Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, we’ll be looking back at an attraction that called Disneyland Paris home and was amongst the weirder attractions that I’ve seen.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) – IMDb
Via IMDb
This week, we will finally get the long-awaited Black Panther: Wakana Forever. The film has been highly anticipated ever since the original film finished as the third highest grossing film ever at the domestic box office by the end of its run. Between that and Chadwick Boseman’s tragic passing, there’s a lot of intrigue on how this film will end up playing out in its quest to top the original.
Over at Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, Avengers Campus opened this year. With Black Panther appearing throughout the land, I’m sure we’ll see more characters from the film appear over the next few weeks. But for today, we’ll actually be talking about a show at its Parisian sister park.
Via YouTube
When the park opened, there was a show called C’est Magique that served as a perfect introduction to the park because it featured songs from around the park with all of the lands in the park represented in the show. The show only lasted a couple of years until En Scéne S’il Vous Plaît took over in April 1995 and took a completely different approach.
The show would primarily just play during the summer because there were generally some other shows that would play during holiday times, particularly when it came to Christmas. But before I jump any further into it, I’ve got to preface it with the fact that this show was weird and wild.
The basic premise of the show (from what I could tell because it was primarily in French) was that the Fab Five plus Chip, Dale, and a producer were creating music videos for classic Disney songs. However, these weren’t your grandmother’s version of those songs as they were all adapted to be more pop or rap driven and basically brought straight into the 90s. In fact, the entire show just screamed 90s with the costumes (and insane amount of costume changes) all reflecting the time period.
Via Passion DLP
Of course, the show also had Roger Rabbit sticking around for a bit because were you an early 1990s Disney show or parade if you didn’t have Roger Rabbit? He showed up in time to help print a giant poster out and help set up what seemed like an alt-world DJ booth, so that the gang could keep banging out as many music videos as they could.
There were two mixes that really stood out to me, the first being a rendition of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” that was performed as a weird, slow rap. The original song does have some slight rap-like elements to it, but this one really went all in on that aspect but with weird backup tracks as well.
The other mix that stood out to me was the very next one where Chip and Dale performed to “it’s a small world” … while dressed as astronauts who were lifted into the air in front of a backdrop of outer space. For a song that is all about Earth, it was a pretty wild decision to set it in space, but hey it was the 90s.
Via YouTube
Later in the show, a giant television screen appeared on stage and right when the anticipation had crescendoed, the screen disappeared and behind it were characters from Disney Afternoon shows, another staple of a 90s Disney show. Things got wild then when all of the characters started singing and dancing around the stage and just having a grand old time. It was actually super fun because they used lesser seen Disney Afternoon characters like Bonkers D. Bobcat, who I had never seen a walkaround costume of.
The show then moved to a masquerade ball set to Bella Notte before closing with a quick change and the M-I-C-K-E-Y song. Luckily, things didn’t get too Eyes Wide Shut, and the show came to a relatively normal conclusion that you’d expect from your run of the mill DIsney show, not one with some crazy music video renditions.
Audiences liked it enough for the show to last six seasons before closing in October 2000 with a Mickey Mouse meet and greet taking over for a few years before Winnie the Pooh and Friends, Too! got its run in the spot. The show was truly one of a kind and I’m glad I watched it because I would not have believed some of the song mixes without having watched the video of the show. It’s good to see there’s a place for the weird in the world, as well.
Via Reddit
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!