Worst Street Shows

CaptinEO

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
What is everyone's least favorite street show? To me it was the "Trolley Boys" and their Disney Channel esque music number. It was annoying, loud, and blocked the middle of the park for no reason.

A close number two is the equally stupid and rediculously loud army men drummers. Talk about a headache.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
What is everyone's least favorite street show? To me it was the "Trolley Boys" and their Disney Channel esque music number. It was annoying, loud, and blocked the middle of the park for no reason.

A close number two is the equally stupid and rediculously loud army men drummers. Talk about a headache.

This is a fabulous topic! A brilliant idea for a thread!

I skipped my sundowner cocktail today because I was doing stupid stuff around the house, so I am going to make myself a nightcap and respond to this in the manner in which it deserves. Give me a few moments to go over to the bar cart and mix up a little something and gather my thoughts, won't you?....
 
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TP2000

Well-Known Member
Okay, I got the flashlight and went out to my lemon tree and plucked a gorgeous fresh lemon off, brought it into the house and made myself a Sidecar and am sipping and enjoying.

TP2000 Sidecar Recipe (healthy portion version);
Juice of one fresh squeezed lemon
2 Shots of Cognac
1 Shot of Cointreau
Pour all ingredients into cocktail shaker filled with ice, ask Siri to play Smokey Robinson's "Going To A-Go-Go" and shake vigorously while also doing the Jerk to the music in that dorky way only older white men can do, pour into chilled cocktail coupe, garnish with lemon peel, savor and enjoy.


Thinking back, some of the absolute worst street shows appeared when Disney's California Adventure burst onto the scene in February, 2001. This was the park that Disney executives openly claimed was supposed to be "hip and edgy", from a 2001 Disney executive point of view. Unsurprisingly, it was disastrous. 😧

One of my most vivid memories of DCA's opening was of this early 1950's Mercury station wagon they had acquired and painted a deep purple and then hooked a flatbed trailer onto the back of it for a band to play from. So far, so good, right? Except the band was... not good. It was like the band that might perform in the cocktail lounge on a Saturday night at an Airport Sheraton in a small Midwest city. And this old Mercury drove all around DCA with this band on a trailer, a band made up of creepy middle aged men, playing bad cover versions of what were once good songs.

It surprised me how quickly I found an example of this awful street show on YouTube, but here it is from an Annual Passholder Preview day on February 3rd, 2001.



Meanwhile, there was also this horrible street show called Le Feet!

It consisted of hip young kids in baggy 2001 clothes (but fashion-wise it was still the late 1990's in '01) who would walk out into the mostly empty park and set up these giant drum things on the ground trying to act nonchalant. Then they would proceed to start stomping on the drums and jumping around, in their Old Navy clothes someone in TDA bought for them. The kids had talent and physical coordination, bless them, but the result was more baffling than entertaining. It was painful to watch.

And since DCA in the spring and summer of 2001 was mostly empty, it was one of those awful street shows that you would randomly stumble across and accidentally make eye contact with one of the performers and then have to stop and smile tightly and pretend to be entertained by them because you felt bad that no one else was caring about them. Le Feet!

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cmwade77

Well-Known Member
What is everyone's least favorite street show? To me it was the "Trolley Boys" and their Disney Channel esque music number. It was annoying, loud, and blocked the middle of the park for no reason.

A close number two is the equally stupid and rediculously loud army men drummers. Talk about a headache.
Funny, those are two of my favorites.
 

Ismael Flores

Well-Known Member
Meanwhile, there was also this horrible street show called Le Feet!

It consisted of hip young kids in baggy 2001 clothes (but fashion-wise it was still the late 1990's in '01) who would walk out into the mostly empty park and set up these giant drum things on the ground trying to act nonchalant. Then they would proceed to start stomping on the drums and jumping around, in their Old Navy clothes someone in TDA bought for them. The kids had talent and physical coordination, bless them, but the result was more baffling than entertaining. It was painful to watch.

And since DCA in the spring and summer of 2001 was mostly empty, it was one of those awful street shows that you would randomly stumble across and accidentally make eye contact with one of the performers and then have to stop and smile tightly and pretend to be entertained by them because you felt bad that no one else was caring about them. Le Feet!

P08-1.jpg
you beat me to the punch, when i read the first post this is the first thing i thought about. Boy was that show annoying
 

DavidDL

Well-Known Member
Since "Celebrate.. A Street Party" blurs the line between parade and street show, can I pick that? I mean, it has "street" in the name. So yeah, I'm going to go with that.
 

dmeets

Member
I definitely remember Superstar Limo/Who Wants to Be a Millionaire/Soap Opera Bistro - era DCA, and yet I had no idea about Le Feet!

