Magic Journeys

I worked Magic Journeys when I was in college in 1983. It was still in EPCOT's first year. For those of you who know Disney park lore, there used to be a rotation system where you would work each position for 15 minutes till you got "bumped" to break.

I remember the Magic Eye Theatre was paired up with the Image Works (a KODAK visual illusion center on the second floor. So...you started outside at the end of the line, then the front door, then upstairs in Image Works Blue Screen, then Image Works Rover, then down to hand out 3D glasses for half an hour, then Magic Eye Preshow then Magic Eye Theatre, then half an hour at the exit. This last position was to dump all the collected 3D glasses out of the bins on the lobby floor and stack them into trays/boxes before the next show dumped.

The rotation was so damn long that I would get to the Magic Eye Theatre Operator and just stay there all night till the park closed. I must have shown that movie 10 times a night.

But....I loved it. It was very stream of consciousness and had a fabulous score. It really was about the "imagining process" where birds turn to kites which turn to fish, which turn to bats etc. EPCOT had a lot of class then...and this show was very classy. Yes folks. EPCOT opened with NO Disney characters at all! It was all about YOU and YOUR FUTURE. EPCOT Center RIP.

This short feature appeared for several years at Epcot Center's Journey Into Imagination pavilion before being replaced by the Michael Jackson film "Captain EO." This mostly plotless featurette shows off the Disney attempts at a 3-D show, which works. It's too bad you can't see this show any more...a show which flung butterflies and dandelion petals at the viewer in the theatre. A very good film.

I am looking for a copy of this movie! I think Murray Lerner did such a beautiful job in directing this film, set against the music of the Sherman Brothers, we are given a picturesque glimpse into the world through a child's eye! If anyone has information on this movie or how I can get it, please contact me.

"Magic Journeys" was the first of several films shown in the "Magic Eye Theater" at Disney World. All have employed a 3-D process, with the audience wearing the same glasses audiences wore at theaters in the 50s.

Some 3D films are filled with what Kermit the frog (in his own mini-film) called "cheap 3D tricks". This one had a trombone slide protrude into the audience, but little else to scare or confuse the kiddies.

"Magic Journeys" involved a group of children attending a circus and playing outdoors, including a horseback ride on a beach in the Cayman Islands. There was no narration and only a small quantity of dialogue for the performers to speak. The Sherman brothers, who took home an Oscar for "Mary Poppins" wrote the theme song and created a synthesized underscore.

For 1982, Disney hit it out of the park with this 3D film, using state-of-the-art technology to develop a film with children's' dreams into a magical viewing experience. As a child, I loved the movie. Now, when Captain EO came out in the late 80s, the movie quickly put Magic Journeys into pixie dust and disappear. That's not surprising--EO was a brilliantly entertaining film which was produced by and staring household name talent (hard to make a bad film when you have one of the world's greatest performers, greatest directors, and a budge which was sky high)...but I digress.

What was most inspiring about Magic Journeys, particularly as a child, was the music. Years after I had last seen the movie at the Magic Kingdom, I could visualize the four kids running through the sunflower field as the eponymous theme song was playing. I still consider the theme song possibly the greatest Sherman Brothers song ever composed. The song is harmonically complex but incredibly listenable. The score of the movie is also underrated-- the alternate versions of the theme sometimes sound almost sad, like an adult wistful of being a child again, but it is a beautiful piece. So much of the Shermans' success focuses on their 60s fame, but they also developed great theme park music in the 80s. This is one of their best.

Like a lot of people, I would love to see the film on DVD, but Disney doesn't seem to recognize the market for selling Disneyana themselves. It's too bad--Magic Journeys will mostly be relegated to people's memories. What a shame.