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Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Spectromagical host Jimmy Cricket.
Everybody at TPMvids wants to welcome you, to enjoy this look into SpectroMagic.
Hey thanks Jiminy!
It’s my pleasure.
You know, somehow Disney fantasy seems a little more alive at night.
In fact-
it was Walt’s favorite time at the park.
I was just gonna say that.
Well nighttime seems to be a lot of people’s favorite time at the park.
The Spectromagic Parade debuted at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney world on October 1st,
1991 and it was a nighttime offering that was not to be missed.
Our pal Jiminyy Cricket hosted the parade and it included all your favourite Disney
characters combined with lights, fibre optics, music and magic; it was truly a moving gallery
of lights synced with a movie musical score.
Everything you’d expect at a Disney Park.
It sure was!
So, come along with us to see the magical worlds of Disney
Thanks Jiminy, I got it from here!
But like he said, come along with us as we take a look at the History, the Rise and the
fall of SpectroMagic.
Number 10-Opening Day SpectroMagic debuted at the Magic Kingdom
on October 1st, 1991 created to celebrate the park’s 20th anniversary.
It replaced the Main Street Electrical parade that ran at Walt Disney World from 1977 until
1991.
It was also created so the Main Street Electrical Parade could be sent off to Disneyland Paris
which was set to open in 1992.
Now the story of SpectroMagic is quite simple.
The SpectroMen, are the keepers of the night who hold all the magic to the parade allowing
it to light up.
But these SpectroMen were afraid to come out at night until their pal, Mickey Mouse, asked
if they would help him bring the lights alive for everyone to see.
The Spectromen and Mickey Mouse lead the parade through a variety of floats being the Whirlyballs,
The Trumpeters float, The Mickey Mouse Float, and the SpectroMagic title float.
Throughout the years the sequence of these floats changed and in our home video footage
from opening week of SpectroMagic in 1991, the trumpeters appeared before the grand finale
floats.
Later in about November or December of 1991, the trumpeters were moved and appeared before
the Mickey float in the opening.
Number 9-Float Facts SpectroMagic was made up of 29 full units
and 7 whirly units that brought the grand total of floats in the parade to 36.
Now every float had a driver hidden in the unit but it was also computer controlled to
sync the float lights with the music.
Now these 36 floats were broken up into 6 separate themes and sections of the parade.
So first we have the opening Spectromagic units which we saw in number 10 that introduced
the parade.
Next was the Silly Symphonies, which were based on the Silly Symphony Disney cartoons
that were produced between 1929 to 1939.
The Sleeping Beauty Garden was the third section, which if you couldn’t guess, took inspiration
from the 1959 film and also incorporated a mystical garden into the design .
Next was the Little Mermaid which was based on the 1989 animated film, where Ursula also
appeared on her own whirly unit.
Fifth was Fantasia which featured characters and music from Walt Disney’s 1940 feature
film Fantasia.
This section of the parade also featured the Chernabog float that was capable of opening
its wings to achieve a total wingspan of 30 feet, 6 inches.
There were certain areas of the parade route where he wasn’t able to open his wings so
it was very common to think he was malfunctioning.
The last section of units was the grand finale which featured The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella
and her carriage, a giant carousel followed by what looked like a train that featured
many of your favorite Disney characters.
Number 8-The Lights Spectromagic was a 20 minute parade that combined
a variety of lights, fibre optics and music.
It included 600,000 lights which took 948 batteries to power and light the vehicles
as well as over 100 miles of fibre optic cable to connect all the lights.
SpectroMagic used 10 different light colours plus white in the parade.
The light technology on the floats and costumes had the capability of going from multicoloured
to all white lights giving a more royal feel to floats and characters.
Every costume in the finale section of the parade contained an RF transmitter unit to
allow the lights to change color.
The unit that had the most lights was the Carousel unit which featured 54, 892 individual
lights and overall, next to clear white, blue was the most used color in the parade.
Since it was a night parade, you could say that the lights were the star of the show
but it wasn’t just lights that made the spectacle.
Liquid neon, light spreading thermoplastics, gas plasma, liquid nitrogen, burst animation,
and searchlights would all be used in this new parade plus the use of prismatic lenses
and reflection devices to enhance the lights.
Spectromagic also made use of a military developed lighting technology called Quantex first used
on fighter jets and now appeared along the streets of Magic Kingdom on the wings of butterflies.
Number 7-The Music Before the concept for Spectromagic was carried
out, it was referred to as Electromagic, which was always supposed to proceed the Main St
Electrical Parade.
The original music designer for the parade was Don Dorsey who was also the music director
for the Main street electrical parade.
During the development of Electromagic, Dorsey wanted to slow down the Baroque Hoedown and
use that for Electromagic.
This was quickly turned down by Disney Creative Entertainment, so Dorsey would then step down
allowing Steve Skorija to take over the position of music designer and John Debney would then
write the famous theme song "On This Magic Night.”
It could be argued that “On This Magic Night” is one of the main reasons why this parade
connected with so many people.
The song, along with the entire parade orchestration, had that Disney feel starting with the fanfare
at the beginning of the parade.
There’s also something about the harmonies used in a lot of Disney park music and shows
that also evoke this feel good feeling and sense of Disney magic.
