids were safe and well-supervised.
I guess they just assume that since she's a country girl that she automatically would steal. I honestly don't know what Steve sees in Laura. She's such a snob!
No, they weren't. They were better mannered than a lot of their counterparts today are, but this is the usual over-glamorized Disney fare, and of TV of that era in general, for that matter.
Well, I will admit that the series put the '50's in an idealistic light -- but as someone who spent all of grade school and part of middle school in the '50's, I can tell you that I often got home late. But I always called my parents -- and they never put a curfew on me. O course, I come from a family of night hawks.
That was not a "weird dwarf lady." That was Sharon Baird, one of the Mouseketeers, and the best Dancer on the show. She was around 14 or 15 at the time. There was some concept of teaming her with "Steady" because they both looked like 12 year olds, but had the talent the parts called for. So was it her fault that she was only 4' 10" or so? Really, now disrespectful!
And of course, she didn't do it, as they finally found out in the show finale. It had fallen into the piano, and they hadn't looked hard enough inside it for it.
It was a different time. I can't remember drive by shootings ( at not in small town USA), a time when parents trusted their daughter's date because the young man was expected to come to the door to pick her up thus meeting the parents. It was a time when families went to church on Sunday followed by Sunday dinner.
That bitch! Making Steve spill ice cream cake on Annette and acting like it was an accident, and then not even helping clean it up while the other two girls do? Why do they put up with her? Just because they think she's "sophisticated"? She sure isn't acting like it. And I can't believe in the very next scene Annette doesn't even seem to care, just says, "They dance well together." Insane. Interesting how these types of teenage stories always seem to have a "mean girl" character.
Laura deliberately knocked the plate in Steve's hand. She didn't "make" him spill the ice cream cake. She caused it. As for the teenage drama, imagine if Laura had been Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ and went up against The Wicked Witch of the West. Now THAT would be a battle worth seeing!
@@PreservationEnthusiast I don't give a s××× about looks . Anyway that's not how the real world works , not everyone will still love her. In my life once a bitch always a bitch. Not going into detail I had an experience not like Annette had but belive me after my situation happened some of the girl's friends did not want to have anything do do with her to this day . 40 years later there is still no apologies and this is how the real world works sometimes.
@@cheryl3329 People can bear grudges, and that usually works out to their own detriment. In the series, we see Laura being mean and domineering, yet all the guys are falling over themselves to toady up to her. You have to ask yourself why they are behaving like that.
@@PreservationEnthusiast Laura was "one" of them, but not the only one who attracted attention. Why do you think she was degrading Annette all the time?
But Laura is right, child. We don't know anything about this Annette girl. Where does she come from? She could be anybody. Nobody did a background check. She probably knocked out the real Annette and assumed her identity at the bus station. So this imposter probably does steal.
Doesn't Stevie make you think of what Trump was like as a kid? Though I seriously doubt Trump ever possessed any of the talent Stevie's character (and the performer who played him) had in this. All the thoughtfulness and charm of a horse fly.
Thanks for posting, this really takes me back! When the world was young and new.
Casting Annette as Annette was brilliant.
Not really. She was the one receiving all the fan mail at the Disney studios so it made financial sense. Even though she was rather talentless compared to say Darlene.
There's a girl like Laura in every century.
misscrownedprincess RIGHT! I use to be Annette! Rip SWEET SOUL
Century? There's a Laura born every minute
And they're the Karen explosion on YT today.
While 'Spin and Marty' was the benchmark of the Mickey Mouse Club serials, it is my opinion that 'Annette' was the best showcase of the selected Mouseketeers.
Baird, who was trained in dancing at a young age, was considered to be the best dancer of the Mousketeers.
Annette was alleged to be a "ballerina", but was too stiff overall to be much of anything. As a little kid, I was kind-of surprised that she became "THE" Mouseketeer. I guess Disney was obsessed with her for some reason, so elevated her place in the group.
LOL! I remember as a kid I wrote a letter to the show saying Laura had to go!!!!
Why? Annette was a talentless little sycophant who sucked up to Disney. Roberta Shore as Laura was a great singer and she could play the piano well.
Really? You did?
@@arenjtumastens I don't think she did, Roberta Shore was a real star and very talented.
@@PreservationEnthusiast yep. I first saw her in "The Shaggy Dog" (1959).
7:33 The records played at the party are actually Disney Studio acetate disks (with 2 holes in the center) used for playback during filming.
Eliot Brothers?
Never noticed the twin holes you mentioned. Very interesting.
