It has taken me two full weeks to process that SpectroMagic is no more. When you announce that the majority of the floats have been destroyed – that pretty much says it all. I picture it in the dump where the ‘Toy Story 3’ characters nearly met their fate, next to Mr. Toad’s, the ‘What About Science’ sequence of Journey Into Imagination, and the Art Deconess of Horizons.
I don’t want to get into it by saying that SpectroMagic was/is better than the Main Electrical Parade, but I will… SpectroMagic was/is better than the Main Street Electrical Parade! Don’t get me wrong, the Main Street Electrical Parade is good and, truth be told, I love me a 1980’s Electrical Water Pageant better than both of them. But, while the Main Street Electrical Parade is fun – SpectroMagic was magical.
That opening fanfare on a warm summer night -you can’t beat it. I know that fireworks give the folks goosebumps, but I got fireworks’d out watching Fantasy in the Sky every night during the summer of 1996. SpectroMagic was goosebump inducing for me – every single time. You want to argue that the ‘Under the Sea’ segment of Spectro wasn’t exactly ‘magical’? I’ll allow it. It was a little hokey, and felt a little out of place from the rest of the parade. Are you still miffed that The Genie (‘El Genio’) replaced Roger Rabbit? I get it. And, fine, I understand. Pete’s Dragon is getting a reboot… I’ll wait a moment in case you just learned this for the first time…, but, I am telling you, SpectroMagic was captivating. It was thought provoking. It was where the splendor, the spectacle, the sparkling sensation, the romance, the comedy and the thrill of Disney came to electric life in a million points of musical light. That wasn’t false advertising. The Electrical Parade is popcorn entertainment. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
My biggest regret – not now, back then – when my time working at The Diz was done, was never working SpectroMagic. To be part of that would have been something I would have remembered forever.
Brother Dillo
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