(c) Disney

Note: Check back at tonight for much more from World of Color including video and lots more pictures

It is difficult to find just the right words to describe World of Color. Many spring to mind: beautiful, amazing, or (as I heard a little boy repeatedly exclaim as he watched a preview from the balcony of his hotel room) awesome. But while these do an adequate job in describing this new nighttime entertainment, they fail to explain the show. Once again, Disney has created something new and unique, leaving us to try and offer a description that explains just what it is. 

(c) Disney

True, there have been other fountain shows, some on a bigger scale than World of Color (the fountains at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, for example). There have been outdoor, multi-media spectacles (Fantasmic! is still packing them in at Disneyland, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and soon in Tokyo). There has even been a water show in Paradise Bay (the one-holiday-season only, much loved but frankly underwhelming LuminAria). But with World of Color, designer Steve Davison has done with water what he did with fireworks (starting ten years ago): created a show that takes a familiar entertainment form and makes it into something new and thrilling. 

The technical aspects of World of Color have been delineated in press kits and a thousand internet posts. Suffice to say that the “nearly 1,200 powerful fountains (some shooting 200 feet in the air), famous Disney and Disney-Pixar characters, favorite Disney music, fire, lasers and storytelling that only Disney can produce” perform their tasks flawlessly. In the end, comparisons to other shows and enumerations of technical statistics matter very little. World of Color is, as all good things are, much bigger than the sum of its very good parts. 

On Tuesday there was a World of Color showing for winners from a radio station. Doug got four of those in attendance to give their impressions of World of Color. Click below to view

[latestvideo:20100610-1]

For the record, this is the final breakdown of the scenes presented in Disney’s World of Color:

• Wonderful World of Color TV Theme: Tinker Bell appears and offers Walt Disney quote: “Every child is blessed with a vivid imagination;”
• World of Color theme;
• Little Mermaid: Part of Your World, Under the Sea;
• Finding Nemo: Crush and Squirt and the EAC, Marlon and Dory speaking whale;
• Fantasia 2000: Pines of Rome with flying whales;
• Wall-E: Wall-E and EVE in space;
• Toy Story: Woody and Buzz meet, Buzz “Can fly!,” Buzz vs. Zurg;
• Up: Flying House with Carl and Doug;
• Aladdin: A Whole New World, Never Had a Friend Like Me;
• Fantasia 2000: The Firebird (Spring Sprite);
• Pocahontas: Just Around the River Bend, Colors of the Wind;
• A Bug’s Life: Heimlich;
• From Bambi: Little April Showers (footage of The Old Mill);
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Yo Ho (A Pirates Life for Me), Main Theme;
• Fantasia: Night on Bald Mountain (with Hell Fire from Hunchback of Notre Dame);
• The Lion King: Wildebeest Stampede;
• Enchanted: So Close (footage from The Lion King, Bambi, Dumbo, Tarzan, Lady and the Tramp, The Princess and the Frog, Beauty and the Beast);
• Beauty and the Beast: Transformation, Beauty and the Beast (footage from Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Princess and the Frog, Cinderella);
• World of Color theme: Tinker Bell appears, followed by the Cheshire Cat, Alice, and many characters; seen through the show, with Sorcerer Mickey for the finale.

Related Links

• LP Lotion: More preview pictures and a preview video from World of Color
  Includes information on how to see World of Color at DCA

Discuss It

• Discuss this article on the LaughingPlace.com Discussion Boards