The night the fireworks learned the score.
In 1990, for the fiftieth anniversary of Fantasia, Disney-MGM Studios got a fireworks spectacular over its Chinese Theater and backlot: Sorcery in the Sky, one of the nighttime shows Disney's own D23 encyclopedia credits Don with creating and directing.
Its real distinction is in the verb order. Recalled on stage at D23's 2024 “Magic After Dark” panel, Sorcery in the Sky was the first Disney fireworks show to choreograph its pyrotechnics specifically to the music: shells cued to the score, rather than a score playing underneath the shells. Don insisted the show be built on Disney's own film music, so the bursts land on phrases the audience already knows by heart.
It nearly had a co-star. Don recalled at the panel that during development he worked with Jim Henson on getting Kermit the Frog into the show. Kermit, in the end, remained unavailable for pyrotechnic work.
The show ran through 1998, and its premise, that the sky should follow the orchestra and not the other way around, became the grammar of every Disney fireworks spectacular since, from Fantasy in the Sky's successors to the lagoon itself.
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