What Were They Thinking? - Light Magic at Disneyland

Well, it's April Fool's Day and unlike some of my past April Fool's Day posts, this one is not a joke. It is however, something that some of us WISH had been a joke....or just a bad dream!

"Light Magic" was the highly touted replacement for the beloved Main Street Electrical Parade at Disneyland. It started being "pushed" on us during the "Farewell Performances" of the Electrical Parade in 1996, when a special announcement right before every parade performance told us to, "Open the window to your dreams and see your wishes come true, when Light Magic makes it's journey to Disneyland in 1997. It's an exciting new street spectacular that will illuminate the night in the Magic Kingdom. We hope you will join us when the Light Magic celebration begins in 1997."

These fiber optic signs were posted above both train tunnels on Main Street during the farewell season of the Main Street Electrical Parade:

And then there was this sign hanging on the fence next to the exit of the Disneyland parking lot:

Light Magic-related construction began in early 1997 along the Small World Mall area. This nice, wide open view of the It's A Small World facade was eventually blocked by permanent lighting and sound towers that were erected for the new parade. Note the former Motor Boat Cruise lagoon (drained) on the far right.

A construction wall went up blocking off the entire roadway except for a narrow path on the far left, leading to Toontown.

And yet another sign, trying desperately to get people excited for the "spectacular journey" that was coming.

I guess this artwork on the construction wall was a little touch of foreshadowing. Pixies are coming to Disneyland! (An infestation of them!)

The section of the wall pictured above had two peek holes in it, but if you went a little further north, the wall ended and there were only tarps separating the guests from the construction. Below, is some video footage that I shot back in 1997 of the Small World Mall area under construction. In addition to the sound and light towers going up, a terraced viewing area on the east side of the parade route was being created and the souvenir stand/chalet over by the Matterhorn was also being built.





It's A Small World was closed, but guests could get a closer view of the construction from the Disneyland Railroad.

Eventually, the roadway was opened back up, but construction still continued in the area. The parade route that had previously consisted of slurry coated asphalt had been replaced with concrete to support the weight of the massive new parade units.

I hate to admit it, but we were actually suckered into paying $25 for an Annual Passholder "sneak preview" of Light Magic. This was the gate flyer being handed out that night.

Also for that $25 price, we were "given" the opportunity to purchase "exclusive" merchandise in advance, before the general public. In addition to the "dated" magnet seen at the top of this post, I also bought this "light-up" button BEFORE I actually saw the parade.

We had originally been very excited to see the new parade. After all, if they were getting rid of the Electrical Parade after 24 years, then this new parade must be something pretty incredible, right? WRONG! The parade was so inexplicably horrible. We were dumbfounded. How could anything so awful have been allowed to get past the concept stage and actually into the park? Who kept green-lighting it along the way?

I should also mention that in addition to the parade being just plain bad, the performance that night was also delayed because of technical problems. We waited and waited for it to start, only to have Paul Pressler come out and announce that what we were about to see wasn't a sneak preview of the completed parade after all, but a "dress rehearsal" and as with most dress rehearsals, there may be some "glitches." After several long and painful "false starts", the parade finally began, but it continued to have problems including one of the projection screens not working. There were only two screens, so half of the people watching missed that part of the show.

Well, after paying $25 just to see the parade before the general public, we felt like we had been majorly ripped off. I really wanted to go complain at City Hall, even though I had/have never gone in there to complain about anything in the park, no matter how warranted it might be. As we were walking through the park and heading towards the exit, we could hear everyone around us grumbling about how bad the parade was and how they couldn't believe that THAT was what was replacing the Electrical Parade! When we got to Town Square, we noticed a very long line out the doorway of City Hall and I thought, okay, I don't need to complain because there are plenty of other people doing it. Then, just as we were passing the front door, someone came running out waving money in their hand and announcing loudly "They're giving refunds.....CASH!!!!" We immediately got in line. The cast members were processing everyone through very quickly. They weren't even asking any questions, they were just handing money out to everyone in line.

To add insult to injury that night, guests were being given a sneak peek of the "New" Tomorrowland, which was under construction at the time. "Look, we're destroying Tomorrowland....get excited about it!"

The artwork below was on display in Tomorrowland and showed the layout of the upcoming Rocket Rods attraction. We all know the tragic ending that had, so I won't go into that here. Maybe that could be the subject of next year's April Fool's Day post!

This was a model showing what the exterior mural of the Innoventions building was going to look like when finished. That mural was actually painted over just about a year ago when the "Star Wars Launch Bay" moved into the building.

