Main Street Electrical Parade

"MSEP" redirects here. For the United States Air Force astronaut corps, see Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program. For the series of sports stadiums and venues located in Melbourne, Australia, see Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct.
Main Street Electrical Parade

The Minnie (left) and Mickey (right) drum float, with the parade's logo in the middle
Disneyland
Status Closed
Opening date June 17, 1972
Closing date November 25, 1996
Replaced by Light Magic (1997)
Paint the Night (2015- )
Magic Kingdom
Status Operating
Opening date 1. June 11, 1977
2. May 21, 1999
3. June 5, 2010
Closing date 1. September 14, 1991
2. April 1, 2001
3. Open ended[1]
Replaced SpectroMagic
Replaced by SpectroMagic
Tokyo Disneyland
Name Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights
Status Operating
Opening date March 9, 1985 (original)
June 17, 2001 (Dreamlights)
Closing date June 21, 1995 (original)
Replaced Disney's Fantillusion
Disneyland Park (Paris)
Status Closed
Opening date April 12, 1992
Closing date March 23, 2003
Replaced by Disney's Fantillusion
Disney California Adventure
Name Disney's Electrical Parade
Status Closed
Opening date July 3, 2001
Closing date April 18, 2010
General statistics
Attraction type Parade
FastPass+ available

The Main Street Electrical Parade is a regularly scheduled parade, created by Bob Jani and project director Ron Miziker, famous for its long run at Disneyland at the Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World at the Magic Kingdom Park. It features floats and live performers covered in thousands of electronically controlled lights and a synchronized soundtrack triggered by radio control along key areas of the parade route. The parade has also spun off several other versions that ran or continue to run at Disney parks around the world. Currently, an updated version runs at Tokyo Disneyland as the Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights. In 2014, Hong Kong Disneyland premiered a spiritual successor to the Main Street Electrical Parade, the Paint the Night Parade, which, like its predecessor, features "Baroque Hoedown" as its theme song. An extended version of Paint the Night premiered at Disneyland on May 22, 2015 as part of the park's 60th anniversary celebration.

The original Disneyland copy of the parade runs at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World as "Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade," and has been in an "open ended" run since arriving in Florida in 2010.[1]

The parade is notable for its electronic musical soundtrack, all set to a 1960s tune called "Baroque Hoedown," and its use of a vocoder effect during the introductory and closing announcements.

Origin

The predecessor to the 1972 Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade is the Electrical Water Pageant, a show made up of fourteen 25-foot (7.6 m) tall screens with electrical lights placed on them. The screens are placed on a string of seven barges that travel around the Seven Seas Lagoon in front of the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort, beginning at 9 p.m. at Disney's Polynesian Resort or immediately after the fireworks if they are scheduled for 9 p.m.

The Electrical Water Pageant still shows today. The Electrical Water Pageant has been showing since October 26, 1971, just weeks after the Walt Disney World Resort opened. In 1972, when the Main Street Electrical Parade debuted, some of the floats were flat screens on rolling platforms similar to the Electrical Water Pageant. The engineers who helped create the parade also created the first show-control program in existence. This allowed the 2,000-foot (610 m) long parade route to contain multiple radio-activated "trigger zones."

Using radio-activated triggers as each float entered a zone, the audience would hear float-specific music through the park's audio system. Each zone was between 70 and 100 feet (30 m) long, and the zoned system meant that every person watching the parade would experience the same show, no matter where they stood along the parade route.[2] Until 1977, some of the floats like the elephant train and the American flag finale were 2D and had to be pulled or pushed along the parade route. The Blue Fairy float was a 3D float, and ran until closing. The Big Bass Drum pulled by the Casey Jr. Engine, the Cinderella float and canopy, a Chinese dragon (later replaced by Pete's Dragon) and the circus calliope were all 3D.

The original 1972 Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade was designed by Hub Braden, an NBC Burbank Television art director, who had designed projects for Bob Jani, Disneyland Entertainment Division. The original parade units were built by a Chicago, Illinois, display company known for its holiday light displays along Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The Main Street Electrical Parade had counterparts of the same name and layout at the Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort, which ran from 1977 to 1991. It was replaced by a similar parade called SpectroMagic, which ran from 1991 to 1999 and then reopened in 2001 and ended on June 4, 2010. In 1992, the electrical parade from the Magic Kingdom went to Parc Disneyland at Disneyland Paris and ran there until 2003.

