Extinct Attractions – Doctor Strange: Mysteries of the Mystic Arts

Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I took a look back at an attraction that isn’t quite extinct yet, but will be closing this Sunday.

Yes, it’s only the end of June, but tickets for the Disneyland Resort’s Halloween party, Oogie Boogie Bash, are already on sale. Heck, tickets might have already sold out for the event by the time you are reading this because last year, tickets didn’t even last for half a day before selling out, even with a minimum price of $130. Southern Calforians just go gaga for Halloween (though arguably not as much as Orlando residents).

California Adventure is overtaken by villains during the Oogie Boogie Bash, though it strays away from the scariness of its theme park counterparts, Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s Scary Farm. There are countless chances to see villains tucked away all over the park, with one of the most popular the last few years being Agatha Harkness from WandaVision. She took up residence in Doctor Strange’s sanctum in Avengers Campus as the nighttime host while Doctor Strange was resting at Sanctum Santorum in New York.

During the day, Doctor Strange researched the paranormal activity around the sanctum that had been on the land for many years after being created by the Vishanti. (It definitely was not the home of one of my favorite attractions, Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train). Doctor Strange is a man of the people, so when Avengers Campus opened to the public on June 4, 2021, he opened the doors to the sanctum to anyone who wanted to see what he was doing there (after being inspired by a similar experience that he did on Disney Cruise ships).

At the start of the show, Doctor Strange struggled his way into view with the face of the evil Dormammu behind the door chasing after him. He lets us know in his snarky way that we should be grateful that he was there to stop the villain, but he couldn’t hold Dormammu off for long without the Spectral Staff. With that, he started using some magic to make cabinets pop open before moving over to a giant cauldron on the stage.

From the cauldron, Strange pulled out a magical being known as the Soul Seeker that would help him seek out which of his friends could help him find the Spectral Staff. He walked around the stage with the Soul Seeker seemingly floating in front of him in a true act of magic that only Doctor Strange could pull off. Strange asked the Soul Seeker who would help him, naming Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and other Marvel superheroes before settling on America Chavez, who showed up with a seemingly unhelpful jug and then just left to go explore Avengers Campus.

Luckily, Doctor Strange knew just what to do, combining the jug with a magical item that allowed him to pull a five foot staff out of a one foot jug. Strange then got the crowd to chant a spell with him to create a spectral shield around the entire spectrum and keep Dormammu away. With the danger averted, Strange was out of there and back to the Sanctum Santorum.

All in all, Doctor Strange: Mysteries of the Mystic Arts was a really fun piece of the Avengers Campus puzzle, especially with the land looking to create as many chances to see superheroes as possible. It used a lot of practical magic tricks to help Doctor Strange feel like a true magician and kept things up to date by switching out who would help Doctor Strange find the Spectral Staff, generally centered around whoever had a movie releasing at the time.

I only ever got to see the show once in person, but I really liked that they tried to do something a little different with the magic tricks. It had some funny humor in there as well and gave guests a great chance to see one of the mightiest Avengers up close and personal.

Occasionally, the show was scaled back with the sanctum occasionally used for a meet and greet, which is likely to be its case in the future, as well, because I was a bit misleading as the show technically doesn’t close until this Sunday, June 30th. Many of the cast members at Disneyland are working to unionize, so a lot of live entertainment is unfortunately being phased out there. It’s a bummer to see the superheroes of Avengers Campus being phased out because they added such an awesome atmosphere to just look around and see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes roaming around. I’m glad we got it when it was there, and I hope we don’t keep seeing these cut backs going forward.

Via Demilked 

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!