It’s been an odd time watching them grow older. 

There was a time when I was a writer on a show called the Mickey Mouse Club for the Disney Channel.  It was a fun two years (luckily no writer’s strikes during them) and people were always amazed when I talked about how amazing the Mouseketeers really were.  I thought they had tremendous talent, but I had no idea they would go on to what they went on to.  A quick run through some of the better known ones: Keri Russell, Ryan Gosling, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Britney Spears.  (Let me tell you, the others were just as good.)  Amazingly I always got the impression the show was cancelled because the network didn’t think the kids had enough talent.

These kids (and to me they will always be kids) have gone on to become extremely rich and famous adults, but they live in my memory as tweens and teens.  My office was the closest one to the school where they all went for tutoring.  As a result sometimes they would plop down as they waited for their class to begin and talk.  The thing that struck me was how normal they all seemed.  They had the same problems and hopes as all of the kids their age.  But they also had something else - fame.  I’ll never forget how sad they seemed at our final wrap party.  (Christina sticks out particularly.)  I sensed that the thing that some of them were most worried about was losing that fame or that chance to demonstrate what made them special.

Now, when we see them on television and I talk about them with my son (who wishes he had been born a couple of years earlier so that he could have known them), I stress the importance of talent.  Not show biz talent - any talent whether it’s singing, dancing, calculus or writing.  And I stress the importance of being happy with yourself.  That’s what has carried some.  (You couldn’t help but know that Christina was going to be a star the first time you heard her sing.)  I tell him that if you use your talent and you’re happy with yourself, you will find real success.  But I also stress the danger of fame.  (After all, isn’t fame just a broadband version of popularity.) 

I think it is the most dangerous drug of all.

Being well liked and loved is incredibly addictive - whether it’s to viewers of a television show, fans at a rock concert or classmates in a high school.  But, like a drug, that high is only temporary.  There will always be another singer, another actor, another star.  And when that drug passes, it makes it so easy to fall prey to the more garden variety drugs that don’t care whether you’re a multi-millionaire or just a high school sophomore.

Just as I never imagined seeing this kids do so well, I also never imagined seeing one of them so publicly wheeled out of her mansion and placed in an ambulance with photographers craning to get every last shot.  For most people, it’s just another chapter in a very public saga.  But for some of us, it’s a heartbreaking moment for a girl we knew as a sweet eleven year old.  I’m sure she is still that same girl.  It’s just so sad to see what all of the addictions have done to her. 

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  Posted by: James Ponti