Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse)

Member Name: jd001

Product:	Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Date:	02/06/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Educational, fun and interesting

Disadvantages: None in my opinion

At the moment this has got to be my two and a half year old daughter Ellie's favourite programme and she can often be heard singing the theme tune to herself as she's playing or colouring in, in fact my partner has admitted to suddenly, while he is at work, realising he is singing it out loud - not the best thing for his 'street cred' on the building site.

PROGRAMME DETAILS
As expected from the title this programme is about Mickey mouse and his friends in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - Minnie Mouse, Donald and Daisy Duck, Goofy and Pluto are the main characters although the stories usually involve some of their other friends like Chip 'n' Dale, Professor Ludwig Von Drake and Clarabelle Cow.

It is on the Playhouse Disney channel (channel 611 on Sky) and Play Disney + (channel 612 on sky) several times throughout the day and is on for 25 minutes per episode.

At the beginning of each episode the Mickey Mouse clubhouse members call on the help of Toodles, Mickey mouse's virtual friend which is shaped like a Mickey mouse head and ears, who fits into the mousekadoer (a Mickey mouse computer) and retrieves the days mousekatools (objects which the gang will use to help them with various problems that they encounter through the episode) . Toodles who the clubhouse gang summon when they need him by shouting ' Oh toodles' carries either three or four mousekatools each episode two or three of these will be shown to the viewer and the third known as the 'mystery mousekatool' is a surprise.

VERDICT
For anyone that has a child that watches this programme you will probably be familiar with the theme tune and know that the chorus spells out M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E, and through listening to this Ellie at age two and a half, can spell Mickey Mouse and although she may be too young to understand the concept of spelling I think it will be a good start for her when she stars learning what individual letters look like and how by putting them together you can form words.

I like the way this programme involves the children right from the start, as soon as it comes on Mickey talks into the camera as though he is talking directly to the children who are watching and tells them that to make the clubhouse appear they need to say the magic words and straight away Ellie starts shouting 'meeska mooska Mickey Mouse'

I do limit the amount of television my daughter watches but am more likely to switch it on for her when this is on as it encourages Ellie to play along while watching it rather than just sitting on the sofa staring at the screen. At certain points during the show the clubhouse gang will need one of their mousekatools to solve a certain problem and will ask the viewer to chose the one that they think will work best, I think this is a very clever concept to get pre-school children to learn to use their powers of deduction and if none of the objects are suitable then it just leaves the mystery mousekatool so they know it must be that one. As well as problem solving the programme introduces lots of other aspects suitable for the pre-school age range like counting , early use of letters and identifying shapes.

SUMMARY
Don't get me wrong I don't think that this programme is going to turn my daughter into a child genius or that watching television can replace learning through playing and interacting with people, reading or drawing, but it is nice to see a programme that gets children thinking and problem solving in a way that makes it fun. All in all I know my daughter loves this programme and I think she does learn things while watching it.

Summary: Great fun for pre-chool children and they learn as well