The music supposedly "heard" from the record player was added in the sound mix. Notice also that there are cuts to several camera angles and shots on other kids while the music plays. More evidence that the music was mixed in Post-production. They did the record playback while filming the dancing, but the music was not recorded from the stage, if that is what you are suggesting.
I was just taking about the prop records used in the scene during filming.
Drew nearly giving out playing the harmonica, Val (Doreen) and Cheryl in the back trying and failing to be polite during the song, the classic Annette glare when Laura knocks the cake in her lap, Laura’s unapologetic smirk afterwards. This party was a mess🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's a shame! Nobody really sticks up for Annette! They knew she that she was a newcomer!
Annette Funicello is so refreshing every time. Unlike this day and age.
Stevie needs to drop that Laura like a bad habit!
Laura’s got Stevie so whipped. 😹
Such great dancer's
Steve likes Laura, but being the sensible person he is, he starts to see Laura's real character coming through...
Roberta Shore was really a sweet young woman but she played the mean girl to the hilt! 😄
She was a good actress. When she was cast on THE VIRGINIAN, she played a more likeable girl. Roberta Shore had quite a career as a young person, then went on to live a normal life when she got into her 20s from what I learned.
She also played as Bud's girlfriend in a few Father Knows Best episodes, she was charming in those.
I knew instantly when I first saw this episode that Laura had knocked that cake onto Annette on purpose.
I love this show. It came on 22 years before I was born but I love it. Tim Considine is channeling Frank Sinatra. "What dud I do now, pet?"
Sharon Baird (Kitty) was a really good dancer!
Kitty brought some food for Annette's date, Homestead Where, hoping it would be for her but as it turned out he wanted seconds and in my eyes that is concered selfish, rude and impolite.
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April 15, 2021 @ 12:20 am ©®
It was very hard for me to recognise Sharon Baird without her Mouseketeer uniform on.
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April 15, 2021 @ 12:25 am ©®
@mandog917 Not everyboday. This was a depiction of "Middle Class" life in the 50s. We had neighbors across the street who had a maid. The husband was an automotive engineer for Ford, and his wife as an administrator in the school system. My father was a postal worker and later laborer for a university. But we lived in a neighborhood where such things were possible.
I really love all the dresses in this scene.
Avilennon The New Look going strong!
and the corsages...
I'm surprised that Walt Disney approved of the point in the script where Steady takes Annette home as late as 11:50 p.m., while the rest of the group was just getting into high gear). Most teens of that era generally had to be home a good deal earlier than this.
Saturday night, midnight was common in rural and small town Sauk County Wisconsin. I was a tee ager in the early sixties, worked at WRDB radio a couple hours north iof Chicago in Reedsburg WI. BIG rock station was WLS Chicago. We got two of their Major announcers, Art (I forget) and Dick Bionde to come all that way to host a dance at a school gym,,, FREE. (A benefit but I forgot that the cause was.) Art______ co nfided in me that the station contract required them to do a few localized benefits each year a hundred miles or more outside Chicago in towns where a local station played rock. This with promotiona; announcments actually helped WLS not just with PR but by taking OUR listeners away from us and to THEM. That was not newsto me. So I did "plug" advertisments for local young people hangouts, "Malts are free forr the next gten inutes at Phils Cozy Corner IF yyou say Scott sent me!" Also played requests naming the callers. So.... Art said their latest rateings showed us second only to WLS from 8 to 10 outside of the Chicago area.So,,, Our schools benefit request was chosen for those two heaadliners! Smart marketing for them,,, for us,,, and a good cause too!BUT these days that kind of solid PERSONAL based. everybody wins thinking is gone in our culture. We are no longer smaertg enough tgo thinl. Only computer logic is followed and no one makes that logic follow what humans of smart AND GOOD intent combined wants. Much easier to just program then just for dollars to bring in with no human equations specified into it.
Dear UA-cames and those who loved the original Mickey Mouse Club,
It is my sad duty to tell you that Don Grady (ne Agrati), who was an original Mouseketeer for one season but went on to greater fame on 'My Three Sons' as Robbie Douglas, has passed away after a battle with cancer. He was 68 years old and will be greatly missed.
Steady is absolutely awful..the way he treats the sweet girl who loves him so much.. too bad they did not have her walk away from him ...stand up to him so h we could think about the way he treats her...ha ha ha. Still such a sweet movie...love it!!!!
