Disney comes to town

The Playhouse Disney Channel came to Christchurch yesterday to film preschoolers at Ferrymead Fundamentals showing off their meeska, mooska, Mickey Mouse moves.

The television crew from Australia were in New Zealand to film kiwi kids dancing to the Hot Dog song, as featured on the network’s Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show.

Fundamentals’ supervisor Kylie Granger said at first the staff didn’t know the Hot Dog song, but “all the children would sing it”.

After the Playhouse Disney team emailed Fundamentals saying that they would be filming in Christchurch, Granger gave them a call.

“We wanted to jump on that bandwagon. The kid’s really love the song. It’s very catchy.

“We have been practising and the children are very excited about being on TV,” she said.

Shadae Dempsey, one of the 23 excited preschoolers, is a fan of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and said her favourite character was Minnie Mouse because “she [wears] pink”.

The Hot Dog dance is featured at the end of each show and the lyrics echo Mickey’s first spoken words from the 1929 short The Karnival Kid, where Mickey sold hotdogs at a carnival.

Granger said she was a fan of Mickey’s growing up and even now he’s 81-years-old, the big-eared mouse is still popular with the younger generation.

The footage will air on the Playhouse Disney channel from the end of September.

- © Fairfax NZ News