I went into our archives and found this beautiful video that celebrates the splendor, the spectacle, the sparkling sensation, where the romance, the comedy and the thrill of Disney Fantasies come to electric life.
With that, I present to you this archival presentation in a million points of musical lights, SpectroMagic.
It was 10 years ago today that the parade winded its way through the Magic Kingdom one last time. On a personal note, this nightly processional is (or was, rather) very near and dear to my heart, having been exposed to it 5 nights a week, usually twice a night, for about 4 years in my early career. I had seen other parades come and go, each one usually reaching a point of monotony but SpectroMagic never hit that bar and it never got old.
The parade premiered as the successor to Walt Disney World’s ultra-popular Main Street Electrical Parade, debuting with the park’s 20th anniversary in 1991. Dropping the classic Baroque Hoedown commonly associated with the Main Street Electrical Parade, SpectroMagic premiered with a brand new original soundtrack that was quite unique for a parade, considering a waltz was used as its main underliner, and featured Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio as it’s narrator.
The technology had advanced significantly since the debut of the Main Street Electrical Parade at the Magic Kingdom in 1977, and that carried over into SpectroMagic. While the bulk of the lights featured were similar to the classic twinkle lights of the Main Street Electrical Parade, SpectroMagic also featured innovative (for its time) fiber optics, LED lights, and sound sensitive lighting. Even a form of lighting that was developed for use on military aircraft was also now prominently featured on the wings of dragonfly and butterfly dancers.
The parade also prominently included the smash hit movie from a few years prior, The Little Mermaid in its own unit featuring floats representing fish, Ursula, and the entire undersea kingdom of Triton and Ariel. Sebastian appeared as a puppet, cueing the main theme of the parade to drop out and “Under the Sea” to take over for a few moments before returning to SpectroMagic’s theme.
In 1999 the parade went on hiatus so the Walt Disney World Resort could usher in the new year with the Millennium Celebration. Though the celebration was primarily focused at EPCOT, the Magic Kingdom brought back the fan-favorite Main Street Electrical Parade as part of the 18-month promotion. When the celebration was over, the Main Street Electrical Parade returned to Disney’s California Adventure and SpectroMagic returned to the Magic Kingdom. Upon its return, there were a few changes, some to the order in which the floats were seen, but most prominently the parade no longer featured Roger Rabbit on the Silly Symphonies float, but rather, The Genie from Aladdin. The Sebastian puppet from the undersea unit was replaced by an Audio-Animatronic, as well as a Jiminy Cricket puppet featured in the finale unit. You can actually still find the Sebastian animatronic prominently featured on the Ariel float of the Festival of Fantasy Parade at the Magic Kingdom.
Later on, in 2007, the SpectroMen lost their color changing masked faces, and became face characters in makeup with headwear that lit up and changed colors throughout the performance.
It was at some point after this change that our archival video was filmed. Taken from Town Square on Main Street USA, this video is positioned between City Hall and the Train Station for the Walt Disney World Railroad. For many years this was the start of the parade route for this parade.
The parade went on hiatus yet again on June 5th, 2010 for the temporary 10-week return of the Main Street Electrical Parade as part of the Summer Nighttastic promotion. Having previously been located at Disney’s California Adventure, that park needed all the room it could get as they were getting ready for the debut of their new ambitious nighttime spectacular, World of Color. A viewing area for the new show pressed right up against the performance corridor (parade route) so the parade was sent packing back to Walt Disney World.
Once the Main Street Electrical Parade was in full swing, the SpectroMagic floats were moved to an outdoor backstage storage location (one they weren’t normally kept in), supposedly only for the “temporary” duration of the Summer Nighttastic promotion. Anybody who has experienced a Florida summer knows how harsh the elements can be during this time of year. Heat. Humidity. Thunderstorms. Anybody who knew where the floats were moved to knew the parade was doomed. Sure enough, the extension of the return of the Main Street Electrical Parade “by popular demand” was a big hint towards the announcement that came a few years later in 2013 that SpectroMagic would never return. To make matters worse for fans, pins were sold that celebrated “A piece of the magic” and had embedded in them chunks of the parade floats, meaning there was no doubt that many of the floats we loved were now crushed to smithereens.
In 2015, a new nighttime parade debuted at Disneyland Park for its 60th anniversary to much acclaim. Paint the Night utilized the latest in lighting technologies, featured upbeat music, and brought classic and modern films to electric life, marking the return of dedicated nighttime parades at Disneyland for the first time in almost twenty years, drawing crowds to take their spots first thing in the morning for the evening parade. In October of 2016, the Main Street Electrical Parade left the Magic Kingdom, and reappeared at Disneyland Park replacing the popular offering, prompting many to think that Paint The Night would make its way to Magic Kingdom, and one Disneyland Parkgoer to tweet “Great. We traded in our new Tesla for an ’87 Honda.” Paint the Night moved just across the esplanade to Disney California Adventure, leaving the Magic Kingdom without a dedicated evening parade. Rumors were circulating just before the COVID-19 pandemic began that a new evening parade was on its way for the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World next year, similar in technology to Paint The Night, but where Paint The Night pays homage to the Main Street Electrical Parade, this new parade would pay homage to SpectroMagic. There is also the (now much more likely) rumor that the Main Street Electrical Parade would make its presence known once again.
And for now, though we say goodbye, we cast a spell that won't be broken, let this night forever live in our dreams!
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