The idea of Disney without fireworks definitely feels weird…
Fireworks have become an inseparable part of the Disney parks experience, to the point that Disney as a company remains the largest fireworks consumer on the planet. It was barely one year after Disneyland opened in 1956 that the park launched their first nightly fireworks shows as an incentive to keep guests in the park until closing. These original shows weren’t exactly the mind-boggling extravaganzas we’ve come to expect from Disney—their original shows were entirely run by one man (Mickey Aronson) sprinting between rockets to light fuses, hopefully not leaving any long, awkward gaps.
Tracking the history of fireworks at Disney’s US parks is… a complicated endeavor to say the least. Our own David Mumpower did an excellent job detailing the early history of Disney’s original fireworks show, Fantasy in the Sky, and that’s an in-depth story in and of itself. While Magic Kingdom has had a fairly straightforward history with only four major shows, I quickly realized when researching for our recent article How to Deal with Disney Parks Withdrawal with STYLE that if you start considering all of the shows at Disneyland, Epcot, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you will quickly find yourself tumbling down quite the rabbit hole in Wikipedia freefall.
We don’t want to break your brain, dear reader. We sifted through this soul-crushing mind-map to trace the highlights of the strange, eclectic, and feels-inducing history of fireworks at Disney’s US parks.
The birth of a Fantasy in the Sky
Video: YouTube User – FreeDogShampoo
Walt Disney’s dreamed of building a park where guests could experience their favorite stories brought to life—a place where magic became real. Nightly fireworks became an important part of this vision, and in 1958, the show was dubbed Fantasy in the Sky. Just a few years later, the company hired Tiny Kline in 1961, who had previously worked with Disney for a concert event, to play a nightly role as Tinkerbell flying from the Matterhorn across the sky in front of Cinderella Castle. Tiny was 71 years old at the time (!), and she repeated the role nightly until shortly before her death in 1964. Despite the popularity of the shows, as the years wore on, the company recognized they had a lot of learn about the business of fireworks.
One of the most significant turning points was when Disney discovered new ways to program fireworks. That opened the door for fireworks shows to follow precision timing that matched sweeping soundtracks. The company also underwent a philosophic change. They realized they could view fireworks shows the same way they viewed animated films—that every fireworks show is a story being told. The famous adult Mouseketeer, “Big Roy” Williams, played a major part in upgrading Fantasy in the Sky to the first of Disney’s great spectaculars.
Video: YouTube User – Musical Adventures
The real launch to the next level took place on October 1, 1971, when Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom opened. Fantasy in the Sky made the jump across the country for the park’s debut, but Disney took the opportunity to expand the show to grand levels. Walt Disney World didn’t suffer from the same space and noise constraints that Disneyland did, and that meant their version of Fantasy in the Sky could be bigger and better than anything the company tried before. The new show was met with widespread acclaim and remained a mainstay in the park for three decades!
Many IllumiNations
YouTube: User – MartinsVidsDotNet
Disney’s nightly entertainment scene remained largely unchanged until a key event—the opening of EPCOT Center in 1982. Within a month, Disney introduced Le Carnival de Lumiere, a first-of-its-kind show that used rear-projection barges paired with fountains and fireworks to produce dazzling effects across the World Showcase lagoon. The only problem was it could only be viewed from certain points in the park.
In 1983, Le Carnival was replaced with A New World Fantasy which incorporated synthesized classical music and new lighting effects. The show was rebranded again the following year as Laserphonic Fantasy, the very first Disney show to utilize laser effects projected on a water screen (an important leap forward that would eventually lead to another famous water show).
The real game changer came in 1988. Laserphonic Fantasy was rebranded as IllumiNations. The new show was set to a full orchestra soundtrack and introduced dazzling tributes to each of the original World Showcase nations (Norway wasn’t opened yet and when Morocco was added, it was left out of the show out of respect for the pavilion’s religious architecture). IllumiNations was a heart-thumper of a show, a grandiose symphony of water, lights, sweeping music, and a stunning fireworks ending. If you picture fireworks every time you hear Ode to Joy, you probably saw IllumiNations as a kid.
Video: YouTube User – Vintage Disney Parks Channel
IllumiNations became Disney’s most innovative show to date and remained a mainstay in EPCOT Center until 1996 when the classic show was replaced with IllumiNations 25—a new version concocted for Disney’s 25th anniversary. IllumiNations 25 featured an entirely new soundtrack without classical music, flashy new effects, and incorporation of nations beyond those in World Showcase. Ironically, this same name was tagged to two different shows. In 1997, the show returned to using classical music, and the anniversary references were removed.
IllumiNations remained the same until Disney’s Millennium Celebration in 2000 when a final version debuted. IllumiNations 2000: Reflections of Earth took the show to the next level with an epic new score, insane new fireworks and light displays, and the introduction of a new globe barge that could both project images and open to reveal a massive flame. Effects were synced up across Epcot, including using Spaceship Earth as part of the projections. The show would remain part of the fabric of EPCOT until it closed in 2019 (after losing sponsorship) to be replaced by the temporary show Epcot Forever.
Imagination…
Video: YouTube User – ChrisEdge
Outside of Epcot, things remained pretty steady on the fireworks front. In 1990, Disney-MGM Studios debuted Sorcery in the Sky, a new fireworks spectacular specific to that park, and the parks still introduced regular seasonal shows to celebrate holidays like New Years Eve and the Fourth of July.
