They Cut the Ice for ‘Diamond Jubilee’ : Skating: Forty-five performers are in a show that celebrates Mickey Mouse’s show biz career.

In his long and illustrious career, Mickey Mouse has starred in more than 130 cartoon film, television and stage productions, helped launch several theme parks, and starred in a merchandising bonanza. His name even served as a password for the World War II Allied Forces’ D Day invasion.

Since 1981, Mickey has also been starring in ice extravaganzas conceived and produced by Kenneth Feld, who also produces the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. This year’s edition, “Walt Disney’s World on Ice Celebrates Mickey’s Diamond Jubilee,” re-creates scenes from Mickey’s 60 years in show business. The two-hour show, which features 45 performers, opened Christmas night at the Anaheim Convention Center, where it will stay through Jan. 2.

Actually, this has been a drawn-out birthday celebration. Mickey turned 60 last year; he made his debut in “Steamboat Willie” on Nov. 18, 1928.

The characters appearing along with Mickey in the show are Minnie Mouse, Donald and Daisy Duck, Pluto and Goofy. The music they skate to runs the gamut from the expected Disney songs to show tunes, jazz and classical selections and, for the finale, patriotic numbers.

The show also includes various soloists, a stunt skater, two pair skaters and a duo who performs comic acrobatics.

According to company manager Roy Folgrapp, 36, portraying these characters requires special preparation for the skaters. “Traditionally, when you’re a skater, you learn to look beautiful,” he said the other day in Anaheim. “You don’t learn to be Goofy--to fall down on the ice and do stupid things. That takes a little training! “Small movements don’t show up in a costume,” he said, “so the skaters have to learn to do things that can be seen in the 90th row as well as the third.”

For the other skaters too, performing with the characters is something different. “Skating with Mickey Mouse is like skating with a legend,” said Joseph Mero, 25, who joined the show in July. Mero, who is from Newport Beach, performs as a pair skater with Tricia Puccio, who is from Wisconsin, in “Steamboat Willie” and in the finale.

Mero has entered many amateur competitions, and he has won several third-place awards in them. Mero, a Michigan native, came to California in 1983. He trained for six years at the Ice Capades Chalet in Costa Mesa. “The kids in the audience go wild. It really helps us, because they get into the show more, and they’re hyper when we come out.”

According to Folgrapp, the show’s most complicated number is “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” taken from the classic 1940 animated film “Fantasia,” in which Mickey’s ill-cast magic spell brings 36 brooms to life.

“This is our precision number,” he said. “It created major problems in the beginning, because the brooms all look alike, and people couldn’t tell who they were following. Plus, it’s in black light”--that is, it’s done with special fluorescent lighting--”so you’re doing intricate patterns in that glow.”

One of the most popular segments, Folgrapp said, is the sun show performed by Douglas Barnhart in the “Giant’s Castle” number. In it, Barnhart, 21, performs stunts that include jumping over seven-foot-high silverware and a six-foot-high wedge of Swiss cheese, and through a veg-o-matic--here a rectangular device with four crisscrossing blades that have been set aflame.

“I try to push the limits of what the human body can do,” Barnhart said of his fondness for stunt skating. “In the veg-o-matic,” he said, “those blades are real steel, and the fire is real. The timing has to be consistent, and it has to be right. But I’ve never been seriously injured or missed a show.”

Barnhart joined the Disney cast in 1988. Until last year, he was an assistant manager and a skating instructor at the Laurel Plaza Ice Capade Chalet in North Hollywood.

After the show closes in Anaheim, it will move to the Los Angeles Sports Arena, where it will run from Jan. 4 through 14, and to the Long Beach Arena, where it will run Jan. 17 through 21.

“Walt Disney’s World on Ice Celebrates Mickey’s Diamond Jubilee” runs through Jan. 2, except New Year’s Day, at the Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W. Katella Ave., Anaheim. Performances today, Tuesday and Jan. 2 at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday at noon and 7:30 p.m.; Thursday and Friday at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m.; noon, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $8.50 to $12. Information: (714) 999-8950).