August 20, 2026·Always In The Club Foundation
Ryan Put the Jacket Back On
Ryan Gosling wore a retro Mickey Mouse Club jacket onstage at D23 and told 14,000 people that Disney changed his life. Here's the fuller story of what that opportunity, training, and mentorship was like, and how Always In The Club carries it all forward for a new generation of young artists.
Ryan Gosling at D23, back in a Mickey Mouse Club jacket.
If you were anywhere near your phone last Friday night, you saw it.
Ryan Gosling walked onto the Disney Entertainment Showcase stage at D23 in front of 14,000 people wearing a retro Mickey Mouse Club jacket. Director Shawn Levy had just played a clip of him as a teenager on the show. Then Ryan came out dressed like it was 1993.
"I owe a lot to Disney. Had they not looked far and wide and come to my hometown, I would not be here today. And now here I am 30 years later, I'm back and it's changing my life again."
Our inbox has not been quiet since.
Why that line landed the way it did
Disney did look far and wide. Between 1989 and 1996 the All-New Mickey Mouse Club held open calls across the country, pulled kids out of gymnasiums and community theaters, and put them into a working television production in Orlando with acting coaches, vocal coaches, choreographers, tutors, and a shooting schedule that would wear out most adults.
Some of those kids became household names. Most of them did not, and their experience inside that building is just as much a part of what happened there.
That is the part almost nobody has told. Until now.
The full story is on the record
Always In The Club: The True Story of the All-New Mickey Mouse Club is built from interviews with more than 60 members of the cast, crew, and former executives. Three volumes covering how Disney found them, how the training actually worked, what a day on that soundstage looked like, and what happened after the cameras stopped.
It also covers something people do not expect from a kids' variety show in 1991: the adults on that production paid attention to these kids as people, not just performers. The education. The discipline. The support when the schedule got heavy. The question of who these kids were going to be after the show ended.
That is the part that eventually became a foundation.
Which brings us to now
Cast members who came up through that system reunited and built Always In The Club Foundation around a straightforward idea. What changed their lives was the commitment the adults made to them.
So AITCF runs mentorship, coaching, and experiential learning programs pairing young people with working professionals, with attention to mental health alongside craft.
More than 3,500 students have worked with our mentors. Some have gone on to star in feature films and television, sign with Disney, Capitol Records, and Universal Music Group, and have performed on stages from Coachella to Good Morning America.
About the book
The Limited Edition books sold out to this community. A waiting list is open for print overstock or a potential second edition, and a Trade Edition for general release is forthcoming.
You can find all of it at mickeymouseclubreunion.com/the-book.
Read the full announcement
We sent the whole story out to media this week. If you want the version that went to the press, or you want something to share with a reporter, a podcast, or a friend who does not know any of this yet, here it is.
Thanks for being here. This community is the reason the book exists at all.
Team Always In The Club
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