Musical History of Disneyland-20,000 Leagues Track


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Eric Paddon

Member
I have enjoyed my set immensely but this is the one track that has left me confused. This medley of the Main Title and "Whale Of A Tale" to my knowledge was never part of the old Walkthrough exhibit unless it played as background music somewhere. The Thurl Ranvenscroft narration for the walkthrough does exist and has been circulated in the past, so how come that wasn't used?
 
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Michael Zielski

Member
Being a huge fan of Thurl's, and Jules Verne's story of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, for that matter, I would have loved to have heard his narration! Having never walked through the attraction, can anyone fill me in a little more on what was actually heard in 20,000 Leagues(and what we're missing on the boxed set--hey, at least I'm not nit-picking about reverb and other related annoyances to some that I simply don't have the time to worry about, as I've usually got so many other things I'm trying to listen to)?

Mike
 
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Eric Paddon

Member
Collectively, the narration only runs about 2 minutes and is a somewhat thumbnail sketch of the different scenes one would see as one goes through. What I don't know is whether one heard this entire two minute spiel as you entered to set the stage for the visitor, or whether the different components of it were heard in each different section (though I suspect the former). The Kirk Douglas version of "Whale Of A Tale" opens the piece and then fades into Thurl's narration and by the time he's describing the salon and organ, the organ track also plays over the description and at the end as the organ track fades out, bubbles to indicate the death of the Nautilus as it lies in its "final resting place" closes out the track.
 
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atomobile

Member
Hello,
The reason why the original track was not used is that the attraction uses the organ music from the film which was recorded under a contract that doesn't allow for commercial release. I'm not sure about Whale of a Tale since this was released. It would have been odd to have the narration and no organ music so it was decided to use the Tomorrowland BGM track to substitute for it. After all, this is the MUSICAL history. I know that many DIsney fans would LOVE to have the 20K original soundtrack available. I know that the record company has optained the complete score. Randy has been trying to convince the record company to pay for all the legal fee to have new contracts to be able to release it. This would mean that the lawyers would have to contact all the musician performers to amke them sign new contracts. In most cases, the lawyers would have to contact the families if the performers aren't around anymore.
As you can see, it is very complicated and EXPENSIVE to try to release something that was never comercially available. But rest asured that Randy continues to try to release items such as this.
Back to the box set, I'm sure you understand why they couldn't spend the money on this one track when the had bigger obsticles clearing more memorable attraction soundtracks.
Your friend,
Louis Gonzalez
 
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Eric Paddon

Member
I appreciate the explanation, but since this cue never had anything to do with the 20,000 Leagues Walkthrough Exhibit the cue really should not be labelled 20,000 Leagues but "Tomorrowland Background Music-20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" because to just call it 20,000 Leagues I think ends up being potentially misleading.
 
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