As children, Mickey and his siblings contributed to the family finances by entering amateur musical contests in the neighborhood theaters and bringing the prize money home to their parents.

[1] Fresh out of high school, Katz landed a gig playing clarinet and sax for Phil Spitalny and went on a road tour with his band.

He finally ran into Ed Fishman, whom he knew from Cleveland and who helped him find a job playing in Howard Phillips' orchestra at the Manger Hotel.

A spot for a clarinet and sax player had recently opened up in Maurice Spitalny's band at the Loew's State Theater, and Spector had recommended Katz.

Katz moved back to Cleveland with Grace and played with Spitalny until the leader left Loew's Theater in 1932.

He was subsequently drafted, but was classified 4-F classification by the Selective Service System and released from his military obligation after failing his preinduction physical.

Then, in 1945, he took his six-man comedy and band group (Mickey Katz and His Krazy Kittens) on a USO tour of Europe with movie star Betty Hutton.

Katz played with Jones for more than a year, taking over the unique role of “glugger” from Carl Grayson (providing musical throat “glugs”).

He quickly wrote another song for the flip side, "Yiddish Square Dance", and had his friend Al Sack sketch out the melody for it and set "Haim afen Range" to music as well.

In "The Yiddish are coming", writer Josh Kun sums up the atmosphere of the time with the following: "As historian Howard Sachar has noted, the prevailing attitude after World War II was a fear that anything that promoted a 'separate identity as Jews ... would somehow lend credence to Hitler's racial theories.

In 1948, Katz produced the English-Yiddish stage revue Borscht Capades, co-starring with his son Joel Grey.

From 1951 to 1956, Katz operated as a disc jockey for the Los Angeles radio station KABC while going on occasional road tours and playing engagements at the Bandbox nightclub.

Unfortunately for Katz, the booking office that hired him was determined to make as much money out of him as possible, and he ended up with a packed schedule, playing "anything north of Atlantic City.

"[1] In 1961, Katz went on a tour of South Africa, playing in cities including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Benoni, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria, and Muizenberg.

[6] Katz and his group can be seen in the movie Thoroughly Modern Millie accompanying Julie Andrews as she sings a Yiddish song at a Jewish wedding.

Katz supplied the voice of the character Hop-a-Long Catskill on the Beany and Cecil cartoon series on ABC-TV in 1962.

His songs have been compiled onto CDs, including Mish Mosh, The Most Mishige, Mickey Katz Greatest Shticks, and Simcha Time: Music for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, and Brisses.

Katz played with many musicians throughout the years, but he initially performed his parodies with Mannie Klein on trumpet, Sammy Weiss on drums, Benny Gill on violin, Si Zentner on trombone, and Wally Wechsler on piano.