Working with Disney (25 page)

DP:
I remember Roy [Williams] mentioning it. It was something Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were part of.

BB:
Yeah, and Ethel Waters would sing at it. I don't know if he started it, but he was real instrumental in a thing called the Share the Blessings Brunch at the Beverly Hilton. Jimmie was always real active, maybe
even in charge of that, and so he would invite me to that. But Jimmie never forced his religion onto you. I mean, it was just a thing that he mentioned—“Hey would you be interested in coming to our group? We're getting together on Saturday night.” But you've got to remember that Jimmie and Ruth had no children, so we were almost like his Mousekekids—all of us, in a way.

DP:
As a kid watching the show, I really liked his little “Doddisms” at the end where he would come out and talk. I know some of my friends thought they were corny, but I really bought into them. And when I watch some of the old shows, I still like to hear them. There are still some good lessons in what he said.

BB:
I watched that DVD of the first week [of
The Mickey Mouse Club]
and I can't remember if he used cue cards or not. It sure looks like he is very natural. Jimmie looks like he is really talking to you. I can't remember if they had a teleprompter. I don't even know if they were invented by then.

DP:
So his death was like losing an older brother?

BB:
No, it was more like losing a dad.

DP:
When you were at Disneyland on opening day, after you came out and did your introductory dance, I guess you moved into the parade. Was that really exciting being there?

BB:
Yeah, it was, because nobody knew who we were. So we were just some kids dancing and singing, and a lot of them had the [prop] horses. I think it was Lonnie who hated being on the horse. Luckily, I was dancing jitterbug with Sharon, so I didn't have to be on the horse. But anyway, when we were in the parade, I had a horse for that. But it was one of those really hot days, and we had wool outfits on, and the pavement was soft, and there were hardly any drinking fountains.

DP:
Did you know Walt Disney very well?

BB:
We didn't work with him much. One of my favorite things to do would be at breaks to go over and watch him film because he was on the
next stage, and it was real eerie because it was pitch-black. All [that was lighted was] his little set, with him sitting there. And, you know, he was good. He did first takes and was so natural, being from Missouri and all. We knew him, but we always said he was like a principal of a school. He wanted us to call him Uncle Walt, but he was always Mr. Disney because we were 1950s kids, and we respected our elders and all. So I don't know, you just didn't know what to say to him. In my case, I always thought I wasn't a pushy kid, so I wouldn't go up and say, “Hi, Mr. Disney.” I would actually almost go the other way when I'd see him coming. But they say you would see him in the back of the studio watching us film, and they say he watched all of our dailies and made suggestions about who to keep and who not. And I did go up to his office just to go exploring around, and outside his office was a storyboard of the next day's [filming of the]
Mickey Mouse Club,
and it would be Bobby and Sharon doing a jitterbug dance, and there would be ears and teeth and movement and dust flying everywhere, that kind of thing. So you knew that in the next day or two you would be doing a jitterbug dance of some kind or whatever kind of dance they wanted you to do because you were storyboarded.

DP:
It almost sounds like a Roy Williams storyboard.

BB:
It probably was, because it looked like his stuff. You know, his triangle face and all the things that he did and that kind of thing.

What was always fun was performing with Annette, because she became so popular. And then Jimmie Dodd wrote the Annette song, and then I got to dance a ballet with her and lift her around. But it was hard to do lifts with her, because she was very girly and very weak and had little fine features. So I'd put her on my shoulder, and she ended up laughing so hard that I dropped her, and then she would laugh and laugh, lying on the floor. Yeah, that was always fun. And we were always the tallest, we were always in the back. So, then, pretty much if I wasn't with Sharon, I was with Annette.

DP:
When you got to the end of the show, when you knew it was going to end, was that traumatic, or did you feel you were ready to move on?

BB:
I know the girls always tell how they cried and that kind of thing. You felt bad, but I don't know, I kind of wanted to go on with my life and do something else. Only Cubby and I were on roll call every year for the boys—Tommy was not the first year, and Lonnie was not the last year. And there were five girls that were on all of it. So I was really in there especially with the Mouseketeers doing everything that they did. And they really kept us busy.

DP:
Did you go up to Walt Disney's apartment above the firehouse the first day?

BB:
No, but we did get passes so we could get in the front of all the rides, which was really a dream come true for a kid. Especially, you know, if it was the [Mad Hatter] teacups that we really wanted to go on, and Dumbo, and a few things like the jungle ride. But I don't remember ever seeing that apartment until about three years ago when I did an event at Club 33 [a members-only club in Disneyland] where I spoke. I think it was with Sherry [Alberoni], and they gave all those people—I don't remember why it was such a special event—a special tour of that apartment. So that was kind of neat.

DP:
You were at Disneyland when the president of Indonesia was visiting there?

BB:
Yeah, Sharon and I, I think it was the first year, went out and took his son on Autopia and rode the train. And Walt Disney was there, because he was showing President Sukarno around, and we were right there. And then I remember we got to meet the emperor of Japan, too. They were guests out there. But that was a special one because we were right there with them. So that was kind of a nice little perk.

DP:
You said that when Walt was alive, you used to walk down Main Street and look at the firehouse, hoping to see him, and that you still do that sometimes now when you are there.

BB:
I think about it.

