Disney+ Uploaded a 1977 Disney World Special—Complete with Commercials

Summer is a time for theme park adventures—unless all your summer fun is completely ravaged by a global pandemic (wear a mask, people). The hottest months of 2020 have flown by, just another assortment of random days in a seemingly never-ending stretch of time where the only attractions to visit are Couch Mountain, The World of Pantry Cabinets, and bumper cars (a.k.a. ramming your home office chair into other pieces of furniture… for fun?). How many Disney vacays were cancelled because of coronavirus? Too many—which is why Disney+’s The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World is a must-stream event this summer. Not only does it take you out of your home, it takes you out of this century.

This special is far from new, although it did just sneak its way onto Disney+ last month. The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World originally aired on November 20, 1977 as an installment in Disney’s Sunday night series The Magical World of Disney. And the special’s Disney+ presentation makes you keenly aware of its TV roots, because The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World includes all the commercials from the special’s original 1977 broadcast. You want to leave 2020 behind? You can live firmly in the era of Jimmy Carter and disco and Star Wars and Three’s Company for one hour thanks to this legit blast from the past.

How did this happen? How was a seldom-seen special uploaded to a major platform like Disney+, complete with VHS tape hiccups and the original commercials intact? We truly have no idea. It’s kinda like how a VHS-transfer of Paul Lynde’s infamous 1976 Halloween special is just hanging out on Amazon Prime Video, inexplicably. But this is Disney+! The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World feels like it was dusted off from an employee’s personal, childhood VHS collection and uploaded to one of the biggest streaming platforms in existence just because. It feels like it shouldn’t be there—and that’s part of the magic.

The special itself is exactly as wild and watchably unwatchable as you expect from an hourlong Disney World infomercial disguised as a Mouseketeers TV special. It stars the mostly forgotten 1977 iteration of the Mickey Mouse Club cast, which inclues Facts of Life star and Survivor: Philippines runner-up Lisa Whelchel.

The adults in the room were Ronnie Schell—who has a vibe I would describe as “Paul Lynde, but straight”—and Laugh-In star Jo Anne Worley (you know, from Nina West’s Snatch Game). The plot is bare bones so as to not overshadow the special’s main attraction: Walt Disney World…’s tennis courts, dress shop, camp grounds, and hotel rooms?

For a special advertising the magic of Disney, there’s actually very little Disney magic to be seen! The only costumed character in the whole hour is a polka-dancing Winnie the Pooh. Okay, new ride Space Mountain gets a big push and there is a whole segment at Disney’s River Country, which serves as a serene contrast to the calamity seen in HBO Max’s Class Action Park.

But all that’s beside the point, because what you really want to watch in 2020 are the commercial breaks. There’s a commercial for Shake ‘n Bake that may make your mouth water depending on how your quarantine meals are going. There’s a progressive ad for a Tonka toy van, starring a boy and a girl getting equal enjoyment out of the “pretend CB” and “carpet floor.” I personally enjoy the Coke promo set on a tugboat that uses a jingle that sounds like an ELO album track. There’s also an ad for a groundbreaking unique cooking system—which is just… a microwave with a rack in it?

Internet historians will also be fascinated by a Meow Mix commercial that proves humans have been taking great joy in ridiculous cat content long before the days of Keyboard Cat.

And—in a truly startling development—one commercial finally answers the streaming question we’ve all been asking: what is with the “+” in the name of every single streaming service’s name?

The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World has everything you need in these final days of a truly terrible summer. If you can’t get to a theme park—and that’s the case for 99% of you—then you can let this magical streaming oddity whisk you away, courtesy of DisneyPudding.

Stream The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World on Disney+