Disneyland’s Light Magic Show Falls on Dark Days

Disneyland’s Light Magic show, the much-hyped and much-maligned street extravaganza, will go on “hiatus” for two years to be retooled and to make way for a new nighttime parade next summer, park officials said Tuesday.

The $20-million dud, which premiered in May to poor reviews and initial patron criticism, will be replaced by a new event based on an animated feature film, “Mulan,” that Disney will release next summer.

Light Magic, which replaced the popular, long-running Main Street Electrical Parade, will return in the summer of 2000, said Lisa Cappel, a park spokeswoman.

“It’s safe to say there will be some enhancements and changes, but it’s too early to comment on what they will be,” Cappel said.

Despite the rough beginning, she said, the show “developed” during its summer run, which ended on Labor Day, and patrons and park executives were “pleased” with it.

But after cast members were told about the change Thursday, employees and Disneyland enthusiasts filled the Internet with messages doubting that the show would ever return. Internet messages early on billed the show as “Magic Tragic” and blamed the poor showing on Paul Pressler, the park’s president.

Cappel, though, pointed out that even the beloved Main Street Electrical Parade twice went on hiatus and returned.

As the park’s premier event, Light Magic failed to draw the crowds that executives had come to expect from its predecessor. Instead, the daytime Hercules Victory Parade, based on Disney’s animated film about the mythical Greek hero, stole the show.

The Mulan parade springs from the same idea of bringing to life a character from a new Disney animated film. “Mulan,” based on ancient Chinese folklore, is the story of a young girl who dresses as a boy so she can go to war in place of her ailing father. She has a faithful sidekick, a dragon, whose voice is provided by Eddie Murphy.

Cappel said the Mulan parade is still being developed.

That Disneyland took Light Magic out of its summer line-up didn’t surprise industry experts.

The hybrid parade and street show about the magic of dreams came with 4,500 miles of fiber-optic lighting, 1,520 strobe lights, 132 robotic lights, 185 air cannons for confetti blasts and smoke effects. But despite the technology, it suffered from mechanical hiccups, homely pixies, a poor story line and four 80-foot-long floats that served as stationary stages for the street show.

“The buzz in the industry was that it just didn’t have pizazz and the warmth and feeling that the Main Street Electrical Parade had,” said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services in Cincinnati.

But, he noted, Disney is at its best when it has to rework a failed concept. The adult-oriented Pleasure Island in Lake Buena Vista at DisneyWorld in Florida was a disjointed flop, he said, until Disney revamped the nightclubs and other entertainment to promote the same theme: New Year’s Eve every night.

“So the answer is: Sure, Disneyland can bring back Light Magic,” Speigel said. “After all, they’ve got a lot invested in it. They just need to tweak it, give it some warmth, some feeling.”

Even though park officials believe guests grew to like the show as it developed, Disneyland has to come up with a blockbuster event for the evening, said Steve Balgrosky, managing partner of Economics Research Associates, a Los Angeles theme park consultant.

“Disneyland has to have a show,” he said. “It’s an extender of the day for the people, and it certainly helps food and beverage sales for the park.”

The park now knows that the Electrical Parade created demand not just for an evening parade but for a spectacular event.

“People expect something like that at night,” Cappel acknowledged. And, she promised, the Mulan parade will have “a lot of color and a lot of pageantry” in celebrating the heritage of ancient China.