Go ahead. Call Pauline Ritthaler Grumpy. She doesn’t mind. She may even introduce her husband, Dopey.
Grumpy and Dopey (otherwise known as Richard) share their Bolingbrook home with Snow White, Bambi and Pinocchio. The couple, who earned their Disney nicknames after masquerading for a party, also live with Peter Pan, Dumbo, Cinderella and a vast array of other Disney characters. And, of course, Mickey and Minnie Mouse appear in almost every room in one form or another.
Visit the Ritthalers’ kitchen and discover a Mickey Mouse teapot on the stove beside a rack of Mickey Mouse mugs. One wall displays dozens of Disney salt and pepper shakers. There’s a Mickey popcorn popper and a Mickey cookie jar. Even the family’s dogs eat from Minnie and Mickey bowls set on Pluto placemats. And that’s just the kitchen.
This cozy suburban home may not quite be Disney World, but it’s close. Pauline, president of the Naperville-based That Magical Mouse Collector’s Club, has been a Disney collector for nearly 18 years. But she has been a Disney fan for almost as long as she can remember.
“I’m at that prime age where, when I came home from school (as a girl), I lived with the Mouseketeers,” explained Pauline, after offering a guest some Mickey-shaped candies from a Disney-decorated jar. “The Mouseketeers were my baby-sitters, my attraction. Now it’s like reliving childhood memories and not being embarrassed to express them.”
No wonder other corners of the house boast a Mickey toothbrush holder and coordinating bathroom accessories. A Mickey Mouse mouse rests near the household computer. Even the garden holds a Snow White wishing well and
about a dozen concrete Disney figures. Pauline has even found flower seeds packed in a Mickey-decorated pouch.
At the Lisle office of the National Credit Union, Pauline’s screen saver is a Lion King design. And dress-down Fridays at her job always find Pauline clad in Disney garb such as a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt.
Pauline estimates a collection of more than 1,000 Disney items, although the question of how many clearly stumps her. Count every Disney trading card, McDonald’s Disney Happy Meal toy, Christmas ornament, decorative pin, plush character and her Disney Classics Collection porcelain pieces, and the tally is no doubt higher. And adding Richard’s Disney train set collection and Disney rugs he has hooked only expands that total.
Many would expect this house full of toys also to be full of kids. But not so. “It was probably after our kids were grown that we started going to Disney World more regularly. That’s the time to go,” Pauline explained. “You’ve seen the kids who are screaming and tired by noon? The aggravation of strollers? That is no fun and no way to enjoy the park.”
Instead, Pauline and Richard began their forays to the Magic Kingdom with their teenage sons and foreign exchange students the family frequently hosted. “We started picking things up when we went to Disney World the first time in 1980,” Pauline said.
Some 30 trips later, the couple has learned some practical tips. “We pack suitcases in our suitcases,” Pauline explained, laughing. “That happened after one year when we had to unpack our suitcase at the airport because it was too heavy.”
And the pace has picked up in recent years. In September, the Ritthalers’ Florida-bound luggage included three empty soft-sided bags. On the way home, the cases were chock-full of Disney merchandise for themselves and club members.
Those club members now total about 50 and hail from places as far flung as New York, Texas and Arizona. Pauline launched That Magical Mouse Collector’s Club five years ago, inspired by the introduction of the Classics Collection figures.
“I felt that people need to know what they have. Especially today when there are too many people out there to take advantage of you,” said Pauline, the club’s first and only president. “If you’re going to collect — no matter what it is — you need to be knowledgeable.”
Pauline learned that lesson several years back. Already an avid collector of many non-Disney things, Pauline had amassed about $500 worth of miniature Christmas houses. “But I had gotten tired of packing and unpacking them so I tried to sell them,” Pauline recalled. “I was willing to take $300, but I couldn’t find a buyer. I was just going to let them sit and collect dust.”
That was until she went to a collector’s show that grabbed her attention quicker than Tinker Bell can flutter her fairy wings. At that Indiana show, Pauline saw slides of the soon-to-premiere porcelain Disney Classics Collection.
“That kind of got me hooked,” she said. Perhaps even more significant, she found a potential buyer for those dust-gathering houses.
