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Murphy the Dragon from Fantasmic! | Photo by HarshLight (CC BY 2.0)
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Jambalaya Jazz, on old-time New Orleans-style jazz band, will begin performing on a floating raft on the Rivers of America at Disneyland this Friday as a temporary replacement for the park’s Fantasmic! show, which is on hiatus after a prop fire broke out during a performance earlier this year.
The jazz performances will be held three times per night, beginning at 7:35 p.m., park officials announced this week, and will eventually be augmented by other entertainment offerings, park officials said.
The band typically performs during the day throughout the New Orleans Square area. For the floating raft shows, they’ll perform “high-energy New Orleans tunes, plus other Disney favorites.”
“After their energetic and interactive performances, stick around to enjoy `Wondrous Journeys’ through Aug. 31, or `Halloween Screams’ through Oct. 31, with state-of-the-art projection effects, plus sparkling fireworks on select nights from the unique vantage point on the Rivers of America,” Disneyland officials said.
Disneyland had previously announced that Fantasmic! would be paused at least through Labor Day, but no further update has been provided on its possible return.
No one was injured when the show’s giant dragon prop caught fire in April, but park officials temporarily suspended fire effects similar to those used at Fantasmic! at select shows worldwide.
The Anaheim Fire Department quickly responded to the fire, and all guests and cast members were safely evacuated from Tom Sawyer Island.
Fantasmic! opened in Frontierland in 1992 and featured fireworks, various Disney characters, live actors, water effects, pyrotechnics, lasers, music, audio-animatronics, searchlights, decorated boat floats and mist screen projections.
The show goes inside Mickey Mouse’s imagination as he battles various Disney villains, including Maleficent in her dragon form, which is about 45 feet tall.
It’s been a year of change at the Anaheim theme park. Disneyland officials announced earlier this week that the Adventureland Treehouse, which has been closed since September 2021, will reopen later this year. It will once again have a theme based on the 1812 novel “Swiss Family Robinson,” except the latest imagining will be tied into a forthcoming “Swiss Family Robinson” television show on the Disney+ streaming service.
In May, Splash Mountain, the flume ride that came under fire for its roots in the 1946 animated film “Song of the South” — a film criticized for racist and stereotyping undertones — closed for good and was renovated into an attraction based on the more modern film “The Princess and the Frog.”
