Mousegetar (Mattel / Carnival)

 

Mousegetar
Mattel / Carnival
1955 - 1998

Even if they aren't musically inclined themselves, one of the greatest things I think a parent can do is purchase toy instruments for their young children. Even if it doesn't develop into a passion for the real thing, getting exposed to these forms of creative outlets at a young age have nothing but benefits for children.

As a child, I had many plastic instruments before "graduating" to the real things and expanding from there. One such toy was the funtastic Mousegetar from Mattel and Carnival.

The original Mousegetar was built specially for Jimmie Dodd to use on the Mickey Mouse Club show. It was a four-string instrument, which Jimmie called a tenor guitar. It was based on this that Mattel first produced children's toy versions in 1955. Two different versions to be exact; The standard Mousegetar, and Mousegetar Jr. for toddler sized kids.

Not being a child of the fifties, I naturally didn't have the original versions shown above, nor the 1960's version below.

No, it wouldn't be until around 1980 that I would receive the Carnival brand version, originally released around 1978 / 1979. Based on the pictures I've been thumbing through as of late from Christmas's and birthdays of my childhood, it appears that I had the white version, and my brother received the brown one shown just below it.

Though i know I talked in a recent post about receiving the Muppet's Trap Drum Kit from my grandmother, in looking at pictures, it appears that this particular guitar came first in my life. In fact, I also apparently even received a smaller guitar a year before this one. However, in looking through pictures I can't tell what brand it was.

Carnival released quite a few iterations of the Mousegetar, and sadly, despite the numerous ones shown here, it's not all of them. I simply couldn't find the other two version I know of, one being a boxed version of the above guitar I had as a kid, and the other being a boxed version of the one below.

Truth be told, between the Mattel and Carnival brand ones, I don't honestly even know how many different styles have been released. Heck, there's even Canadian versions which are different from all of these USA released versions.

The last releases I know of where these two (above and below), released by Mattel around 1998. What's interesting to note is how both boxes contradict each other. One says it's the original based on the 1955 version, and the other says it's the original based on the 1957 release. Clearly, it's the same guitar, so I'm not too sure what happened here.

Having been released numerous times over the course of multiple decades, it's understandable that this guitar is not only readily available, but also somewhat affordable. Naturally, the older the model gets, the more expensive it gets, but you can still grab one of the latter releases loose for under ten bucks on a good day. Older ones with the box can garner around sixty dollars, but that's still not a terrible price for something released so long ago.

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