Mickey Mouse Revue
| Mickey Mouse Revue | |
|---|---|
| Park | Magic Kingdom |
| Land / area | Fantasyland (Magic Kingdom) |
| Type | Audio-Animatronic stage show |
| Opened | October 1, 1971 |
| Closed | September 14, 1980 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Closed |
The Mickey Mouse Revue was an Audio-Animatronic musical stage show in Fantasyland (Magic Kingdom) at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. Mickey Mouse, baton in hand, conducted an orchestra made up of characters from Disney animated films, in a theatre just beyond Cinderella Castle. It opened with the park on October 1, 1971, as an E-ticket attraction, and closed on September 14, 1980. Unusually, the show was not destroyed: it was shipped to Japan and performed for a second, much longer career at Tokyo Disneyland.[1][2]
History
The Revue was one of Fantasyland's three original opening-day attractions in 1971 and the first major park attraction built around Mickey himself. Created principally by Disney animator and Imagineer Bill Justice, it assembled more than eighty Audio-Animatronic figures — at the time one of the largest casts of its kind — for a concert celebrating songs from Disney's animated features.[3]
The show's novelty faded over the decade. It was downgraded from an E ticket to a D ticket in the 1970s, and attendance softened. When it closed on September 14, 1980, it became the first attraction to close permanently at the Magic Kingdom. Its Fantasyland theatre, renamed the Fantasyland Theater, stood unused for regular shows for several years afterwards.[2][4]
Show
A pre-show introduced the idea of Mickey as conductor and traced his career in short film clips. In the main theatre, the curtain rose on Mickey leading an orchestra of familiar characters, each on a different instrument — among them Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto, alongside figures drawn from the animated features.
Around the orchestra, separate scenes performed signature songs from Disney films, including numbers associated with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Three Caballeros, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella and Song of the South. The music was arranged under Disney music director Buddy Baker. For the finale, the full cast returned together, filling the stage and its side stages in a closing chorus before the audience filed out beneath a shower of light effects. The whole performance ran in a continuous cycle through the day, with guests seated for one showing at a time.[4]
Closure and legacy
Rather than being scrapped, the entire production — figures, sets and machinery — was crated up and sent to Tokyo Disneyland, where it opened with that park on April 15, 1983, performed in Japanese. There it ran for 26 years, far outlasting its Florida run, before closing on May 25, 2009.[2][4]
In both parks, its successor was the same show. In Florida, the theatre went on to host the 3-D film Magic Journeys and the stage production Legend of the Lion King before becoming home to Mickey's PhilharMagic, which opened in 2003. In Tokyo, the Revue's theatre was likewise converted for Mickey's PhilharMagic, which opened there in 2011. The Revue itself survives in recordings and in the memories of opening-era guests as the Magic Kingdom's first great character concert — and as a rare example of an attraction getting a full second life overseas.
See also
- Fantasyland (Magic Kingdom)
- Magic Kingdom
- Mickey's PhilharMagic
References
- ↑ "Mickey Mouse Revue". Disney A to Z, D23. https://d23.com/section/disney-a-to-z/page/414/
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Disney Extinct Attractions: Mickey Mouse Revue. Laughing Place. https://www.laughingplace.com/w/articles/2017/08/24/disney-extinct-attractions-mickey-mouse-revue/
- ↑ A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: the Mickey Mouse Revue. YourFirstVisit.net. https://yourfirstvisit.net/2020/03/06/a-friday-visit-with-jim-korkis-the-mickey-mouse-revue/
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Mickey Mouse Revue". Walt Dated World. https://www.waltdatedworld.com/mickey_mouse_revue.htm