I wished she would've dumped that plate of food on his head
@KelliBryan Annette looks lovely in her dress, but I wish her hair hadn't been cut so short; it looked so beautiful when it was longer.
I agree.
Wow! Back in those days everybody had a maid!
Yep. Along with a booming middle class and families that are still large by today's standards, a lot of housework still took way more time then too. So hiring a maid was very common for families with secure salaries.
Sharon Baird and Bobby Burgess were the best dancers of all the mousketeers. Somewhere floating around is a videp of Sharon dancing at age 8. Incredible.
Cute! When I was a kid we only got one station and never got to see the Mickey Mouse Club. Typical Disney!
Exactly. The piano's name is also "Annette".
Olmstead Ware seems to be the best actor. I wonder what happened to him?
At approximately 6:15 Steve tells Annette to: "take this one" while Laura lifts her elbow and tosses the ice cream on Annette's dress.
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April 13, 2021 @ 1:45 am ©®
At approximately 9:45 Laura tells Val that her necklace is gone and the last time that Laura saw it was when Annette came to spin the bottle because somebody did put it on top of the piano.
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April 13, 2021 @ 2:15 am ©®
what is the name of the fast song the Steady and Sharon is dancing too.
Why does Laura constantly raise her voice at Annette? I would have said something but, Annette Is showing a better example by not stooping to Laura's level.
Laura is threatened by Annette. Simple!
I like Shelly ,she's so pretty 😊
Everyone thinks Laura is so gorgeous, but I think Val is way cuter. Doreen Tracy was a doll. :)
I agree. She was really cute. Upon first seeing her in this series, I kept thinking she looked adorable, and also familiar, but could barely place where I had seen her before. That is until I looked it up and found out that it was Doreen. And at the same time, I found out that she was British, but learned the American accent fast.
Annette and her dance partner have the same hairstyle!
The Abernathy's maid is played by Helene Marshall, who was the daughter in law of longtime writer/director George Marshall. She is one of the few (then) adult cast members of the MMC serials who is still alive.
'Laura's the 'slickest' chick in town'(bad news)....Her friend said Laura always 'dramatizes' things..ah oh..
The 50s, which I was a part of, wasn't at all like you see in this serial, although it was a lot less intense than it is today. Disney always presented a rosy, well-mannered high-class portrait of life----by insistence of Walt Disney himself.
The "country girl moves into rich high-society" theme was a popular one with Disney, one he used often. "Pollyanna" (1960) is probably the best example.
One of the have-nots brushing against the lives of the haves. It's a classic theme from Cinderella to Sabrina (w/Audrey Hepburn) to Pretty Woman.
I doubt if my parents would have allowed me to stay out at a party until midnight when I was 14.
Jupiter Jones I was surprised my parents let me go to a concert with 80,000 fans at age 12 in 1975
Maybe the kids were allowed to stay out later because all of their parents had known each other for years, so they felt that their kids were safe and well-supervised.
It is very funny that most of Val's, at approximately 6:32, are helping Annette to get rid of the stain that was caused by Laura.
Please get your vaccine soon. ©®
April 13, 2021 @ 1:55 am ©®
Boy, at approximately 8:06, Steady and Kitty are having a ball dancing to this music.
Please keep inside during this quarentine as much as possible. ©®
April 13, 2021 @ 2:05 am ©®
I assume you mean the best female dancer, because Bobby Burgess was also an excellent dancer...made a living doing it for years.
Like he was on Lawrence Welk for years!
Yes, but not in the fantasy world Disney created for his viewers.
How rude of Laura 😢
I miss this on The Disney Channel.
Aww, I wish parties were like this today, everything is a gross and weird now.
Boy that was so really rude,
Were these kids ever dancers! Their talent was enormous yet they had an aura of being “just like us.”
If we were all wealthy...
I guess they just assume that since she's a country girl that she automatically would steal. I honestly don't know what Steve sees in Laura. She's such a snob!
Thanks for posting, do you have ;SPIN & MARTY ?
It fell in the bottom of a piano.
No, they weren't. They were better mannered than a lot of their counterparts today are, but this is the usual over-glamorized Disney fare, and of TV of that era in general, for that matter.
May share the mouse club.ann
This show would have made my kids feel like paupers.
Well, I will admit that the series put the '50's in an idealistic light -- but as someone who spent all of grade school and part of middle school in the '50's, I can tell you that I often got home late. But I always called my parents -- and they never put a curfew on me. O course, I come from a family of night hawks.
Were 50's kids this formal?
