Was "Light Magic" really that bad?

[Zummi Gummi]

Obviously, I never saw the parade.

However, I kind of like the soundtrack, but everything I've read online about it indicates it was pretty much universally reviled, and it's extremely short run seems to point to the fact it was a gigantic flop.

So, did anyone see it? Was it really awful?

 

[Mouse Wizard]

I was about 8 years old when it was around. I definitely liked it. There've been other around my age who also liked it. Kids don't have the same sentimental attachment to parades that adults seem to have. I liked the fact there were new day parades almost very year so why shouldn't there be a new night parade too? I think a parade like light magic could work better nowadays, people are more used to the show stop parades like block party bash was, and Disney has gotten better about letting people know about that then what I've heard the fiasco the preview night was for light magic.

 

[TP2000]

I saw Light Magic a bunch of times during the summer of '97.

Light Magic was creepy and dumb. It was a 20 minute show centered entirely around bizarre dancing pixies who danced to weird Irish jig folk versions of Disney songs, and then they danced, and then they did a dance routine set to Irish jig music, and then they danced some more, and then movie screens came up from the floats and there was a video of human children running over a hill in a segment that looked like an overly sentimental commercial for the children's clothing department at Sears while the pixies danced to Irish folk music, and then to celebrate the Sears commercial they had a big finale' where the pixies danced an Irish jig.

It was really bad. I'm sure there's some YouTube videos of it out there somewhere, but quite frankly I can't bring myself to find one for you. I'd have nightmares.

 

[Alektronic]

Can't be any worse than "March of the Arti-mals" parade in '98 . Now that was a sad and weird parade.

 

[nemofinder22]

I never saw it myself, but I remember walking down Main Street after a show performed and there was confetti everywhere!

It's really to bad it wasn't successful, the amount of money, time, and effort that went into it. There must have been even more effort to remove it from the Disney history books.

Heres a few videos I found,

A quick overview of the making and behind the scenes. A few familiar faces pop up.
[youtube]y7EibJ0qOEs[/youtube]

[youtube]PbrdQFxIPyk[/youtube]

A fairly shaky video but it does a good job showing what Light Magic was, the beginning you can see the parade lights with the now gone "moving lights", the fiber optics on the Main Street buildings and the "street-tacular" it self.
Part 1
[youtube]sZpO19xrvsA[/youtube]
Part 2
[youtube]rRz8WaH_EoU[/youtube]

Hard to believe that just a few years before the Lion King Celebration also performed on that route. I wish we still got new movie parades.