Michael Monday: He Was Nice to Mice

Seeing the photos from the August 10, 1970, issue of Soul that I posted last week, made me think of all the photos I have of a young Michael Jackson, posing with his pet mice.

Michael was always an animal lover and mice were his earliest pets (although it probably didn't happen quite like it was depicted in The Jacksons: An American Dream). He seemed to love posing with them. There is a look of sheer joy on his face in this photo, where he is balancing no fewer than five mice on his shoulders.

A Look magazine feature from 1970 showed him playing with his mice and his baby sister, Janet.

It's hard to tell if Janet likes the mice as much as Michael, or just enjoys the undivided attention of her big brother.

This last photo is a snapshot that shows Michael in his bedroom with his mice in their cage. At first glance he looks like any ordinary 10-year-old boy showing off his pets, until you notice the stage costume hanging up to behind him, to his left.

Later he would move on to more exotic pets like boa constrictors, llamas, and, of course, the famous chimpanzee, Bubbles. But when he was ten, he was the original Mice Elf.