This column contains spoilers for the three Disneyland 60th Parade and Spectaculars. If you don’t want any surprises to be spoiled, do not read any further! I published Part One on Tuesday HERE. And read down to the bottom for some recent Disney news and events.
Imagineer Steven Davison, Executive, Parades and Spectaculars. had been up all night rehearsing, but showed a group of bloggers and other media types what he’s been working on for the 60th: two Spectaculars and one Parade That Is Also a Spectacular.
Davison started out by explaining that this celebration would be bigger than the 50th in scope and in scale. For example, “World of Color Celebrate!” is a new show from the ground up, not just adding something on the end of the current show. It tells the story of Walt Disney: Revolutionary, with his many firsts: sound in a cartoon, a full-length animated picture, all these things that we Disney fans already know so well.
Neil Patrick Harris hosts with Mickey Mouse, with all-new animation provided by Disney Feature Animation. There will be five segments, including an opening number fanfare, which no one had heard in over 60 years.
First, the show looks at Mickey Mouse and how he’s changed throughout the years. Of course, you have Steamboat Willie, who stirs up the waters of the lagoon, then Plane Crazy, then The Band Concert, complete with storm, followed by more of Mickey’s exploits, then – HUZZAH – New Mickey shorts! I love those! Of course, the Mickey segment is capped off by a huge tribute to Fantasia, considered by most to be Mickey’s greatest work.
Next, “Celebrate” explores Disney’s golden age of animation and beyond: There’s a Disney/Pixar montage which pays tribute to the art form that helped make Disneyland a reality, a big celebration of animation. “You’ve not seen anything like this.” Davison promised. It’s not like the World of Color show we Disney fans know (and mostly love).
Davison calls the next section The Big Wish: Disneyland. It looks at Walt’s biggest dreams: Opening day with Walt, people arriving at his new park, and what Disneyland means to all of us, from little kid to age 80 and beyond.
Next, Celebration for Years to Come, including a big montage tribute to Walt himself, lots of trains (thank you Steve!), and what inspired him to make his dreams reality. It ends with Neil Patrick Harris doing a great setup of Walt and how his dreams did come true. Did I also mention that there is lots of Walt in the show? Harris “interviews” Walt, asking him one final question. Walt’s response is breathtaking.
“That’s only four sections!” you’re saying. I know. I don’t think he went into the finale, or perhaps the beginning fanfare is in a separate section. Guess we’ll find out in a little over a month!
Nuts and bolts: Mickey is not fully animated yet, but Davison says it’s fun to watch it as a work in progress. Neil Patrick Harris is great, working through four days of green screen. There will be some cool fx, lots of light – more than ever before, including a new projection on the Fun Wheel, a giant new storytelling device. He also mentioned that some fans have been staying up late outside the parks to catch a glimpse of the programming, and that’s how the news about the Fun Wheel parts leaked early!
The entire show is underscored by John Debney, who is definitely Deep Disney. Not only will you recognize his music in Disney parks (the original Haunted Mansion Holiday, Phantom Manor Suite, and my all-time favorite, Spectromagic, for starters) and at the movies, but his dad Louis was Disney Legend material (and should be named as such), starting his career at age 14 as a paper boy outside the Disney studio. Walt discovered him and put him to work on Snow White and shorts like Two-Gun Mickey. He went on to produce Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro episodes, as well as the hard-to-find The Mouse Factory. Finally, and this is where I got goosebumps, he was coordinator for one more Disney television show…and now his son is scoring the spectacular based on the show.
Let’s move on to the fireworks. “Disneyland Forever” is what Davison calls “The Crazy Show” with “mega fireworks” but not trying to top what was there before, instead focusing on “telling the story in a more wild way” and figuring out how they can immerse guests into the story. The show’s central message is that Disneyland will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world, and uses projections on Main Street, on the castle, on the Matterhorn, it’s a small world and the Fantasmic screens. The stories will be painted in a unique way, with each area different, in a dazzling, fun way – we’ll have to go again and again to be able to catch the entire show. I have no problem with that; I’m sure most of you don’t, either. Any excuse to go to Walt’s Park, right?
There’s the usual fanfare, heralding a big opening, then Walt’s famous quote. You’re surrounded by orange groves, what was originally at the precise spot where you are standing. The oranges grow, and explode into pixie dust. At this point, Peter Pan shows up and challenges his cohort Tinker Bell to “show them how magical this Magic Kingdom can be!” The real, actual Tinker Bell shows up and flies around the castle while Pan interacts with her. Then the song written by Richard Sherman himself. It’s called “A Kiss Goodnight”, he says, because Walt said that the fireworks were a gift to his guests after a busy day at Disneyland, a “kiss goodnight”. Well done! I heard stuff about “Step into the magic, watch the story come to life, Come on and live the magic.” so I’m not sure if it’s the same song. It’s catchy, though.
