"Some things are irresistible...a ring-tailed rapscallion, a freckle-faced boy...and a summer warm with laughter," read the poster for Disney's Rascal (1969), starring Billy Mumy. The film is based on Sterling North's 1963 best-selling memoir Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era, in which he relates growing up in Wisconsin in 1917 with his pet raccoon. Rascal is rescued when Sterling's dog chases off a mother raccoon, with baby Rascal left behind. Sterling takes in the baby and raises him as a pet. Later, the boy finds himself alone for the summer when the housekeeper abandons him with only his dog and his raccoon for company. The book was later serialized in the Reader's Digest, and won the Newbery Honor in 1964, followed by the Young Reader's Choice Award and the Sequoyah Book Award in 1966. It was eventually translated into many languages.

Rascal was a Disney reunion, with most of the players having already appeared in other projects for the studio. Mumy had starred in Sammy, the Way-Out Seal (1962) and was familiar to audiences from his appearance in the sci-fi series, Lost in Space, but at 15, he was four years older than the 11-year-old Sterling of the novel, causing some fans to think he wasn't the right choice for the role. Also in the cast were Steve Forrest playing Mumy's dad (the first of two Disney films in which he would appear), Elsa Lanchester, who had appeared in Mary Poppins (1964), John Fiedler (best known as the voice of Piglet in Winnie the Pooh), Henry Jones, and Walter Pidgeon as the narrator. Director Norman Tokar was also a Disney vet, having helmed Big Red (1962). So was screenwriter Harold Swanton, who wrote Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Willie and the Yank: The Mosby Raiders (1967). Although the film was set in Wisconsin, Rascal was shot on the Disney lot in Burbank, California, as well as Golden Oak for exteriors. Mumy would later remember in an interview for Lost in Space Bi-Monthly magazine, that Rascal was "A typical Disney film, but it was really nice, well done."

When Rascal was released in the United State on June 11, 1969, it was met with tepid reviews. Most felt that it was overly sentimental (not surprising for the summer when Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon), and it was no great shakes at the box office. Like Mumy, Fred Lutz of The Toledo Blade wrote that the film was "another production utilizing the Disney formula. And, though it may not send adults to new peaks of cinematic appreciation, most children will probably enjoy it." This was the first film that legendary critic Gene Siskel (later of Siskel and Ebert fame) reviewed professionally. He gave it a thumbs down. Rascal later aired on The Wonderful World of Disney as a two-part special in 1973.

SOURCES:

http://www.gojefferson.com/rascal/index.html
http://lostinspace.wikia.com/wiki/Bill_Mumy_Interview
Lutz, Fred "Disney's Rascal: A Nature Story," The Toledo Blade 28 Aug 69
http://www.thedisneyfilms.com/2014/02/rascal-1969.html
The Internet Movie Database

By Lorraine LoBianco