Sonny Eclipse at starlight Rays café

Sonny Eclipse at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café 1994-Present

Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café opened in Tomorrowland on December 9, 1994, part of the land’s wholesale reinvention that year — and it brought its own entertainment with it. On the stage of the Starlight Lounge sits Sonny Eclipse, an Audio-Animatronic lounge singer at his Astro-Organ, performing for diners then and now. This recording is his complete show.

Sonny hails from Yew Nork City on the planet Zork and bills himself, accurately, as the Biggest Little Star in the Galaxy. Voiced by blues singer and guitarist Kal David, with songs by George Wilkins and Kevin Rafferty, he works through a set of eight numbers in about twenty-five minutes, backed by the Space Angels — his backup singers, conveniently invisible since the night his original singers failed to show up on Mars. The set list runs from his theme, “My Name Is Sonny Eclipse,” through the menu-celebrating “Starlight Soup and Salad,” the hometown anthem “Yew Nork, Yew Nork,” and “Bright Little Star,” a love song for his girlfriend — six eyes, twelve nostrils, and, as Sonny reports, 20/20/20/20/20/19 vision.

Most restaurant entertainment is lucky to last a season; Sonny has now been playing the same room for three decades, one of the longest-running dinner shows anywhere, and he still performs daily. He is also, these days, nearly the last of Tomorrowland’s aliens standing: the other extraterrestrial act in the neighborhood, Stitch’s Great Escape, has gone dark, while a few steps away the park’s oldest Tomorrowland resident, the Carousel of Progress, keeps turning as it has since 1975.