One Man's Trash: Vintage Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Pull String Toys

Have I got a blast from the past for you!!  Actually two of them.  My favorite father-in-law sent me home with these vintage Chatter Chum Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck pull string toys a couple weeks ago, and it was like taking a walk down memory lane.  He bought them while out rummaging around recently and wondered if we would want them for our vintage toy collection.  

They are both from the Mattel company and dated 1976, which makes these prize toys 42 years young this year.  Amazingly, they both still work.  They just needed a little cleaning, but now that that's all done, these beauties are back in business. 

Here's a look at some of the details from Mickey Mouse.  Made in Hong Kong, 1976, by the Mattel Toy Company.

And on the inside of his ear, he is labeled "Walt Disney Productions", which would have dated this toy to somewhere between 1940-1986, if he had not been otherwise dated.  In 1986, Walt Disney Productions officially changed its name to The Walt Disney Company, as it operates today.

As I mentioned, both toys are in great shape and still work well.  It appears that the more you pull on their pull strings, the more they have to say.  In some cases, pulling the string out to different lengths appears to generate different phrases.

The Mickey Mouse toy says:

• See you real soon. 
• Here I am, Mickey Mouse. 
• That tickles...  Hahaha!
• How 'bout some cheese, please?
• Mouseketeers have big ears.
• M-I-C-K-E-Y
• Oh, boy! Hahaha!
• Are you a Mouseketeer too?

The Donald Duck toy says: 

• Sneezes (achoooooo!)
• Hello, hello!  Hahaha!
• I'm Donald Duck!
• Oh, boy!
• Uh oh! Hahaha!
• Oh my goodness!

What my father-in-law didn't know when he gave these to me is that I have a special connection to one of these toys.  I actually had the Mickey Mouse pull string toy when I was a little girl.  I remember it well.  I played with it all the time, and I still remembered a lot of the little phrases that Mickey said.  In fact, Harris Sister Donna and I both had one of these, so there were actually two of these in our household way back when.

And wouldn't you know, we have a picture of the two of us with our Mickey Mouse toys, taken on our second birthday.  Here we are with our Mickeys.   That's me, Deanna, on the left, and Donna on the right. 

All I can say is - It's a small world after all.  It's a small world after all.  It's a small world after all.  It's a small, small world.