Dick Van Dyke returned to record some new chants for “Step in Time”, and his Cockney accent is as outrageous as ever. I do love it so. I hope I get to meet him someday. I got to hear a snippet of the new recording, and it’s simply delightful. This, of course, leads into a fantastic Mary Poppins sequence, with the audience surrounded by beautiful kites. You’ll find Pixie Dust in floating lanterns for the Tangled Sequence, and we will most certainly “See the Light” – lots of it, in explosions. The projections will complement the fireworks.
Next, it will tone down to Enchanted Places with Winnie the Pooh, which starts out with childlike charm in the Hundred Acre Wood, then we’ll find ourselves surrounded by honeycomb, and then madness reigns as we’re surrounded by Heffalumps and Woozles! The “button” is a Heffalump sucking up all the colors and making everything disappear – but don’t worry, the sun is rising behind with castle (with pyro!), and all the animals of the savanna are coming to celebrate to “Circle of Life”. Africa turns to Asia as King Louie’s temple home becomes the setting, and there’s quite the jazzy rendition of “I Wanna Be Like You” that triggers a rainstorm, then a flood of waterfalls, and then we find ourselves “Under the Sea”. This is where the inflatable corals that appeared in some concept art come into play. Blue lasers fill the park, letting everyone know that they’re in King Triton’s Kingdom.
The Matterhorn begins to glow, and turns into the fabled Mount Wannahockaloogie, while the Tank Gang chant to encourage Nemo to swim through the “ring of fire”. Ashes fall from the top of the Mountain, which turn into snow, and the Matterhorn turns into Elsa’s Snow Palace. Let it Snow….on Main Street? Possibly, wait and see. I have to as well. And remember, you’re going to see different things at all of the projection areas. Davison promises a bigger orchestration for “the snow never bothered me anyway”.
It launches back to the orange trees, and we learn: “…as Walt Disney said, ‘Disneyland will never be complete’, as the future will show us, with enough imagination it will continue to build and grow on one enduring promise: that all who journey into its magical gates will feel forever young and the magic, as Walt assured us, will never end.” Tinker Bell reappears, “When you Wish Upon a Star” plays, everyone cries, then the theme song comes back and everyone cries some more, with the heat of almost 100 searchlights all over the park to evaporate all of those tears. We’ll see diamonds in the sky. and, probably, says Davison, call Alien ships.The gigantic finale caps off with Peter Pan saying: “Wow, just think, Disneyland is yours forever!” Goosebumps. Just WRITING this!
To learn about Paint the Night, everyone was escorted to the parade warehouse, passing through the third room, Cast Showcase, where Cast Members get their training on the anniversary offerings.
Davison said that it took many years to finally get to do this; he always wanted to do an Electrical Parade. Now, we’re finally getting a new Electrical Parade at Disneyland. (I’m a SpectroMagic gal myself, but I think even I can warm up to this one.) He talked about it’s wonderful legacy, how it started, what it grew into, and how it’s now a way over the top spectacle. The exact quote, for posterity: “Take the Electrical Parade and go WEEEOOOOH, how far can we push it, how integrated with technology can we make it?”
Mickey appears with his magical paintbrush, and there is pixie dust in the magical paint. I saw no sign of Oswald and his magical remote, which bums me out. I love Oswald and he’s really important to Disney history. But I digress: Tinker Bell has Pixie Dust going though a funnel on her float, followed by a huge drum; remember the big drum from the Main Street Electrical Parade? Well, that’s miniscule in comparison to what you are going to see. This thing is seriously huge.
Of course, being 40 years advanced, this parade will have more bells and whistles. Everything
communicates with everything else, like SpectroMagic but twenty plus years advanced from that. Everything talks to each other, and there’s lots of color flow. There’s more information, data-wise, than World of Color.
Peter Pan is in the Tinker Bell unit. Tink can change colors on guests, and is accompanied by dancing pixie dust fairies.
Next is the Monsters Inc, float, covered with doors that are actually hi-res video screens. It really grabs you, promises Davison, adding that it’s “playful and fun,” Music is integral with whatever is happening on the floats, they play with the music, which is an updated Baroque Hoedown (the music from the famous Electrical Parade), with different textures. Owl City’s song from Wreck it Ralph is perfect, it plays really well. There are songs from the films represented by each of the floats, all woven together into a tapestry of magical sound.
Next is Road Jam, with Lightning McQueen and Mack Truck, a phenomenal. feat, with 25,000+ lights, and a volumetric display that enables them to do 3D shapes and just “explode imagination”, there are DJs on the back and on the street the Car Crew sports sophisticated costumes.
