ENTERTAINMENT REVIEW : Disneyland’s Latest Wow : ‘Aladdin’s Royal Caravan’ a Spectacular Re-Creation From Film

Hey! Clear the way in the old Bazaar!

Hey you!

Let us through!

It’s a bright new star!

*

Already the toast of Agrabah and Hollywood, Prince Ali Ababwa (a. k .a. Aladdin) set out to wow fans on Main Street, U.S.A., as “Aladdin’s Royal Caravan,” a new parade/entertainment, premiered at Disneyland this weekend.

Lasting approximately 15 minutes, the multimedia spectacle combines floats, music, puppets, giant balloons, mechanical animals, 60 costumed performers and a veritable blizzard of confetti in a re-creation of the spectacular “Prince Ali” number from the studio’s hit movie, “Aladdin.”

No live spectacle could match the extravagant visuals possible in animation, but the Disneyland version comes a lot closer to the spirit of the film than did the unfortunate staging of “Friend Like Me” on the Academy Awards telecast. If they can’t muster the “75 golden camels” that appear on the screen, they manage two comic gilded ones that prove the Genie was right when he warned, “Careful, they spit!”

Various characters dressed as some of the Genie’s myriad guises mime to the Prince Ali song, which is repeated for the length of the parade. As a drum major, he leads buglers in glittering uniforms that might have been borrowed from the Baghdad High marching band.

Clad in a silvery white tail coat, he steps his way through an approximation of the snazzy jitterbug that ends the “Prince Ali” number. A clever combination of balloons and a costumed figure recalls the dance he does after splitting into three sections at the end of “Friend Like Me.”

The Genie is attended by a bevy of harem dancers, a phalanx of scimitar-wielding guards, a covey of women dressed as peacocks. (“Purple peacocks/He’s got 53”) and an assortment of vendors, fakirs and hangers-on.

The most imaginative costumes turn individual dancers into teetering columns of tumblers. Prince Ali and Jasmine appear on a mechanical version of Abu in his elephant disguise; Jafar, reduced to street sweeper, brings up the rear--to the very vocal chagrin of Iago the parrot.

Although reportedly produced in only three months (a parade at the park normally requires one to two years to prepare), “Royal Caravan” is exactly the sort of family spectacle that helped to establish Disneyland’s reputation. The crowds at the opening performance were so pleased by it, they collected the fallen confetti to keep as souvenirs.

Well, get on out in that square

Adjust your veil and prepare

To gawk and grovel and stare at Prince Ali!

* “Aladdin’s Royal Caravan” plays at 3 and 5 p.m. through April 11; thereafter, it will be presented at 4 and 5:30 p.m. weekdays, and 3 and 5 p.m. weekends. Beginning June 19, the show will play at 3 and 5 p.m. daily. Disneyland, 1313 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim. $23 to $28.75. (714) 999-4565.