Disco Mickey? A look at one of the weirdest (and most fun) Disney albums ever
Disney is known for picking up on trends in music. But did you know they once had an entire album dedicated to the disco craze?
The rise and fall of disco in the 1970s remains one of the stranger tales in all of music history. For a time, this was the dominant music trend, maybe a reaction to the counterculture of the 1960s. Somehow, this mix of different genres with synthesizers, electric pianos, and quirky beats connected with folks of the time.
Disco clubs were soon filling cities around the United States with those infamously crazy fashions of bell-bottom pants, open-vest shirts, and more. It reached its height in 1977 with Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta’s character became the epitome of what every clubgoer wanted to be.
The list of stars connected to the genre was plentiful: Abba, The Village People, the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, the Jacksons, Diana Ross, Barry White, and more. TV shows such as American Bandstand and Soul Train would regularly feature disco acts. And it was impossible to flip on a TV channel and not see a cop show or sitcom making it a major plot point.
In other words, disco was king at this time. So, leave it to Disney to get on the bandwagon with one of the weirder original albums ever.
The Disco Mickey album
Overseen by Dennis Burnside, Mickey Mouse Disco was the classic idea of Disney covers for popular disco songs of the time. To describe it is tough as the lyrics are amazingly cheesy, even by the standards of the time.
First, we have disco versions of classic Disney songs like “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” “Chim Chim-a-Ree,” and yes “It’s A Small World” (and if you thought that song was an earworm before…) Hearing those tunes given the disco treatment is something else.
As for the original songs, the title track makes Mickey sound like a Travolta-like hunk:
“When his body’s set in motion
The ladies cry a thousand tears.
Let the dancin’ fever move him
And he’ll always bring down the house–Disco Mickey Mouse.”
Yeah, that’s offbeat but nothing compared to “Macho Duck,” which is Donald in a version of the Village People classic “Macho Man.” Hearing Donald’s squawking alongside the music is amazingly addictive.
Indeed, that’s what gets you about the album: It’s wonderfully fun. The music is perfect for the genre, the lyrics are fun, the beats are catchy and before long, you’ll be tapping your feet and bouncing a bit with the music. It may not be enough to pull out some bell-bottom pants, but there’s a reason the album remains loved by older Disney fans.
The surprise success
As it happened, the album’s release was interesting timing. It came out in July 1979, just after what is now known as “Disco Demolition Night.” Chicago radio DJ Steve Dahl had long hated disco and led a backlash against it. He talked the Chicago White Sox into hosting an event at Comiskey Park where folks who brought in a disco album got in for only a dollar. Over 50,000 people showed up, far more than expected. The original idea was to get all the records together and then blow them up.
What the White Sox got was fans acting up, tossing discs around and storming the field, setting fires, and causing so much chaos they had to call in the riot police to disperse it. It became the showcase for the anti-disco feeling that would prove it was dying out and within two years, the disco craze would be over.
So, one would think Disney’s album would flop and sales were rough. Then Disney decided to do TV ads to promote it, including setting the music to classic Disney cartoons. Remember, this was a couple of years before MTV came about and music videos were something new. That got more attention on the album and it took off. It ended up reaching #35 on the Billboard album charts and went double platinum, selling over 2 million copies, a record for a children’s album.
While disco may have seemed dead by the early 1980s, there was a revival in the ‘90s. Disney got into that by creating the 8 Trax Club for Pleasure Island. Disco Mickey was released on CD in 1995, and in 2019, it got a special LP release. There are still showcases of it, including the Disneyland version of Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway showing the original poster of the pair in disco outfits.
Yes, it’s a bizarre album in some ways, yet it is also one of the best original Disney albums ever. The songs are a blast, the music still gets you and it captures the feel of the disco era perfectly. Even non-disco fans may get a kick out of it and it shows how this genre seems to survive almost anything.