Davison and his team spent lots of hours making everything really beautiful in lights, and it shows in the next unit, where they take it down a bit, “Under the Sea”, the unit is 25′ tall, with pieces of light hanging off it, Triton has a rear-projection face, something Tokyo is using as well for their new “Triton’s Concert” show; these are beautiful costumes of light, really unique things, and in the coral reefs you’ll also find Nemo and Marlin. There are some great new props, especially the jellyfish, 12′ wide and with a full range of motion.
The team found a way to paint light that no one’s doing right now.
Romance is next on the menu: Candlelight Dreams: Belle wears a long yellow dress that Davison says will make you cry. Panels on the gown tell her story in silhouette. There are also candlelight trailers, with Rapunzel, and Cinderella, all the floats flicker down to candlelight. Court dancers, follow, clad in color changing fiber optic costumes; it feels like a ballet coming to life.
The new-for-Disneyland-only unit is Frozen: It’s the tallest, featuring Elsa’s ice palace, which glows, and changes, the fantastic chandelier turns while beams of light shoot through it, Of course, Olaf makes an appearance, playing in the snow. The costumes are nothing short of exquisite, especially the fractal snow dancers.
Then, they turn it up a notch with Electric Rodeo: Toy Story’s Slinky dog is made of spinning discs. How fast are they spinning? Try 120 mph. Did he mention that he has a brilliant technology team? Buzz and Woody ride along, while Jessie and the Lasso Dancers are on street. These “smart lassos” are interactive – they actually remind me of the poi balls we used to play with when I was a kid in Hawaii.
The penultimate treat: Minnie, Donald and Goofy ride on light spheres to the Mickey Mouse March, while silhouettes play on the ball, followed by Mickey’s Lightastic Finale: over 17,000 lights are on that single piece to make it explode with light. (Davison said “explode” a LOT this night.) Secondary lights paint the audience throughout the parade, all while projecting things on to the buildings as well. Davison claims that they had to take lights down a notch, honestly. Mickey paints, and the color goes through whole float, like a far-updated version of the finale of SpectroMagic.
Steve Davison was finished and everyone was tired. It’s something that you have to experience in person, but Steve Davison explaining shows puts you exactly in the middle of what he’s describing. I’ve never experienced anything else like it. The unenviable task of following Davison fell to choreographer Tracy Halas, who held her own quite well, keeping everyone interested as she taught all present how spectaculars are put together and showing a few moments of the parade.
Questions followed with John McClintock (Disneyland’s Public Relations honcho) taking emcee duties: How many performers? About 80. Will there be show stops? NO. Everyone can enjoy it. How long is the parade? 30 minutes viewing time (if you’re standing somewhere, that’s the time you’re actually standing there watching the parade, not the time it takes the parade to progress from The Mad Hatter to it’s a small world.) Frozen is NOT the only show element that will be unique from the Hong Kong version – but it’s a surprise. There are more surprises on the way. The float animation was done by Dave Bozarth, Pixar and Eric Goldberg. All non-Pixar animation is HAND DRAWN.
This is what they were willing to share, and it’s actually quite a bit. I’m so looking forward to seeing all of this magic come to life in person. Thanks so much for all of the great feedback and questions on the Tuesday article. There were a lot of mixed opinions on what’s being offered for the 60th. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about the spectaculars in the comments below.
A QUICK NEWS UPDATE
I’ll have a news update for you on Tuesday, but there are a few items that I’d like to get out to you before then. The first is an interesting new campaign from D23. Then we have a couple of neat events for you.
When Did It Start For You?
As in, when did you fall in love with Disney? D23’s new “When Did It Start For You Campaign?” is a social experiment to find out the Why, Where, When and How of folks affinity for the mouse. Can you define the “moment” you became Disney obsessed?
EVENTS:
Let’s Go Hollywood For Walt!
I know I’ve already shared this once, but it’s important. I’m going to be there and have even offered my help with the event to ensure it’s a success. I hope I’ll see you there too:
The Walt Disney Birthplace is throwing a gala fundraiser at the famous Roosevelt Hotel (the site of the very first Academy Awards) on Friday, May 29, a mouse-ears’ throw away from Disney’s El Capitan Theater. Slated to appear are Paige O’Hara (Beauty and the Beast), Michael-Leon Wooley (The Princess and the Frog) and a few other performers, legends and other special guests (such as Disney legends Floyd Norman, Bob Gurr, and a whole slate of Disney’s brightest young Broadway stars). The evening includes cocktails, dinner and entertainment. The VIP package includes dinner with Paige O’Hara and a special signed keepsake. To learn more and/or buy tickets – you REALLY DO NOT want to miss this (especially what’s in the Silent Auction, that’s all I’m sayin’!) go to wdbspring.eventzilla.net for event info and tickets. It’s all for charity folks, but oh how fun it’s going to be!
