SHOWS FOR YOUNGSTERS AND THEIR PARENTS TOO : M-I-C-K-E-Y, G-R-O-W-N--Mouse Club members begin their final season

As the Disney Channel’s long-running “The Mickey Mouse Club” begins its seventh--and final--season, it officially becomes MMC.

The name change came about as the result of a new set and new format. “With the new season, we’re not ‘Mouseketeers’ anymore, just ‘cast members,’ ” says Marc Worden, 18, who’s been with the show for five seasons.

“After seven years, we’ve all put in a lot of work,” he says. “ It seemed like a nice way to end the run--the cast has really grown up and that’s pretty much it. We wanted to end on a high note.”

When it began in 1989, the Disney Channel’s “The Mickey Mouse Club” followed in the footsteps of its inspiration, the original show, which aired from 1955 to 1959 on ABC. (Another incarnation, “The New Mickey Mouse Club,” had a brief 1977-78 run in syndication.)

Like its ‘50s predecessor, “We had ‘Music Day’ on Mondays, ‘Guest Day’ on Tuesdays, ‘Anything Can Happen Day’ on Wednesdays and that kind of thing,” Worden says. “Eventually, we dropped that and the format began to change.

“We weren’t trying to reproduce the orignal show, just the feeling of it,” he adds. Since the show’s debut on Disney’s cable channel in 1989, 35 Mousekeeters have graced the screen. The new season offers 21 cast members, including three who’ve been with the Disney show since the first season: Josh Ackerman, 17; Lindsey Alley, 16, and Jennifer McGill, 17.

Although there’s been some turnover of Mouseketeers, “it wasn’t intended that way,” says Worden. “A bunch left to form (the musical group) The Party, and they went on to tour the world. Others went on to pursue other projects, leaving spaces to be filled.” (Keri Russell starred opposite Dudley Moore in the failed CBS sitcom “Daddy’s Girls,” in a Bon Jovi video and in an upcoming pilot.)

Other “MMC” changes this season include the audience being placed in the center of the set in the Disney/MGM Studios in Orlando, Fla.. Their seats revolve so they can catch the action all around them.

“We actually have enough episodes for two seasons,” says a spokesperson of the 44 shows shot. Production, however, has stopped.

“We’re doing a lot more comedy and a lot more musical numbers this season,” says Worden, who moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career when “MMC” shooting ended last November. Worden attributes the show’s popularity to “the updated feeling. We were just having a half-hour of fun, something that after school kids can escape into their TV for some comedy and music and guest stars.”

“MMC” airs Thursdays at 5:30 p.m., with repeats of “The Mickey Mouse Club” beginning May 8 on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. on the Disney Channel. For ages 4 and up.

Another Family Show

Nick Jr. adds the animated Papa Beaver’s Storytime (weekdays 12:30 p.m. Nickelodeon) to its lineup on Monday. With origins in France, the stories incorporate familiar stories with other fairy tales and folk tales. The life cycles of a raindrop and a dragonfly are among those told by Papa Beaver to his three grandchildren. Episodes originally aired in French in 1992 on both Canadian and French television.

“What makes this show special is its simplicity,” says Cassandra Schafhausen of Cinar, co-producers and distributors of “Papa Beaver,” from her Montreal office. “Each one of the stories is a very basic human principle or value that’s laid out in an accessible way, without being preachy. It’s just purely entertaining, just like little kids have sat at their grandparents’ knees listening to stories forever.” For ages 2 to 6.