“I decided if I sold the houses, I’d turn around and put the money toward something new,” Pauline recalled. “Then I went home and sold my houses for $9,000.”
Stunned at the value of her collection, Pauline took that lesson to heart. “I was just flabbergasted at the time,” she said. “I could’ve gotten taken very badly. That’s why I say that collectors need to have a source of information.”
Within a year, Pauline was building just such a resource network. She began seeking Disney Classics collectors who would fill that role for one another. With the sponsorship of the International House Gift Shop in Naperville, and later Naperville’s Tick Tock Gift Shop, the club took off. Pauline continues to produce the club’s newsletter as well.
“These club members are real enthusiastic about Disney collecting in general, and that really comes across,” noted Glenn Zdziarski, who managed the International House Gift Shop in Naperville at the time the club started. (He now manages the Orland Park location.) “Pauline is a real go-getter. She puts a lot of work into it and goes all out for the club.”
Meetings every other month bring together members who share a collector’s interest in not only the Disney Classics Collection but also for nearly anything Disney. Some members may focus on Disney watches, others perhaps on a specific Disney character or on miniatures of Disney castles and buildings.
“But we’ve got one thing in common,” Richard added. “We’re all Disney fanatics.”
Of primary interest are the Disney Classics, which range in price from about $55 to $800 per item when they first come on the market, according to Zdziarski. An average piece sells for about $150.
On the secondary market, some of the figures have skyrocketed in price. One dramatic example: A field mouse piece with a crystal dew drop sold originally for $195 five years ago and now goes for $1,400.
“It started out where not too many people knew about the Classics, but then it went into full swing and everybody was jumping on the bandwagon,” said Zdziarski, who has become a collector himself. “It’s one of our top selling lines.”
In addition to updates on the Classics Collection, club members have met experts on Disney model trains, an author who discussed the making of Snow White and even Walt Disney himself on a 33-year-old video. Seasonal parties, special events and outings are also planned throughout the year. (At this year’s summer picnic, for instance, members danced the “Mickeyrana,” their Disneyfied version of the Macarena.)
Even if they can’t attend meetings and special outings, out of town members keep in touch through the newsletter, which comes out every other month. Each issue includes news on the latest Disney offerings and features like Disney trivia, upcoming events and a buy-sell-trade section.
Members Sandy and Alan Sadwin of New York contribute Big Apple news. Although the couple has never attended a Naperville meeting, they have joined club members at Disney conventions in Orlando.
“We get their newsletter and read it cover to cover. We’re always learning things from it,” Sandy said from her Long Island home. “Pauline has a deep love and respect for Disney, the stories and product line. If it weren’t for her, this club would have fallen apart years ago. It’s beyond me how she finds the time.”
Time is even more of a premium in the last few months since Pauline took a part-time job at the most fitting of places: Fox Valley Shopping Center’s Disney Store. There she supplements her income, and her knowledge, selling Disney merchandise.
And if being surrounded by Disney at home and at her part-time job isn’t enough, Pauline gets another dose at yearly extravaganzas known as Disneyana Conventions. This fall’s meeting at Florida’s Walt Disney World was Pauline’s fifth.
To identify club members from the other 1,800 “convention-ears,” Pauline and Richard tackle another Disney-related feat. They annually design and embroider club jackets, T-shirts and tote bags as gifts for the half-dozen That Magical Mouse Collector’s Club members who usually attend. A week of design work and then another two hours of embroidery work go into each item.
But that’s nothing compared to Pauline’s effort to create her own sequined jacket two years ago. For nine months, Pauline labored over thousands of tiny sequins on a jacket of her own design. She hand-sewed the piece, struggling with nearly invisible thread. When finished, the resplendent jacket included images of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Donald and Daisy Duck and drew compliments from collectors and celebrity guests at the 1995 convention.
In some small way, every stitch she put into making it and each sparkle it creates reflect Pauline’s childhood love. “Even one of the Mouseketeers asked where she could get one,” Pauline said with a smile.
Seems that praise from a former Mouseketeer to a lifelong Mickey Mouse Club fan was enough to turn even Grumpy into Happy.
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For information, contact That Magical Mouse Collector’s Club at Box 3003, Naperville, Ill. 60566.
