The Disney Parks Live-Entertainment Bracket -- Round Three, Day Two

Hello, folks! It’s just two shopping weeks until Christmas Day, and one week until the first night of Hanukkah (if you’re like me, and celebrate both of these holidays). Yesterday was a packed day of movie-watching on my end capped off by once again being glad that the New York Mets are now owned by a very rich man who wants the team to win, as opposed to the many lengthy years in which they were owned by stingy men who seemed to want to run the team into the ground. (Fingers crossed for the gamble of Kodai Senga to pay off.)

For now, though I have harsh words for The Whale that you can find on my Letterboxd page, let’s get past my awards-season moviegoing and baseball, and into the vote.

(1) Fantasmic (DL) vs. (5) Happily Ever After: I suppose there are plenty of you out there who remember Disneyland in the B.F. days. (You know, the Before Fantasmic days.) But for those of us who only really know the park when each day is wrapped up with a 30-minute performance full of imagination, colorful costumes, a sometimes-malfunctioning dragon, and a pair of Mickey Mouses (Mickey Mice?), there is no nighttime show better than Fantasmic. I can’t support anything else here. You?

(2) Finding Nemo The Musical vs. (3) Electrical Water Pageant: The encouraging thing about this matchup is that we all know that one show with music, water, and seafaring creatures is going to win. It’s a guarantee! I like Finding Nemo The Musical a lot, and won’t begrudge it if it wins this match, but there is almost a quaint quality to the Electrical Water Pageant — which is part of a bygone era of the theme parks, and remains a holdover because, seemingly, it has enough passionate fans who would make a fuss were it to glow away — that I find impossibly charming.

I’ll stick with the real water this time. What’s your vote?