The Wonderful World of Disney: Holiday Spectacular

Glitzy, plastic, and devoid of any true Christmas spirit, Disney's Holiday Spectacular 2024 was a confusing mess. Strange renditions of old holidays tunes set to the cacophony of electro contemporary arrangements, overly caffeinated hosts, odd dutch angles and fast moving camera shots of K-Pop kids a small audience of middle-aged tourists, and blatant promotional material had me asking, "what's this all about?".

Growing up with Disney classics like "Mickey's Christmas Carol", there was indeed a time that Christmas values and sentimentality were rooted in these productions...not here.

It would be refreshing to see Disney return to some of its original values, art direction, while producing something thoughtful and meaningful. Whatever this was, it didn't appeal to me.

I must have watched a different "The Wonderful World of Disney: Holiday Spectacular" to the people who rated this out at an average of 5.5. I thought the show was fantastic, even setting aside the original songs that had nothing to do with Christmas but everything to do with upcoming Disney releases and some of the more overt Disney advertising. It is what it is.

What was undeniably fantastic were the spectacular settings. Not sure how much money Disney went through on fireworks for all the big performances at their parks' various castles, but the bill can't have been cheap. The visuals were amazing, paired with faithful renditions of some of the best Christmas carols there are, and with an Elton John finale. Seemed like a good spread of artists from various musical genres. Carly Pearce, John Legend and the K-Pop band were probably the highlights, along with Sir Elton, of course.