I agree that Trolly Boys (and Girl!) was pretty bad, at least the music was. The dance club beat, and something about the harmonies on a couple of the songs sounded almost off-key. Something about it just wasn't pleasant to listen to.
 

Simba’s Mom

Active Member
Whew! I'm so glad no one's mentioned the street show that DS was in, the Disneyland All American College Band. Although he was in it quite a few years ago-maybe no one's been that good since!
 

Mickeyboof

Well-Known Member
The Trolly Boys has a bad rap here!? I love the show! It’s thematically perfect, with Mickey Mouse arriving with his suitcase off the train.

Love the suitcase and a dream song, as well as the Newsies numbers.

I guess I’m in the minority. I always always stopped to watch the show.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
Whew! I'm so glad no one's mentioned the street show that DS was in, the Disneyland All American College Band. Although he was in it quite a few years ago-maybe no one's been that good since!

The Disneyland All American College Band is truly wonderful! Not only is it a wonderful street show, I consider it a national treasure! If your son was in it, I can only imagine how much fun your son had the summer he was in it, and how happy those memories will be for him for the rest of his life.

Something tells me he'll be bringing that topic up at Thanksgiving dinner for decades and decades to come, to the strained yet patient delight of his immediate family. :D
 

TrainsOfDisney

Well-Known Member
I thought the trolley show could have been better musically... the arrangements were a bit odd... but I loved the idea of the show and I loved the kinetic energy of Mickey and the Newsboys riding the trolley around the park before and after shows.
 

JediMasterMatt

Well-Known Member
What is everyone's least favorite street show?

Probably the guy with the cockatoo that's always loitering around the Harbor property entrance every night. It isn't much of a show unless you are a big fan of catching avian related germs and having to step through the mess it leaves on the ground.

Either that or the afore mentioned High School Musical performances or maybe the Green Army Men bang on a drum circle.

Maybe the bird mess isn't so bad on second thought?
 

TrainsOfDisney

Well-Known Member
Probably the guy with the cockatoo that's always loitering around the Harbor property entrance every night. It isn't much of a show unless you are a big fan of catching avian related germs and having to step through the mess it leaves on the ground.

Either that or the afore mentioned High School Musical performances or maybe the Green Army Men bang on a drum circle.

Maybe the bird mess isn't so bad on second thought?

Oh you should leave a little after park closing and see the late show! The bird guy, the man holding his sleeping kid, and the wheelchair bound horn player were all counting cash and chatting with each other by the time I passed one night.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
I definitely remember Superstar Limo/Who Wants to Be a Millionaire/Soap Opera Bistro - era DCA, and yet I had no idea about Le Feet!

It actually gets better, and by better I mean worse.

By the summer of 2001 after DCA opened in February, 2001 to a giant face plant in the marketplace, TDA rushed a whole bunch of characters into the empty park in a hilarious yet predictable attempt to add "Disney!" into the place.

Le Feet was not immune. It became "Le Feet with Max", and they added Goofy's son to the show. No one cared.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
Cars Land was a brilliant stroke of Imagineering greatness and beautiful showmanship. It may be a long time until we see a new land as beautifully designed and entertaining as Cars Land.

But....

It had a HORRIBLE street show that surprisingly lasted for years and years. DJ's Dance N' Drive. It consisted of that DJ car accompanied by Fullerton Junior College co-eds wearing very tight shorts and a gaggle of waitresses from Flo's V8 Cafe who would come out and start a dance party. There were some elements that had a lot of potential, especially because at least a couple of the songs they played were good.

But somehow the sum of its parts was just a loud, screechy mess. The waitresses had dialogue, and DJ would talk to them, but the whole thing was just people yelling meaningless words at each other and it just sounded like "Hey DJ! BLAH-BLAH-BLAH! RADIATOR SPRINGS!!! BLAH-BLAH-DANCE-BLAH-BLAH!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!"

And then, because this is apparently mandatory for any Disney street show, the children in the audience were invited to come out and dance along with the professionals. Which just meant you had a gaggle of 4 year old moppets shuffling and wiggling around the street like a scared conga line of introverts, while the waitresses implored them to dance and have fun and parents elbowed each other to get the perfect photo of the cutest child at Disneyland.

It was truly awful. Also very loud.



What was most surprising was how long this awful show lasted. Years and years! It was finally put out of its misery about a year ago.
 

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