If you have stayed with me this far (thank you!), here is something morbidly fascinating that I captured on video. The footage below shows the Light Magic floats (or "rolling stages," as management preferred to call them) being driven through the park in broad daylight. Why is this being done did you ask? Well, it turns out that since the parade stopped for it's "street performances" in ONLY two places along the entire parade route, the walkways in those areas would be packed solid with people. And since the parade would begin up at It's A Small World, when it was finished performing back there, many of the guests that had just seen it would try to leave the park, only to get bogged down on Main St. where the parade was having it's second "show stop."

Management decided to remedy this, by having the parade start in Town Square. That way, it would be moving in the opposite direction of the guests that were trying to leave the park. Well, in order to do that, they had to get the floats/stages over to the parade start gate in Town Square. And rather than moving them in the early morning before the park opened, they did it in the late afternoon, just hours before the actual parade, and right in front of park guests! People would already be sitting along the parade route, saving a viewing spot for the parade. I remember cast members running around telling the confused guests that this wasn't the parade and that the actual parade would be in a few hours. Talk about "bad show." The whole thing was really quite unbelievable.





Light Magic ended up closing less than four months after it debuted. Park officials kept insisting that it would be reworked and return the following summer, but fortunately that did not happen!

If anyone is really curious and wants to check out some footage of the streetcrapular they called "Light Magic," here is a video. This isn't my footage, and I'm not even recommending that you watch it. I'm just including it here as a matter of convenience for anyone that did not catch it during it's short run and has nothing better to do with the next 20 minutes of their life. OR, you could just watch the first 30 seconds of the video, which includes the Light Magic television commercial, and be done with it after that!





When I started my blog nine years ago, I never in a million years thought that I would ever be doing a "Light Magic" post, but I had the photos, the videos, and the souvenirs, and thought it might be appropriate to post them all on April Fool's Day. So there you have it! And a happy April Fool's Day, to everyone!

*****POST UPDATE***** (May 2024)

I meant to include this unfavorable Los Angeles Times review of Light Magic, when I originally wrote this post.  Somehow I forgot and left it out, so here it is now.....seven years later!

Theme Park Update: Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm & Universal Studios

Well, it's time for another Disneyland Resort update, but today I will be including a brief Knott's Berry Farm and Universal Studios update as well.

The latest news from Disneyland is the big celebration that has been planned in honor of the 75th Anniversary of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." During the celebration, a special "Snow White Sandwich" (served on white bread, and with apple slices instead of fries) will be available at select restaurants throughout the park. To promote the special menu item, Snow White can be found in a new "meet 'n greet" over at Carnation Gardens along with Dopey and Grumpy, who will be wearing special costumes created just for the promotion.



And speaking of Snow White and food, Disney fans have been demanding that the new Carthay Circle Theater in Disney's California Adventure be a restaurant, but Disney said "No, we insist on making this recreation of the Carthay Circle Theater a tribute to our first feature-length animated film and the man behind it's creation, Walt Disney!"



So now, the latest plans are for an "E" ticket-quality dark ride to go into that space. Here's a sneak peek at the Audio-Animatronic figures currently being installed in the attraction.



Meanwhile, across the esplanade at Disneyland, Peter Pan's Flight recently had it's official last day of operation and is now being converted into "The Many Adventures of the Absent-Minded Professor."



The overhead track will stay in place, but brand new sets will be installed as a part of the attraction's re-theming. Replica's of Professor Brainard's Model-T will also be replacing the old pirate ship ride vehicles.



Instead of flying over London, the new vehicles will now fly over a miniature version of Washington D.C.



The Audio-Animatronic figures of Fred MacMurray and his faithful canine companion are going to be state-of-the-art.



Let's jump back over to Disney's California Adventure. I forgot to mention the new exhibit in the Blue Sky Cellar. Exit surveys have been showing that guests are not very excited about the "Lush New Park Planned Just For YOU!" that was going to replace the Maliboomer.



So management has decided to rebuild the Maliboomer in it's former Paradise Pier location. This time however, it will have just one tower instead of three, but that single tower is going to be five times taller than it's predecessor. The new attraction will be called, "Fun Mickey's Fun Tower of Fun." A model of the reworked attraction is currently on display in the Blue Sky Cellar exhibit.



Now we will venture up north to Universal Studios Hollywood. Based on their exit surveys, which were showing just how much the old King Kong Audio-Animatronic has been missed by guests, they have decided to replace the newer 3-D projection of Kong with another giant-sized Audio-Animatronic figure. This new A.A. figure will also be state-of-the-art and is currently being constructed off-site. Work is expected to be completed soon and they are hoping for a mid-summer opening date.



And last but not least, over in Buena Park....Knott's Berry Farm has just announced the closing of their recently reopened "Sky Cabin," but the good news is, they are bringing back the old "Sky Jump" parachute attraction. This time around, instead of standing up in open-air baskets, riders will be seated in enclosed gingerbread houses that hold up to four people. This is part of a plan to give the Boardwalk section at Knott's a new "Nursery Rhyme" theme. The new name for the area has not yet been announced, but it will include a brand new dark ride, "Knott's Fair-y Tales" which will go into the old Kingdom of the Dinosaurs space. The area will also feature new versions of old favorites such as, "Jack and Jill's Perilous Plunge" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf's Supreme Scream."



