Disneyland Banishes ‘Captain EO’

The Tomorrowland face-lift at Disneyland has finally claimed the king of plastic surgery.

“Captain EO,” the 3-D science fiction film starring Michael Jackson, gave its final performance Sunday at the Anaheim park. The 17-minute production had played at the Magic Eye Theatre since 1986.

As part of the ongoing retrofit of Tomorrowland, “Captain EO” is being replaced by “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,” a 3-D family comedy starring Rick Moranis that will combine special effects with a moving floor inside the soon-to-be renovated theater. The new film will debut along with the rest of the new Tomorrowland in the spring of 1998.

“Captain EO” starred Jackson as a galactic good guy who pilots his spacecraft among hostile aliens who, naturally, are won over by the singing, dancing visitor. The film cost an estimated $20 million to make and caused a sensation when it debuted at Disneyland.

But the passage of time and the falling of Jackson’s star led park officials to scrap the shopworn show.