A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Mickey’s PhilharMagic

By Dave Shute

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

MICKEY’S PHILHARMAGIC

By Jim Korkis

At the Magic Kingdom, the show building that currently houses Mickey’s PhilharMagic Concert Hall beginning in 2003 once housed the Magic Kingdom opening day attraction, Mickey Mouse Revue. Both attractions feature Mickey as a conductor leading an orchestra in some of the classic tunes from the Disney songbook.

Mickey Mouse Revue was removed from the Magic Kingdom in 1980 and transplanted to Tokyo Disneyland where it lasted from 1983 until 2009 when it was replaced by Mickey’s Philharmagic.

(c) Disney

Mickey’s Philharmagic is a twelve minute film written by Alex Mann and directed by George Scribner, who directed the animated feature Oliver and Company (1988). It recounts the misadventures after Donald Duck borrows Mickey Mouse’s magical hat from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Donald is swept away into several different Disney animated features scenarios as he tries to catch the errant hat.

Although the starting point is that Mickey Mouse will be conducting the PhilharMagic Orchestra at the Fantasyland Concert Hall, just as he had lead several orchestras in his short cartoons, Mickey appears just briefly at the beginning and the end of the show. A total of fourteen different Disney animated characters appear.

At 150 feet wide by 28 feet tall, the screen for Mickey’s PhilharMagic is the largest seamless projection screen in the world. The theater accommodates up to 496 guests (including those in wheelchairs/ECVs) who use 3-D “opera glasses” to enjoy the show.

Wayne Allwine originally supplied the voice for Mickey Mouse when the attraction opened. Most of Donald Duck’s lines were pieced together from sound tracks of old cartoons where he was voiced by his original voice Clarence Nash. Tony Anselmo, the current voice of Donald, supplied only five new lines such as the scene where Donald Duck hums to the tune of the song Be Our Guest .

It is considered a 4-D attraction, meaning that in addition to the 3-D film itself, there are other elements like scents (including apple pie offered by Lumiere), water spray (in Ariel’s underwater world), the jets of air (while flying over London) and a figural rear end of Donald Duck struggling in the back wall of the theater at the end of the show. The rest of Donald can be found in the wall of the Fantasy Faire merchandise shop after exiting the attraction.

It is one of the very few attractions where WDI collaborated directed with Walt Disney Animation Studios, as it did with Fantasmic!

The entire production of Mickey’s PhilharMagic was created totally on computer, representing the first time the featured classic Disney characters were completely modeled and animated by computer. The next time was in the straight-to-video Twice Upon a Christmas released a year later in 2004.

Animator Nik Ranieri, who brought Lumiére to life for the original animated feature Beauty and the Beast, returned to render him in 3-D for Mickey’s PhilharMagic. This was the final time that actor Jerry Orbach reprised his role as Lumiere before his death in 2004.

Animator Glen Keane, who animated Ariel in The Little Mermaid, also returned to animate her for this film. It was his first time doing computer animation.

Songs featured in the show include Be Our Guest, I Just Can’t Wait to Be King, Part of Your World, A Whole New World, You Can Fly!, and instrumental versions of Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the Mickey Mouse Club March.

Mickey’s PhilharMagic was the seventh 3-D film presented at WDW following previous films including Captain EO, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, Magic Journeys, Muppetvision 3D, It’s Tough to be a Bug and Working for Peanuts.

“We’re always exploring ways to take 3-D to the next level,” said Tom Fitzgerald, executive vice president and senior creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering in January 2002. “We keep looking for new ways to allow guests to become a part of the action and story. Mickey’s PhilharMagic will be the most animated, energetic and magical 3-D show we’ve ever created!”

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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, More Secret Stories of Disneyland, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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