Then out of the blue, Disney hit us with one of their finest gems to date…
Fantasmic! debuted in 1992 as a clever means to utilize the largely-unused Rivers of America. We’ve talked extensively about our love for the show before, but it cannot be understated how revolutionary Fantasmic was when it debuted. This wasn’t just a fireworks spectacular like Fantasy in the Sky or a celebration of pageantry like IllumiNations. Fantasmic seamlessly incorporated the mysterious setting of Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America with entrancing water, color, projection, and pyrotechnic effects to show us what happens when Mickey Mouse dreams. From the first moment when we hear, “Imagination,” to Mickey’s climactic battle against Maleficent’s dragon, audiences were gripped. This was an entirely new way to tell stories using nightly entertainment.
For the most part, Fantasmic remained unchanged over the years other than the elimination of the Ursula animatronic float and the addition of upgrades to the show’s effects. The show made the jump to Disney-MGM Studios in 1996 with both plusses and minuses. On the positive side, Fantasmic received its own amphitheater with seating, and Walt Disney World was able to use their space to upgrade the ending fireworks significantly. On the negative side, key sequences (like the pirate ship) from the original were cut, the story didn’t flow as well, and Murphy the Dragon was reduced to a simple head on a pole with weird, lacy wings. Oh, and no Pink Elephants on Parade—that song is an absolute banger. Despite these differences, Fantasmic was still well-received by Walt Disney World fans and has remained popular in the park ever since.
Believe. Imagine. Remember. Wish.
YouTube: User – Dtrigger05
The 2000’s was a kind of weird time to be a Disney parks fan—the company was in the midst of a number of fiscal failures, and longtime CEO Michael Eisner was on his way out. Despite this, the turn of the millennium launched a surprising chain of bold advancements for Disney’s nightly fireworks shows. Technology had improved to a point that Disney now had over 50 patents in place for utilizing precision fireworks, and they could program shows with detail hitherto thought impossible.
Over at Disneyland, the company acknowledged that Fantasy in the Sky was starting to feel a bit dated and regulars were losing interest. In 2000, the show was replaced with Believe… There’s Magic in the Stars. The show significantly upgraded the fireworks, and many guests grew quite attached to the new version which ran until 2004. Following the lead of Fantasmic!, Believe followed a story which guests could emotionally invest in. It also wowed guests with one of the first displays of fireworks shooting off Sleeping Beauty Castle.
YouTube: User – The DIS
Across the country, Magic Kingdom accepted the thrown gauntlet and replaced Fantasy in the Sky with Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams. To say Disney knocked it out of the park is an understatement—Wishes quickly become one of the grandest displays of coordinated fireworks ever seen. It also introduced projection effects on Cinderella Castle as a regular element of Disney’s nightly spectaculars.
Back at Disneyland, in 2004 Believe was replaced with a short-run show called Imagine… A Fantasy in the Sky. A year later, the company settled on a long term replacement called Remember… Dreams Come True which debuted as part of the park’s 50th anniversary. Remember captured much of the magic guests came to love in Wishes and celebrated Disney park’s history with sweeping nostalgia. While the show was much-loved, it only ran seasonally from winter to spring—the rest of the year, Disneyland rotated other seasonal shows.
From Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After…
Video: YouTube, User: The DIS
The 2010’s kicked off a series of transformation in Disney’s fireworks shows. Disney California Adventure’s World of Color had just premiered, introducing new ways Disney could push the limits for use of color projection and non-traditional effects. Within a few years, Magic Kingdom debuted Once Upon a Time, one of several nightly projection shows that blended fireworks with massive projections cast on Cinderella Castle.
In 2015, Disneyland said goodbye to Remember and introduced its current show, Disneyland Forever. Taking cues from Wishes, the show upgraded Disneyland’s fireworks to the next level by introducing projection effects not only on Sleeping Beauty Castle but all the way down Main Street USA. The show includes so many stunning details that guests could see it a dozen times from different locations and be treated to something new every time.
At Walt Disney World, in 2016 Disney’s Hollywood Studio gained its first new fireworks spectacular in over 17 years with the debut of Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular. The show took elements of the previously seasonal show Symphony in the Stars and incorporated the company’s new projection effects to cast images from the Star Wars saga across the park’s Chinese Theater.
In 2017, Disney fans were treated to a double-upgrade. At the Magic Kingdom, Wishes was replaced with Happily Ever After which remains Disney’s most bonkers fireworks show to date (in all the right ways). It’s an absolute tear-jerker, and the company knocked it out of the park with eye-boggling effects like Cinderella Castle taking off into the sky and characters darting and swinging through the spires. Whatever your favorite era of Disney film history, Happily Ever After has all the necessary ingredients to trigger the warm fuzzies.
Across the country, Fantasmic! received its first major overhaul since opening, introducing new tweaks to the storyline of Mickey’s journey through dreams and nightmares. Characters and sequences from The Lion King, Tangled, Aladdin, and Pirates of the Caribbean were introduced, and Murphy the Dragon was given a major upgrade. Fans dubbed the new version Fantasmic 2.0, and it remains an absolute stunner of a show. While I remain a fan of the original, the new version is spectacular in its own right and might arguably be Disney’s best overall show to date.
What does the future of fireworks at Disney parks hold? It’s a bit scary to consider a season of no nightly fireworks at the Most Magical and Happiest Places on Earth. We understand why Disney has to take these steps for a time to keep guests safe, but we are hopeful that the changes are temporary, and before long, we’ll see skies over Disney parks come ablaze with dazzling lights once again. The company has overcome obstacles and adversity before, and we look forward to the next time we can all enjoy a little Happily Ever After once again.
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