Disney's Electrical Parade - Interviews
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LP: Was that element used in WDW?
DD: Yes, I believe so. And we were also able to go back to the original tapes and create new digital masters. So the sound quality would come up. Being a new park the sound system is much greater here than it is at Disneyland. So now we’ve got really good sounding masters and a really good sounding system. It is going to be a whole level higher than it has been. To recreate the opening announcement which is so much a part of the feel of the parade, just the rhythm of it and the sound of it and everything, I went back and found in my library the original Jack Wagner voice tracks that we had used to process the Vocoder announcement and so I took Jack’s voice and edited out the words that had to change and put my own voice in and then we reprocessed the whole thing. But we kept the rhythm of it exactly the same and we used as much of Jack as possible so it has the original pacing and feeling and sound, his annunciation. So Jack is still a part of the parade.
LP: This is the first time the Electrical Parade is being performed outside a Magic Kingdom...
DD: That's not correct. In 1997, I think. After the Electrical Parade left Disneyland it went to New York for Hercules. So it is correct in one way but in another way it's not. In my mind there is a lot of talk - does it belong here? Does it belong there? When you go to the show and the lights go out you’re supposed to pay attention to the show and not the theater. So hopefully people will enjoy the parade experience for what it is and be transported into that magical world and not worry too much about what’s that building behind it.
LP: So you’re happy to see it back even if it’s at DCA?
DD: I’m happy that the people who have enjoyed the parade over the years can see it again. So many people have enjoyed it. I still get letters from people who have enjoyed it over the years. It’s nice to be able to see old friends again. I look at that way and I think a lot of other people do. It’s nice to have it back so people can enjoy it some more.
LP: Do you have a personal favorite part?
DD: The opening when the announcement finishes and the lights go out and people start clapping. That, to me, if the crowd reacts and they get involved in the music that means “I’m satisfied”. That’s my favorite moment.
LP; I saw you walking the parade route when Eureka first started running. Why?
DD: My job is coordinator for the audio control systems at the Disney parks. And we have a computer that manages the audio that moves up and down the parade route. And I was instrumental in the design and creation of that software. The actual programming of the software was done by information services here and a gentleman by the name Jim Holman. I designed the functionality and he wrote the code. Together we ensure that the computer deals with the parade audio in the way that it is supposed to.
LP: Is the same system used in all parks?
DD: No, Disneyland had the first system in 1980. It was based on a Z80 processor. Very, very simple. We had 8-inch floppy disks for program storage. That’s how old it was. It was the first time any system like this had been created. I mean we couldn’t go to a vendor and say we want a parade audio control system because nobody made them. We had to make up our own. We buried sensors in the street at Disneyland. Then we figured out how to create a matrix of cues that would execute, as floats went down the street. Over the years we’ve continued to improve upon that and use faster and faster computer processors, write different types of cues so that we’re not just waiting for a float to arrive and then doing something, we can actually anticipate float progress, determine if we want take option a or option b depending on where the float is. We can track all the floats individually and make all kinds of show decisions based on how the parade evolves as a performance. So it is quite a sophisticated system and my job is to be with every parade that is mounted here at Disneyland or DCA and make sure the audio is programmed and operates correctly.