It was then replaced by Fantillusion, a nighttime parade from Tokyo Disneyland that had earlier replaced the Tokyo version of the Main Street Electrical Parade, which ran from 1985-1995. Tokyo Disneyland's current night parade, Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights began in 2001 and it was a return to the style of the original with updated new music and floats.

The Main Street Electrical Parade closed at Disneyland in 1996 after a 24-year run. Light bulbs certified as having been part of the show were sold to collectors. The replacement show, Light Magic, opened in 1997 and was an immediate failure. Disney quickly cancelled Light Magic but held off in bringing back the popular Main Street Electrical Parade. However, the parade was refurbished and appeared at the Magic Kingdom in May 1999 for a limited engagement, just in time for Walt Disney World Millennium Celebration. The parade ended its run at the Magic Kingdom on April 1, 2001 and SpectroMagic was brought back the following day.

The Main Street Electrical Parade floats were then sent back to California for the parade's return to Disneyland. These plans changed after Team Disney Anaheim saw the poor attendance figures for the spring break season at Disney's California Adventure and feared that the park would fail to attract large crowds during the crucial summer season, unless they had a big draw. So, on April 25, 2001, Disney announced that the popular Main Street Electrical Parade would be coming to Disney California Adventure Park on July 2, 2001 in honor of the first summer of the park.

The name of the show was changed from the Main Street Electrical Parade to Disney's Electrical Parade. Most of the 1996 parade floats returned, except for the Pinocchio Pleasure Island section and Snow White diamond mine float, which were sent to Parc Disneyland at Disneyland Paris in 1997. The parade has been offered during summer periods and selected weekends. It finished a nine-month hiatus during the 2005 off-season at the Disneyland Resort, which allowed replacement of lights on all of the floats and alteration of wording on the drum to "Disney's Electrical Parade, Presented by Sylvania."

On the 2008 Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade special, Disney announced that a Tinker Bell float would be added to Disney's Electrical Parade, which would make it the first new float to be added to the classic parade in 20 years, since the temporary Mickey Mouse's 60th Birthday float in 1988. It was announced at a press conference on April 24, 2009, that the Snow White and Pinocchio units would be returning as well.[3] Disney started testing updated and new units in late May 2009. Most of the major floats have had new LED pixie dust effects added to them. This parade, with the new Tinker Bell float replacing the Blue Fairy, made its formal premiere on June 12, 2009. California's caterpillar received a new digital face in December 2009. One of the original turtle floats from the Main Street Electrical Parade was on display at the "technology section" of the D23 Expo.

Disney's Electrical Parade at California Adventure ended its run on April 18, 2010 and was sent to the Magic Kingdom as part of Walt Disney World's 2010 promotional package "Summer Nightastic!." While initially it was announced the parade would stay just through the summer, Disney has since announced that the parade is in an "open ended" run.

Music

The Main Street Electrical Parade's underlying theme song is entitled "Baroque Hoedown." The original version was created in 1967 by early synthesizer pioneers Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley and appeared first on the album Kaleidoscopic Vibrations: Electronic Pop Music from Way Out. Originally, the parade's soundtrack had the same themes as the current recording, but was a different arrangement by Jim Christensen and Paul Beaver. In 1977, it was updated and arranged by electronic music artist Don Dorsey and Jack Wagner at Jack Wagner Studio, which was used until January 2009 in Disney's Electrical Parade.

When the parade returned to Disney's California Adventure in June 2009, it began using the updated, orchestrated DreamLights soundtrack from Tokyo,[4] but with changes made as certain floats in the California parade are not included in the Tokyo parade. The soundtrack for the current version, the 2009 version of Disney's Electrical Parade, The Main Street Electrical Parade (currently running at the Magic Kingdom), as well as Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade DreamLights version were arranged, programmed and performed by Gregory Smith. Smith also arranged the music for Disneyland's Remember... Dreams Come True show (which also contains a snippet of the original Don Dorsey arrangement, which then concludes in a grand orchestral finale arranged by Smith) as well as Magical: Disney's New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations fireworks shows.