This sound was heard a lot during the 90’s and 2000’s, and for a lot of people this
sound has become a sound of nostalgia.
You heard it in old parades
{Singing} Let’s stop to remember the magic.
and many castle stage shows
{Singing} It’s Mickey!
{Singing} Dreams really do come true
More recently this sound has been faded out with the introduction of more pop scores such
as Festival of Fantasy or even the Paint The Night parade at Disneyland.
Number 6-The First Hiatus SpectroMagic first ran for about 7 years from
October 1st, 1991 until May 20th 1999, when it went on its first hiatus.
Walt Disney World began the Millennium celebration at the resort and changed up the park’s
offerings by replacing Spectromagic with The Main Street Electrical parade.
Now this version of the Electrical Parade that ran at the Magic Kingdom from1999 until
2001 were the floats from Anaheim and not the original Walt Disney World electrical
parade.
Those set of units were still at Disneyland Paris.
Number 5-The Return After the millennium celebration, it was time
for the Magic Kingdom to light up SpectroMagic again.
On April 2nd, 2001 SpectroMagic debuted for the 2nd time and looked better than ever.
It featured the same iconic music, floats, lighting technology with some minor noticeable
changes.
Number 4-The Magic Changes The return of SpectroMagic brought along a
few changes.
First off, one thing that didn’t change was the use of the original Walt Disney World
Logo that still appeared on the title float.
By this time in the resort history, the new logo had been used since 1995.
In the original run of SpectroMagic, Sebastian and Jimmy Cricket were both puppets controlled
by a cast member but in 2001 they were replaced by animatronics in the parade’s return.
Roger Rabbit used to be the conductor of the Silly Symphonies Unit.
Since the Disney film catalogue in 1991 wasn’t as big as it is now, Roger Rabbit used to
appear quite frequently in the parks.
Well in 2001 Roger Rabbit was replaced by The Genie from Aladdin with newly recorded
dialogue.
Another change that came with the 2nd run of Spectromagic was the look of the SpectroMen,
but this change didn’t happen until 2007.
From 2001 until 2007 the Spectomen kept the color changing heads that premiered in 1991
until they were replaced as face characters in 2007 where the performers faces were painted
and they wore fibre optic hats and wigs.
It’s hard to say which is creepier: the masks or the face characters.
You decide.
Number 3-The 2nd Hiatus By this time SpectoMagic was used to going
on Hiatus, so on June 5th, 2010 Spectromagic ran the parade route for what was supposed
to be its last for performance for 90 days.
The Main Street Electrical Parade from Anaheim was brought to the Magic Kingdom once again
for Walt Disney World’s Summer Nightastic!
promotion.
It was supposed to run only for the summer but kept getting extended through the year.
Since the parade returned from its promised hiatus in 2001, everyone thought that 2011
would follow suit and SpectroMagic would soon be seen waking the parade route as it once
did, and contrary to popular belief this was true.
Number 2- A Spark of Hope Walt Disney World had all the intentions of
bringing Spectromagic back into the Magic Kingdom.
It was even said that in 2011 the lighting company Sylvania was working on a deal with
Disney to sponsor the return of the parade, only there was one major problem.
The Specrtromagic floats were poorly stored and essentially were left backstage to deteriorate.
See when maintenance went to prep the floats for their return, they were said to be in
horrible condition and were beyond repair.
Apparently the floats were stored in a large tented outdoor location that didn't kept them
protected from termites and the inclement Florida weather.
So the Main Street Electrical Parade kept getting extended until it was announced to
be an open ended run.
The SpectroMagic floats remained backstage for the time, being but guests were given
a spark of hope when some of the parade floats were seen in November of 2012 for the Wine
and Dine half marathon.
There’s even accounts of people who went on the Key’s to the Kingdom Tour between
2011 to 2013 that saw the Spectromagic parade floats in the parade storage building behind
Splash Mountain.
People thought this was some sort of hope that a return was in the works.
When Disney World borrowed the Main Street Electrical parade in 2010, they had just been
recently refurbished by Disneyland, so the parade was in great condition at the time.
At this point, Walt Disney World had this night parade that Disneyland was letting them
borrow and didn't currently want back.
So they were able to still have a night parade without spending a dime on their own parade,
SpectroMagic.
Number 1-Glowing Away After much speculation about the return of
SpectroMagic, an announcement was made by Walt Disney World in 2013 that a new Parade,
Festival of Fantasy, was to debut the following year.
Shortly after this announcement in late June of 2013 many Disney World blog and news sources
confirmed that pieces of the remaining SpectroMagic floats were seen in six trailer style dumpsters
backstage at Magic Kingdom.
It was also never officially announced by Disney that SpectroMagic would glow away forever,
never to return to the streets of the Magic Kingdom.
The parade also never got an official send off either like most parades usually get.
No one ever expected June 5th, 2010 to be the last performance ever of this display
of lights, music and spectacle that was loved and enjoyed by so many at the park.
It was at this moment that SpectroMagic went down in the Walt Disney World history books
and was never seen again.
So what are your thoughts about the parade, did you ever get a chance to see SpectroMagic
in person?
And since the Main Street Electrical parade ended its run at the Magic Kingdom in ct 2016
when do you think we’ll see a new Nightime parade at the park?
Leave a comment below and start a conversation.
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videos, follow the link in the description below.
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