The Disney Parks Live-Entertainment Bracket -- Round Two, Day Three
It’s such a busy day for me today, friends, that I barely have time to mention that of the two three-hour epics I watched in a theater this week, the movie about Hollywood and moviemaking is the one that set my teeth gnashing. (Do you know how great Singin’ in the Rain is? Would you like a three-hour version of that without singing and dancing, and with a dash or two of Boogie Nights in there from the POV of a director who seems to have never done hard drugs but wants to approximate the feeling? Ugh.)
Anyway. The polls! Let’s go.
(1) Fantasmic (WDW) vs. (9) Up! A Great Bird Adventure: I love birds as much as the next guy (presuming the next guy loves birds), but it has to be Fantasmic. I still think the Disneyland version is vastly better, but in this matchup, there’s no question to me.
(4) Paint the Night vs. (5) Believe in Holiday Magic: As much as I love the holiday season, and the Disneyland fireworks show celebrating said season, I do like a good nighttime parade. Disney California Adventure is much in want of one again, I would say, and Paint the Night is right there. It was right there for a long time too. A tougher battle than the one above, but this gets my vote. How about you?
(2) SpectroMagic vs. (10) Disneyland Forever: Another one where the personal memories, as I detailed in a past newsletter, trumps anything else. When I think of SpectroMagic, I think of my honeymoon and how much my wife and I got a kick out of the riff on the Main Street Electrical Parade. Disneyland Forever’s fine and all, but I’ll take my own version of nostalgia, thank you.
(3) Festival of the Lion King vs. (6) Dapper Dans (Disney World): I have no problem with one iteration of the Dapper Dans moving to the Sweet Sixteen, but it’ll have to be the Disneyland version, if you ask me. I dig the stage version of The Lion King well enough, and I think the Animal Kingdom riff on the film and the stage show (in some ways) is equally delightful. Go Simba (and friends)!
If this was Flights of Passage, I’d be more willing to vote against WDW’s Fantasmic. That was easily the second best show at Animal when it was running.
Second to FOTLK, of course, which I wouldn’t be opposed to winning the whole dang thing.