So, today on the podcast, we will finish up our four-part story on the creation of Fantasmic.

Already we've looked at early concepts that influenced the show.

Dixieland at Disneyland, the Haunted Mansion River Show, a proposed battle at the Disneyland

Castle between Mickey and Maleficent, and a plan to create a symphonic

experience called Fantasia Live on Rivers of America. There are many ways to think about what

makes a compelling story about the history of the Disney Company, but one of those, I think,

is that the story needs to be about Disney and also about at least one other element.

That is, one way to think about a good story is that it can be about the dialogue between what is being designed inside the parks

and how that attraction or show speaks to cultural or economic or political elements

unfolding outside of the park.

And that is very much the structure for our show today.

The story of Fantasmic is not just about Mickey and the villains on stage, but how the message

of that story connected with

important events that were happening outside of the park.

And that's a significant part of what we'll explore today.

Designs for parks and plans for film never happen in a vacuum.

They are always in dialogue with other cultural and political forces

moving through the world. And that is largely true about Fantasmic, how the show coincidentally

spoke to larger problems America faced in the early 1990s. When we last left off, the Disneyland

team was getting ready to drain the

river and build the effects and stage equipment necessary for the show. But before we jump back

into our final segment, I need to thank a few more Bandcamp subscribers. We're an ad-free

...