Well, that concludes this special "April 1st" theme park update. Happy April Fool's Day, everyone!

Mickey Mouse Leaves Disneyland for Camp Snoopy!

I'm not feeling too creative today, so I have decided not to do an "April 1st" Disneyland Trip Report post as I have the past two years. Instead, I'm posting this "Knott A Berry Vine" from April 1, 1988 which was a parody of the Knott's Berry Farm employee publication, "The Berry Vine." Enjoy!

Disneyland Trip Report

Hey everyone, I just got back from Disneyland! Here's a quick trip report on a few of the changes that had taken place since my last visit.

I was surprised to find out that Star Tours had closed....for good. At first I thought it was just for the installation of the long rumored new film and special effects, but it turns out that a decision was made to just close it permanently and convert the queue into a clothing store. An cast member also informed me, that "brown" is going to become the primary color of Tomorrowland once again.

Over in Critter Country, I noticed they were using redesigned ride vehicles for Splash Mt. The new logs now hold only three people at a time. Unfortunately, this change has cut down ride capacity quite a bit.

In Fantasyland, the characters from the soon to be released animated film, "The Princess and the Pickle" were greeting guests. That's Susie Sandwich there on the right. She's the princess' sidekick in the film, at least until.....SPOILER ALERT!.....she gets eaten by the evil Pickle King.

Disneyland Trip Report

Today, we are at Disneyland in Anaheim. Walt Disney once said that Disneyland would never be completed....and to this day, the company strives to uphold this wish. Yes, Disneyland is always changing and growing, and it only seems to get better and better. Since I had not been to the park for quite some time, I figured it was time to grab my camera and head on over there to check things out. Here are some of the recent changes that had been made to the park, as well as some of the future projects that were under construction.


Since Fantasyland had not undergone any kind of major renovation since 1983, I guess it was time to update it and give it a fresh new look. After the success of the Sleeping Beauty Castle walk-thru, the company has decided that there will be many more "walk-thru" type attractions in the future. Of course, we know that these also cost much less to build than an actual "ride." The first entirely new attraction of this type to open, is the Three Little Pigs walk-thru. Management however, decided to use only one of the pigs in this attraction, citing that it would be too costly to include the other two. They have chosen Practical Pig and designed the show building to resemble his house made of bricks. Note the Big Bad Wolf on the roof in the photo below.


Overhead is the new Peter Pan's Flight. The company also decided that it was too costly to keep up with the interior and exterior maintenance of this aging dark ride, so they eliminated all of the interior sets.....and removed the exterior walls too! They figured that this will also satisfy all of the fans that complain about missing the Skyway attraction. Now once again, guests can get a bird's eye view of Fantasyland.....as well as Tomorrowland! The attraction has been extended in length and renamed Peter Pan's Flight to Tomorrowland...unless you board it in Tomorrowland and then it is called Peter Pan's Flight to Fantasyland. Of course, these are both "one way" trips only. And management will no longer have to worry about people being able to see the rooftops of the Fantasyland darkrides, because eventually all of their rooftops will be removed.... along with their walls too!

Disney recently announced that Walt Disney World's Hall of Presidents attraction will be permanently closing due to the high cost of staffing and maintaining it. Unfortunately the new Barrack Obama figure had already been completed and was just about to be installed when this announcement was made. Fortunately for Disneyland however, the figure has been sent to Anaheim along with the other 43 presidential audio-animatronic figures, where they are now being installed in pairs, at the bow of each Peter Pan ride vehicle. The photo below shows the first completed vehicle featuring both Obama and former president Bush. Of course these figures will no longer be audio-animatronic. They are the first of a new generation of figures called non-audio-statics.

Last up for today, is a shot of the newly extended Peter Pan attraction going over the redesigned Tomorrowland Autopia. In the background is the "Matterhorn Lofts" construction. It seems that Disney has never been happy about the exorbitant cost of maintaining the Matterhorn attraction. That, coupled with the recent success of the Disney Dream Suite, led management to ask themselves why they should allow only a select few to spend the night inside the park and most importantly, why they should let them do it for free. So they came up with the idea of converting the Matterhorn into lofts and letting guests pay for the privilege of spending the night in the park. It's a brilliant marketing idea, really.

Well, that's it for this trip report. Who knows what you'll find on YOUR next visit to the park. I hear they have plans for replacing the Haunted Mansion with a 3-D movie about a Haunted Manison. Sounds like fun!

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Happy April Fool's Day everyone!