What Disney’s Firework Ratings Reveal About the Future (Ep. 545)

The Disney Dish with Jim Hill

Jim Hill Media Podcast Network

Leisure, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.8 • 979 Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jim Hill and Len Testa dig into how fans really rate Disney’s nighttime spectaculars — and why those scores decide which shows stay and which ones fade away. Along the way, they cover the latest park news and wrap up the story of how Jack Sparrow sailed into Pirates of the Caribbean. TouringPlans survey data reveals the winners and losers among Disney’s fireworks and nighttime shows Why “average” ratings are the kiss of death for spectaculars like Enchantment New menus and a $65 all-you-can-eat croissant buffet at Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival Destination D23 schedule updates, including hints of a Villains Land presentation Construction progress on Disneyland’s new Marvel e-ticket attraction Universal’s permit filing that could mean another Epic Universe hotel How Johnny Depp, Captain Barbossa, and Davy Jones made their way into the Pirates of the Caribbean rides From fan-favorite fireworks to the behind-the-scenes drama of Pirates overlays, this episode blends data, history, and Disney news you won’t hear anywhere else. SHOW NOTES Support Our Sponsors Unlocked Magic Unlocked Magic, powered by DVC Rental Store and DVC Resale Market, offers exclusive Disney & Universal ticket savings with TRUSTED service and authenticity. With over $10 MILLION in ticket sales, use Unlocked Magic to get the BIGGEST SAVINGS. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn More⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to another edition of the Disney Dish podcast with Jim Hill. It's me, Len Testa, and this is our show for the week of Shmursday, August 18th, 2025 on the show today. In news, does the croissant limit exist? In listener questions, what's the highest rated nighttime spectacular? Then in our main segment, Jim finishes the history of how Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbosa wound up in the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions.
0:24.4	Let's get started by bringing in the man whose career achievements allow him to say to everyone who ever doubted him, all right, some of you had a valid point.
0:32.0	It's Mr. Jim Hill.
0:32.8	Jim has a gun.
0:34.2	It's going well, but doubt, doubt, which by the way, has a completely useless B in the middle of it, and I bring that up.
0:42.7	Yeah, there we go. There's this wonderful Finnish comedian, Ismo, who does this routine about throughout the English language, these instances were totally needless letters.
0:54.3	Things that we don't even say are acknowledged are shoved into words.
0:57.2	You mentioned the bee in debt, likewise the bee and obviously, the bee and subtle.
1:03.6	You know, Len, it's like someone, when they were getting the English language off the ground,
1:08.5	accidentally overordered a lot of bees. So it's like to cover up the mistake, they begin randomly shoving bees into words. It just don't need them. It's like a, it's like a Gutenberg with the, uh, the first printing press is like, well, look, we made these bees. There we go. We've got to use them somewhere. There we go. But anyway, this is not my bit. This is a brilliant Finnish observational comedian, Ismo, who you can easily find on YouTube.
1:33.3	Go check them out.
1:34.4	The fact that, Jim, that you've retained information about a Finnish comedian.
1:38.8	No math.
1:39.7	Explains to me that you...
1:41.3	This is why none of us really understand calculus.
1:43.4	There we go.
1:43.8	Like, this is it right here. Sh understand calculus. There we go. Like this is it right here.
1:45.1	Shugged it hold of the back.
1:48.7	All right.
1:49.9	All right, Jim, let's do a quick shout out to our Patreon subscribers.
1:52.6	Thanks to everyone who subscribes to the show over to patreon.com slash jimelmedia,
1:56.6	including John Frieden, Greg McCann, Andrew Liker, Judy Cast, Amy Wilson, and Kathy Hines.
	...

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