Mouskeemania

“Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me? . . .

Guess.

The folks over at Disney are bracing for a whole new onslaught of mouse-eared kids, with a new “Mickey Mouse Club” TV series and a TV movie that chronicles the old “Mickey Mouse Club” in the works.

The series is, gee, a lot like the old one--alternating theme days like Music Day, Guest Day, Anything Can Happen Day, Party Day and Talent Day.

There’ll be a Mickey Mouse Band and a Hollywood-style talent search. On Guest Day, the host will be hanging out in Club Mickey, a nightclub for kids.

Regular adult hosts and Mouseketeers (ages 10 to 14) have yet to be chosen. “But the casting process is under way in Florida, because it’s going to shoot at Disney World,” said a rep for the Disney Channel’s series. She added that the series was going to begin running in the fall--at about the same time that the Disney Channel originally planned to air the TV movie called “Why? . . . Because We Like You”--all about the pioneering Mouseketeers. But now there’s no telling when the new series or the TV movie will go on. “The strike, you know.”

When they decided to make the docu-movie, they knew it wouldn’t be easy to find look-alikes of the old gang. But they didn’t expect they’d have to sift through . . . 10,000 applicants!

Said a rep, after a casting trip to Dallas, NYC and Chicago, she returned to find 6,000 letters! “It looked like that scene from ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ where they keep bringing in the bags of mail.”

Casting trips to San Francisco and Denver followed--”primarily to find Annette and Loni look-alikes.” But no one’s set yet.