 By: Shaun Finnie |
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Disneyland proudly presents our spectacular pageant of night time magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-syntho-magnetic musical sounds. The Main Street Electrical Parade!"
This started when I posted my Disney Diary to a mailing list and stated that on May 28, 1999 the Main Street Electrical Parade debuted at Walt Disney World. Someone immediately mailed me back to say that he was sure he'd seen MSEP at WDW in 1988. Well that's true. He'd seen an Electrical Parade, but not the same Electrical Parade! Confused? Yes, I was as well. That's why I did a bit more digging. Take a deep breath now, this gets a bit complicated! 17 June 1972 - MSEP opened at Disneyland. It would run until 1996 (apart from during parts of 1975 - 76 when it was replaced by America On Parade, and 1983 - 84 when the Flights of Fantasy parade took it's place)
11 June 1977 - With the parade being such a success at DL, WDW began their own, slightly different version of MSEP. It ran for 15 seasons. 9 March 1985 - Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade began its own nightly shows. This was basically a straight copy of the California parade 14 September 1991 - Final performance of MSEP at WDW. This version was then boxed up and shipped to France to be used at Disneyland Paris.
April 1992 - Disneyland Paris' MSEP began nightly performances. It would add its own twist with a special seasonal Christmas version 21 June 1995 - Tokyo Disneyland's night time electrical parade closed. Some of that parade was incorporated into an extended version at DLP. TDL would instead begin performances of Fantillusion 25 November 1996 - Final performance of MSEP at Disneyland. October 15 had originally been announced as the final night, but due to public demand the run was extended just a little longer. It would be replaced by a new night-time spectacular called Light Magic. It's fair to say that the public never warmed to this in the same way that they loved MSEP 14 June 1997 - MSEP came out of 'retirement' for one very special run, heading through Times Square for the premier of the Hercules movie in New York
28 May 1999 - Main Street Electrical Parade opened at WDW - This was the original Disneyland version that was shipped coast to coast and extensively renovated. It replaced SpectroMagic, which had in turn replaced the earlier version of MSEP at WDW in 1992 1 April 2001 - WDW's MSEP had its final run, giving way for the return of SpectroMagic 4 July 2001 - The original MSEP returned to the U.S. west coast, but this time it was renamed Disney's Electrical Parade, and placed in Disney's California Adventure, where it still runs today.
23 March 2003 - MSEP ran for the final time at DLP 2005 - Hong Kong Disneyland scheduled to open. HKDL will run the version of MSEP that most recently performed at DLP and originated at WDW in 1977 While I've said many times that the parade has "moved" from one park to another, keep in mind that all of the floats and costumes have been rebuilt many times over the years, and that floats have been added and removed as required. And also remember that the fabulous Fantillusion and SpectroMagic night time parades have both appeared at more that one Disney park too.
Maybe I should trace their histories at some point. Hope that all made sense, Shaun (Abbreviations used)
MSEP - Main Street Electrical Parade |
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