Every year the Welk show played Harrah's Club at Tahoe. I drove up for [one] year, and for some reason I was all by myself. So I'm
thinking I've got some time, and it's not too late. It's just starting to get dark, but it's okay. So I go off maybe three or four miles down this little side road to Devil's Post Pile. It's these strange [natural] formations. So I go up there on this little dirt trail. I'm coming down, and nobody's there, nobody but me, and I'm thinking, “Gosh, I better get going, it's starting to get dark.” Up this trail comes this little old man, bent over, smoking a cigarette, with his hat pulled down. And I pass him, and it's like I almost do a movie double take. And I said, “Walt Disney.” And he said, “Mouseketeer Bobby.” I said, “What are you doing here?” He said, “I bought this cabin for my daughter, Diane, probably ten years ago, because she wanted to ski at Mammoth. And I've never seen it, so I thought, ‘I'm going to see that cabin. While I'm here I'm going take a little walk and see Devil's Post Pile.'” I had to be up there in June. So that was probably six months before he died. That's when I saw him last. That's very eerie, isn't it?

DP:
Yeah, it is. Especially just to see him out by himself like that in the middle of nowhere.

BB:
And that we recognized each other. I didn't have to say, “Hi, remember me, I'm Mouseketeer Bobby.” And we probably hadn't seen each other for a few years, because I left the show in 1958.

DP:
But even the fact that you recognized him, that you could see enough of him—

BB:
Yeah, I remember it was a blue hat, one of those funny little fisherman hats.

DP:
When you met him when you were a kid, do you remember your impressions of him?

BB:
No, except it seemed to me he was real dressed up. Didn't he always get dressed up? Seems like I always saw him dressed up. Maybe I'm thinking of seeing him on the television show. But even when he would come down the street—it seems to me he would walk right down the middle of the street—I always saw him dressed up. Even at the final
audition when I saw him, he wore a coat and tie and the whole bit. I didn't kibitz with him or talk to him or anything.

DP:
Did you talk to him when you did the fourth anniversary show of the
Disneyland
television series or when he was there on the set? Some Mouseketeers say he was there all the time, and some say he was hardly ever there.

BB:
I think you would see him occasionally, but not that much. He was so busy. Disneyland was just opening. Our show was going.
Lady and the Tramp
and
Sleeping Beauty
were happening—a million things happening all of a sudden at the studio. So he was really busy. And he was doing [the television program]
Disneyland
too. He was doing those introductions. He was spread pretty thin at that time.

DP:
When he died, do you remember your reaction?

BB:
No, it was just real sad. I think it was probably lung cancer, wasn't it? I know he was a heavy smoker, but he never let us see him smoke. You know, back in those days, you worried about your reputation. Nobody did anything. You didn't even want people to see you smoke. I never smoked anyway. I'm sure he thought [that] especially around kids you don't want to have them see you smoke. He was a nice guy.

DP:
How was Roy Williams to work with?

BB:
Oh, I thought he was funny. He came up with funny ideas. He didn't sing or dance, but he was such an interesting contrast because he was the big Mooseketeer. He was big and heavy. But he loved doing it, and he'd been a gagman at Disney Studios since the 1930s, and they say he invented the ears because in one cartoon Mickey takes them off or something.

DP:
It's in
Karnival Kid
(1929). Mickey tips his ears to Minnie. What was production coordinator Hal Adelquist like?

BB:
A real friendly, down-to-earth kind of guy. He's the one that always had a birthday party for you and had a special cake made for you. He
was real hands-on the first year. So we saw mostly [director] Dik Darley and Hal Adelquist and a little bit of [producer] Bill Walsh, and the other guy that we'd see sometime was Bill Anderson. He was above Bill, so he was even more remote. And then there was Walt.

DP:
Somewhere you said, “I felt like I needed to live up to the reputation of being a Mouseketeer and representing Walt Disney.” Has that been kind of a guiding thing for you in some ways in your life?

BB:
I went from this family show to the other big family show. But I don't know, I just think my parents raised us right; you know, it's just kind of like the Disney touch. All of us original Mouseketeers pretty much came out pretty good. It was like we were expected to have certain standards working for the company, and Lawrence Welk was the same.

DP:
How would you like people to remember Walt Disney?

BB:
Well, it was mainly that he did so much for family entertainment and, of course, animation. He brought it out with
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
He just created that whole genre. And then the amusement parks. I have been to that little amusement park over where the Beverly Center is when it was just a nothing, with little ponies and little baskets and stuff. And I read that that's where he got the idea for Disneyland. Well, look what Disneyland started. So he did not reinvigorate [theme parks] because there wasn't anything, but he created all these things. You know what I always remember too? How EPCOT was supposed to look. Remember it was a dome? It was going to be thirty-five or forty thousand people living in there, and even the air was going to be piped in or fresh.

But I guess he died too soon. Maybe it could have happened. He was so progressive [in his] thinking. Even with
The Mickey Mouse Club,
he was so interested in things like outer space. I can remember meeting Wernher von Braun, and he was walking down the street and talking to us. But I mean, you know, [Walt] was real, and then think about all his True-Life Adventures that were so popular back then. Nobody was doing that then:
The African Lion
(1955) and
Secrets of Life
(1956) and all
those great films. Such an imagination. But now you wonder, where's it going? Who's going to do it?

DP:
Big shoes to fill.

BB:
So much has become corporate. I mean, when we used to work at Harrah's, Bill Harrah was the same, the way he treated you. He gave the stars a house with a custom Rolls [Royce] to drive, and he lived right on the lake. And he gave you boat rides in this huge boat and would take you over to Emerald Bay and feed you these great sandwiches, and we'd go skiing. I mean, it was the same idea, and look how successful Harrah's became. And then he passed away, and somebody took it over, and now it's just a business—sold all those houses, and all those perks are gone. And you wonder now, is Disney just going to become another big perk studio? You hope not, because it was so innovative.