The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights
Encyclopedia
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
lights and decorations at Disney's Hollywood Studios
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Disney's Hollywood Studios is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. Spanning 135 acres in size, its theme is show business, drawing inspiration from the heyday of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s...
at the Walt Disney World Resort
Walt Disney World Resort
Walt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...
near Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
. Initially constructed by an Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
businessman as a gift for his six-year-old daughter, the display has become one of the most popular attractions during the park's holiday season.
History
Jennings Osborne (1944-2011), along with his wife Mitzi, founded the "Arkansas Research Medical Testing Center" in Little Rock, ArkansasLittle Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
in 1968. The business' success allowed him and his wife to eventually purchase a large estate in the middle of town in 1976. In 1980 the Osbornes had a daughter, Allison Brianne Osborne (nicknamed "Little Breezy").
In 1986, Breezy made a very simple request of her parents for Christmas ... to decorate their home in lights. Jennings gladly complied, stringing 1000 lights around their home. "Each year after that, it got bigger and bigger," Osborne would later recall. So big, in fact, that Osborne purchased the two properties adjacent to his own and expanded the display into them.
By 1993, the display had over three million lights. Some of the more prominent features included:
- an illuminated globe, with Little Rock and BethlehemBethlehemBethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
marked, mounted in the back yard; - two rotating carousels of lights, placed on each end of the estate's circular driveway;
- a 70 feet (21.3 m)-tall Christmas tree of lights with 80,000 lights in three colored layers, mounted atop the home's kitchen; and
- a canopy of 30,000 red lights over a section of the driveway.
The lights were a wildly popular attraction, both in Arkansas and around the world, as news crews often visited to film the display.
Mr. Osborne's barbecue benefit (unrelated but notable in its immense scale, comparable to his light display) was featured in an episode of the television travelogue Man v. Food
Man v. Food
Man v. Food is an American food reality television series. It premiered on December 3, 2008, on the Travel Channel. The program is hosted by actor and food enthusiast Adam Richman. In each episode, Richman explores the "big food" offerings of a different American city before facing off against a...
.
Legal issues
The display grew bigger every year, and by 1993, was lit for 35 days during the Christmas season, from sunset to about midnight every day. Six neighbors filed a lawsuit, saying traffic congestion made trips to the corner store take two hours, and they feared emergency vehicles could not get down the street. Osborne responded by adding three million more lights.The county court ordered an injunction against the display, limiting it to 15 days and directing that it be lighted only from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Osborne appealed first to the Arkansas Supreme Court
Arkansas Supreme Court
The Arkansas Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Arkansas. Since 1925, it has consisted of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices, and at times Special Justices are called upon in the absence of a regular justice...
and lost, then in 1994 to the United States Supreme Court, where Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
refused to halt the order. In 1995, the state Supreme Court shut the display down altogether.
Display Acquired by Disney
The story of the light display's court case brought national attention, including offers from several cities to host the display. Walt Disney World project director John Phelan contacted Osborne's attorney about moving the display to the Orlando resort, and eventually discussed the potential move with Osborne himself.Osborne was intrigued by the offer, but initially understood that Disney wanted to put the display on another residential street in Orlando. What Phelan actually offered was to install the display on "Residential Street," a backlot section at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park (then known by its original name, the Disney-MGM Studios). Being a fan of the resort himself, and realizing where the display would go, Osborne accepted Disney's offer. In 1995, the display was set up on Residential Street as "The Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights," becoming an immediate success.
Disney's Hollywood Studios display
Residential Street was visited using the backlot tour's tram vehicles. When the light display was in place, however, the tram tours would stop before sunset, allowing guests to walk amongst the displays. Initially the display was purely the original lights from the Osborne estate, but in subsequent years the display was augmented to its current size of over five million lights. The display's Disney caretakers have also added a number of hidden MickeyHidden Mickey
A Hidden Mickey is a representation of Mickey Mouse that has been inserted subtly into the design of a ride, attraction, or other location in a Disney theme park or elsewhere on Disney properties...
s into the lights. The 2007 edition of the display features over 40 of the icons.
The display is made up of over 10 miles (16 kilometers) of rope lighting connected by another 30 miles (48 kilometers) of extension cords. The extension cords and lights are held together using two million ties. It takes 20,000 man-hours to install the display each holiday season, starting in September. The lights are turned on at dusk each night, starting in mid-November and running into the first week of January, and require 800,000 watt
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s of electricity.
In 2004, the park began construction on a new arena for its upcoming Lights! Motors! Action! Extreme Stunt Show, set to open in 2005. Part of the construction included the demolition of Residential Street, thus necessitating another move of the display. The solution was to move it to another part of the park, the New York Street set (now known as the Streets of America). As part of the move, the Studios added an artificial snow effect to the display, made up of 33 snow machines that use 100 gallons of fluid per evening.
In 2005, Sylvania
Osram Sylvania
Osram Sylvania Inc. is the North American operation of lighting manufacturer Osram GmbH, which is owned by Siemens AG. It was established in January 1993, with the acquisition of GTE’s Sylvania lighting division by Osram GmbH....
became the presenting sponsor of the lights, as part of parent company Siemens'
Siemens AG
Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....
long-term sponsorship deal with the Walt Disney Company's
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
theme parks, which also included the Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth (Disney)
Spaceship Earth is the iconic and symbolic structure of Epcot, a theme park that is part of the Walt Disney World Resort. One of the most recognizable structures at the Walt Disney World Resort, it is not only the centerpiece and main focal point of Epcot, but also the name of the attraction housed...
and IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth
IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth
IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth is an award-winning night time show performed nightly at Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida. The show utilizes fireworks, pyrotechnics, laser lights, fountains, and fire to create a visual production on the park's World Showcase Lagoon...
attractions at Epcot
Epcot
Epcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
.
For the 2006 edition, the park added over 1500 dimmer relay circuits and control switches to the display to enable the lights to switch on and off electronically. The switches were choreographed to a musical score, and the display was given its current name. In this variation, a musical selection is played, during which the lights "dance" to the music. After each performance, the lights remain steady for about ten minutes before "dancing" again to another selection; other holiday selections play during the intermissions. The dancing segments cycle roughly every 30-40 minutes. For 2007, the "dance music" selections include:
- "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12-24)," by Trans-Siberian OrchestraTrans-Siberian OrchestraTrans-Siberian Orchestra is an American progressive metal band founded in 1993 by producer, composer, and lyricist Paul O'Neill, who brought together Jon Oliva and Al Pitrelli and keyboardist and co-producer Robert Kinkel to form the core of the creative team. Since then, TSO sold nearly 8...
- "Jingle Bells," by Barbra StreisandBarbra StreisandBarbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
- "A Mad Russian's Christmas," by Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- "Feliz Navidad," by José FelicianoJosé FelicianoJosé Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...