March 28 - Jimmie Dodd

Image courtesy latimes.com

On this day, in 1910, Ivan Wesley Dodd was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. After his parents divorced when he was a young child, his mother decided she’d never liked the name Ivan and by the time he was nine, he was known as James. The divorce must have been somewhat amiable as Jimmie’s father lived just two doors down from his aunt’s house, where he lived with his mother. When his father became a salesman for a music store nearby, Jimmie would spend a lot of time at the store, playing with all the instruments and cultivating a love for music.

Jimmie attended Withrow High School in Cincinnati, playing banjo in a local dance band. When he began attending the University of Cincinnati, he played in his own band. Then the Great Depression hit, money got tight and it was hard for Jimmie to stay in school and work to pay for it. He also spent time at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and the Shouster Martin School of Dramatic Arts (where he created a dance act with a young Tyrone Power), but never graduated from any school.

Image courtesy fffmovieposters.com

Jimmie’s first big break came when he got a job on a local radio station in 1933. This lead to another gig in Fort Lauderdale, Florida which lead to Nashville, Tennessee. While picking up a few more classes at Vanderbilt  University, he became part of Louis Prima's orchestra and began touring the country. By the end of the Thirties (and the end of his run with Louis), Jimmie found himself in Southern California looking for the next big thing.

Starting with the 1940 William Holden picture, Those Were the Days!, Jimmie began a film career that covered more than 75 films over the next fifteen years. His biggest role was Lullaby Joslin in the Three Mesquiteers series of movies but he had small roles alongside the likes of John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. A weak heart kept him out of any fighting during World War II, but he did tour Europe several times with his wife, a dancer, as part of the USO. He also wrote songs throughout much of the war, including once called Washington which became the official song of the United States capital city.

Image courtesy d23.com

One of their fellow USO performers, Jinx Falkenburg, would later introduce Jimmie to Arthur Godfrey, who would give him some of his first television appearances as the Fifties began. But it was the good luck of playing tennis with Bill Justice that really changed his life. Bill was an animator for the Walt Disney Studio and one day mentioned to his game partner that his boss needed a song about a pencil, could Jimmie write one? He banged one out, sent a demo over the studio and was hired to write songs for the Disneyland television show.  Producer Bill Walsh thought Jimmie would make a great host for another show in the works and had him perform The Pencil Song for the boss. Walt watched that one performance and immediately suggested that Jimmie be the host of The Mickey Mouse Club. Bill said that’s a fabulous idea and made it so.

Image courtesy imdb.com

Jimmie and The Mickey Mouse Club were a match made in television heaven. His energy and positivity and honest sincerity were exactly what the show needed. The fact that he was really good at writing songs under pressure helped, too. In the few weeks leading up to the shows debut, Jimmie wrote more than two dozen songs, many of which, like The Mickey Mouse Club March and Today is Tuesday, have become iconic. His one air presence reassured parents and kids alike and his mini sermons, which became known as Doddisms, not only helped shape the kids playing the Mouseketeers into more professional actors, but inspired a whole generation of kids around the world to be better citizens.

Image copyright Disney

When The Mickey Mouse Club ended its run in 1958, Jimmie’s official contract with the studio also came to an end, but his involvement did not. With a select group of Mouseketeers, he would tour the United States making personal appearances for throngs of adoring fans. When the show was released and became a big hit in Australia, Jimmie and some of the kids made two tours of the Land Down Under in 1959 and 1960. And he continued to record promotional material and make appearances for the studio throughout the beginning of the Sixties as Disney launched a syndicated version of the show.

By 1964, Jimmie and his wife had relocated to Hawaii and were busy creating a new children’s show for television, Jimmie Dodd’s Aloha Time, but it would never make it to the air. He became gravely ill during preproduction and passed away in Honolulu on November 10, 1964, reportedly from cancer (although some sources claim it was his weak heart finally giving out). The Head Mouseketeer was only 54.