They were raised properly, yes. Take it from someone who lived through the era.
laura, classic mean girl
You can't grab a chair just like that. Disney?......
@MsPinoke Steve was trying to, but it was not considerd "mannerly" to make a scene at a party like this.
Why is that weird dwarf lady always hitting on that normal kid?
That was not a "weird dwarf lady." That was Sharon Baird, one of the Mouseketeers, and the best Dancer on the show. She was around 14 or 15 at the time. There was some concept of teaming her with "Steady" because they both looked like 12 year olds, but had the talent the parts called for. So was it her fault that she was only 4' 10" or so? Really, now disrespectful!
i'm kari's mom and remember this and the end.
I don't blame Annette for taking Laura's necklace.
She didn't!
@@janeiwasduncan8463 She did and later hid it in the piano to cover her tracks, the nasty thief. She was so jealous of Laura.
@@janeiwasduncan8463 Maybe the idea was that you couldn't blame Annette if she took the necklace. But revenge or not, that would not justify it.
And of course, she didn't do it, as they finally found out in the show finale. It had fallen into the piano, and they hadn't looked hard enough inside it for it.
They got in late many times in the '50's.
It was a different time. I can't remember drive by shootings ( at not in small town USA), a time when parents trusted their daughter's date because the young man was expected to come to the door to pick her up thus meeting the parents. It was a time when families went to church on Sunday followed by Sunday dinner.
Laura really frustrates me! haha
Such well mannered kids then, what the hell happened?
No. Steady was played by another actor, the name of whom I will look up when I leave UA-cam for the night.
Good night and pleasant dreams.
Juliaflo I can’t remember the name....but I think things didn’t work out well.
His name was Rudy Lee.
dam.. steady was a savage
Lo😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The stories are a bit corny and they are not the greatest actors. But it is still fun for a nostalgia trip to the past. How fast it went by!
The adult character actors help a lot. They are worth noticing.
@@RayPointerChannel Absolutely!
That bitch! Making Steve spill ice cream cake on Annette and acting like it was an accident, and then not even helping clean it up while the other two girls do? Why do they put up with her? Just because they think she's "sophisticated"? She sure isn't acting like it. And I can't believe in the very next scene Annette doesn't even seem to care, just says, "They dance well together." Insane.
Interesting how these types of teenage stories always seem to have a "mean girl" character.
Laura deliberately knocked the plate in Steve's hand. She didn't "make" him spill the ice cream cake. She caused it. As for the teenage drama, imagine if Laura had been Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ and went up against The Wicked Witch of the West. Now THAT would be a battle worth seeing!
Steady,is, a little,moocher, expect ING, every one to,cater,to,him
ahaha yeah :)
What did not dud..oops lol
Why did Laura have to be so nasty . Not only towards Annette but everyone else. She was so winey too
Laura was the best looking girl so she can get away with being nasty, and everyone will still love her. That's how it works.
@@PreservationEnthusiast I don't give a s××× about looks . Anyway that's not how the real world works , not everyone will still love her. In my life once a bitch always a bitch. Not going into detail I had an experience not like Annette had but belive me after my situation happened some of the girl's friends did not want to have anything do do with her to this day . 40 years later there is still no apologies and this is how the real world works sometimes.
@@cheryl3329 People can bear grudges, and that usually works out to their own detriment.
In the series, we see Laura being mean and domineering, yet all the guys are falling over themselves to toady up to her. You have to ask yourself why they are behaving like that.
@@PreservationEnthusiast Laura was "one" of them, but not the only one who attracted attention. Why do you think she was degrading Annette all the time?
@@cheryl3329 Sometimes is right. Petty is still petty.
But Laura is right, child. We don't know anything about this Annette girl. Where does she come from? She could be anybody. Nobody did a background check. She probably knocked out the real Annette and assumed her identity at the bus station. So this imposter probably does steal.
Someone has the wrong channel.
Annette is way prettier than Laura but not lovelier then Cheryl and Doreen.
No Laura was the prettiest and most talented girl there .
i cnt stand how steady bosses dat girl kitty around. and i cnt stand laura
If watching this makes you react that way, then the story, the actors, and the director served their purposes very well.
Doesn't Stevie make you think of what Trump was like as a kid? Though I seriously doubt Trump ever possessed any of the talent Stevie's character (and the performer who played him) had in this. All the thoughtfulness and charm of a horse fly.
No.....classless Laura does.
No, he doesn't. How can anyone make that comparison!
Someone get them some gay friends!
They were kept in a closet for the next thirty years!