SpectroMagic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| SpectroMagic | |
 |
|
| Magic Kingdom | |
| Opening date | 1992 |
Contents |
[edit] SpectroMagic
[edit] Parade Information
SpectroMagic is an evening parade presented semi-nightly at Disney's Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Produced by longtime Disney Show Producer Ron Logan, it is similar to the Main Street Electrical Parade, which was its predecessor and is now presented at Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, California. The parade incorporates elaborate, brightly lit floats, a musical score, and many sound effects. The floats are populated with Disney characters and represent scenes from Disney's movies and short films. SpectroMagic is unique in that it is the only Disney parade set to a waltz-like 3/4 time signature, centered around the theme "On This Magic Night", composed for this parade by John Debney.
[edit] History
John Haupt in "From One Lightbulb To Another" talking about SpectroMagic: "...in fact a lot of the preliminary technical work for the Fantillusion parade was proof of concept in this parade. So it's kind of the interim step between The Main Street Electrical Parade and Fantillusion."
The parade went on a hiatus when the Main Street Electrical Parade made its return. SpectroMagic came back in 2001 with the following changes and additions:
- Spectro-men have new heads
- Genie (from Aladdin) replaced Roger Rabbit
- Sebastian (from The Little Mermaid) animatronic and bubble system added to King Triton's float
- Jiminy Cricket animatronic added to the finale float
[edit] Soundtrack
[edit] Releases
- A partial (7:11) audio recording of the original parade can be found on the CD Disneyland/Walt Disney World Music Vacation. The CD was produced before Roger Rabbit was replaced with Genie.
- The full current soundtrack (14:19) can be found on the CD SpectroMagic.
- A modern jazz version (3:37) of the SpectroMagic theme can be found on Disney's Music From The Park as "SpectroMagic Medley", performed by David Benoit.
[edit] Voice Talents
Credits from the SpectroMagic & Disneyland/Walt Disney World Music Vacation booklets:
- Bill Farmer as Goofy
- Corey Burton
- Dan Castellaneta as Genie
- Eddie Carroll as Jiminy Cricket
- Jess Harnell
- Kevin Michael Richardson as Sebastian
- Tress MacNeille as Daisy Duck and / or Chip
- Chorus:
- Sarah Moore (leader)
- Amy Martin Cole
- Greg Whipple
- Michelle Amato Hann
- Randy Nichols
- Scott Harrell
[edit] Music
The main theme for SpectroMagic ("On This Magic Night") was composed by movie composer John Debney. Together with Steve Skorija, he arranged music by Disney composers into a 14-minute suite.
[edit] Show facts
- Original run: 1992 - May 21, 1999
- Second run: April 2, 2001 - present
- Show duration: 20 minutes
- Total number of batteries: 948
- Battery type: 75 tons of deep-cycle batteries
- Fiber-optic strands: over 100 miles
- Miniature lights: 600,000
- Miniature light colors: 11 (including clear)
- Speakers: 204
- Speaker wattage: 72,000 watts
- Speaker batteries: 112
- Parade Units:
- Entrance Unit with Trumpeteers
- Title Unit herolding SpectroMagic
- Spectro Men on Whirly-balls (4 units)
- Mickey Unit
- Music Unit (4 units attached)
- Garden Unit 1
- Garden Unit 2
- Garden Unit 3
- Giant Fish unit
- Three Small Fish Unit (3 units atttached)
- The Little Mermaid Unit (3 units attached)
- Whilry Fish (2 units)
- Ursula Whilry Unit
- Fantasia Opening unit with Spinning Hippo
- Flying Horses Unit with Goddess of Lightning at the front (4 units attached)
- Chernabog Unit
- First Finale Unit (4 units attached)
- Carousel Unit
- Second Finale unit (4 units attached)
[edit] Technical Information
In the parade there 32 units, and 7 whilry units giving a grand total of 39 units in the parade.
A unit is what Disney refers to floats as. Each unit has a driver cleverly hidden in the unit. All audio is controlled through DTMF (Digital Tone Modified Frequency) tones tramsmitted by RF signals from the antennas on Cinderella's Castle to each unit. Each unit has its own audio themed to the unit that gets overlayed on top of the parades theme which plays on the zone speakers, between units, along the sides of the parade route. Each zone is anywhere between 70 to 80 ft in length. When a unit enters a zone, the audio is faded into the zone speakers. The on-unit speakers play the audio and special sound effects for the individual units, while the zone speakers play the audio of the unit laid over the parade theme. The audio is stored on the unit as digitally encoded information. The lighting effects and other special effects are all controlled by on-board computers which inititate their own cues using a Programmable Lighting Contorller. The cues are sent via the antennas to the units. The main control center is located under Main Street USA. The PC (Production Center) is where all Magic Kingdom parades are stored. It is located behind Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain.