The soundtrack to the parade has been released numerous times:

Dorsey used 11 synthesizers to create the soundtrack: Moog Model III, Mini-Moog, Steiner-Parker Synthacon, Oberheim 8-voice, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, Fender Rhodes Piano, New England Digital Synclavier II, Bode 7702 Vocoder, Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter, Yamaha DX7 and Yamaha TX7.

Wagner provides the synthesized vocoder voice for the intro and outro to the parade. Bill Rogers provided the synthesized vocoder announcement when the Disneyland version of the parade made its first visit to The Magic Kingdom in 1999. When the soundtrack was updated, these same announcements were used, albeit with a pitch change to reflect the change in the key the soundtrack was in.

While the original soundtrack is played solely on synthesizers, the Tokyo Disneyland version uses an orchestra with adult and youth choirs in addition to harmonies and synthesizers. This version also includes Character voices in both English and Japanese. This version was also orchestrated, programmed, conducted, and performed by Gregory Smith. During the Christmas season at Tokyo Disneyland, the Electrical Parade gets a new soundtrack; it is mostly the same soundtrack with added Christmas songs, mixed in with the theme music. For Tokyo Disneyland's 30th anniversary, a show stop was added to the parade, it includes a 2-minute Christmas medley; fireworks from Cinderella Castle are synced during the show stop as well.

The 2009 version of Disney's Electrical Parade at Disney California Adventure and current Main Street Electrical Parade at the Magic Kingdom utilizes much of the soundtrack created for DreamLights, with new loops created for the Cinderella, Pinocchio, and To Honor America units. However, the new soundtrack retains a more electronic sound than that of Tokyo's in that many of the orchestral parts of the DreamLights soundtrack have been replaced by synthesizers in this version.

Remixes, samples and parodies

Incarnations of the Parade

Main Street Electrical Parade (Disneyland)

Disney's Electrical Parade

Main Street Electrical Parade (Walt Disney World)

The final float of Main Street Electrical Parade, the America Float, in front of Cinderella Castle with its holiday lights on

Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade

Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights

Main Street Electrical Parade (Disneyland Paris)

(1995-2003) "Mesdames et messieurs et vous les enfants ! Disneyland Paris est fier de vous présenter son extraordinaire festival de magie nocture et d'enchantement. Dans une féerie de milliers de lumières, sur une musique electro-synthe-magnétique : the Main Street Electrical Parade

(1995-2003) "Disneyland Paris Main Etreet Electrical Parade!"

The Hercules Electrical Parade

On June 14, 1997, a variant of the Main Street Electrical Parade, the "Hercules Electrical Parade", ran on Broadway, Manhattan, New York City for the opening of Disney's New Amsterdam Theater and the film Hercules. Disney arranged for the lights to be all turned off on about 8-blocks of Broadway up to the theater. All businesses complied—with the exception of Disney rival Warner Brothers. It was led by a custom Hercules title unit made for this one time only use. It was shown on national television on a one-hour promotional program featuring the music and making of Hercules.[6]

1978 Orange Bowl

On January 2, 1978, the other outside presentation of the Electrical Parade was presented during the halftime show of the 1978 Orange Bowl college football game.[9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "‘Main Street Electrical Parade’ Extended at Walt Disney World". Disney Parks Blog.
  2. ↑ "Article describing the creation of MSEP audio technology". Archived from the original on 23 June 2006.
  3. ↑ "Lighting Up The Night With New Shows And A New Glow! Disneyland Resort Celebrates Summer Nightastic!". disneylandnews.com. Disneyland. Archived from the original on 29 April 2009. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  4. ↑ "Summer Nightastic! at the Disneyland Resort". Laughing Place. April 27, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  5. ↑ Smith, Thomas (February 10, 2010). "Main Street Electrical Parade Returns to Walt Disney World Resort this Summer". Go.com. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  6. ↑ Gest, Emily (1997-06-10). "Disney's ready to roll with Herculean labor". Daily News. Archived from the original on 2009-05-10. Retrieved 2014-08-02.
  7. ↑ Disney "The Hercules Electrical Parade" - NYC 1997. 31 May 2008 – via YouTube.
  8. ↑ Disney Hercules Electrical Parade Home Video Part 1. 7 June 2012 – via YouTube.
  9. ↑ Stayton, Wynton. "1978 Orange Bowl Halftime Show - Main Street Electrical Parade". youtube.com.

External links

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