Fantasmic

"Some imagination, huh?"[1]


Nothing is more wonderful than the imagination. For in a moment, you could experience a beautiful fantasy, or an exiting adventure. But beware, nothing is more powerful than the imagination. For it could also expand your greatest fears into an overwhelming nightmare.
—Introduction

A nighttime show presented at the Disney Theme Parks, specifically Disneyland Park, the Disney Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, and Tokyo DisneySea. It starts with Mickey Mouse having dreams inspired by such pieces of the Disney Animated Canon as Dumbo and Peter Pan. Eventually, the villains take over, and Mickey has to battle them in the center of his mind. What exactly Mickey dreams about, and how many villains he faces, differ depending on which theme park viewers watch the show at.

The show tells its story with help from people in Disney character suits, pyrotechnics, movie clips, and animatronics. The use of mist screens for projecting the clips felt especially innovative during the 1992 premiere at Disneyland. Only outranked by the Main Street Electrical Parade in fame, it still stands as one of the Disney Parks' most popular and beloved shows.

Tropes used in Fantasmic include:

Peter Pan: (referring to the Crocodile's ticking noise) Say, Captain, do you hear something?
Hook: No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  • Disney Acid Sequence: Particularly when Mickey dreams about The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Pink Elephants On Parade, and giant puppets. Chernabog's entrance also contains a Disney Acid Sequence.
    • The version at Disney World replaces the pink elephants and puppets with floating bubbles containing various movie clips.
    • The Tokyo DisneySea version has animals from The Jungle Book and The Lion King sail around to the accompaniment of "Hakuna Matata" and "Circle of Life", Stitch assume control of lasers and fountains for a while, and Genie appearing in giant crystal balls.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: One of Mickey's dreams in the Disneyland and Disney World versions features Belle, Ariel, and Snow White dancing with their respective princes. Tokyo DisneySea has clips of Disney Princesses appear inside giant crystal balls.
  • Everything's Better with Sparkles: What else to expect from a Disney show?
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: As the gratuitous fireworks in Disneyland's old finale caused huge clouds of smoke to drift out into the audience, today's incarnation relies much more heavily on lights, fountains, and of course, lasers.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Bucky and Murphy, the two incarnations of Disneyland's dragon.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons
  • Intercontinuity Crossover
  • Legion of Doom: Key part of Fantasmic, especially in the Florida version. The only villains (Besides the Evil Queen) who actually do anything are Ursula (In the Disneyland and Tokyo Disney versions), Jafar (Hollywood Studios), and Maleficent (All versions). Though the inclusion of Frollo into a group including demons, witches and pagan gods is rather confusing...
    • Fantasmic! takes place in Mickey's imagination, remember? Can you blame him for placing someone like Frollo among the likes of Chernabog and Maleficent?
    • What's funnier is that once Frollo dies, he yells out "WITCHCRAFT!!!"
  • Long Runner: The original (Disneyland's) version turned twenty in 2012. Hoo, boy.
  • Make My Monster Grow: When Disneyland's dragon succumbs to malfunctions prior to a performance, the climax instead features Mickey slaying a giant version of Maleficent.
  • Milestone Celebration: The Tokyo DisneySea version opened during the park's 10th anniversary.
  • Mood Whiplash: In the Florida version, when Monstro the whale appears directly after the Bubble Montage.
  • Negated Moment of Awesome: Disney centered Disneyland's summer 2009 promotion, "Summer Nightastic!' around the replacement of the Fantasmic! dragon puppet with a full-bodied animatronic. Unfortunately, technical difficulties delayed the dragon's unveiling until September 2009, when the summer had long past.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Tokyo DisneySea version has Mickey summoning the Magic Mirror to ask if he's "the greatest sorcerer of all", only to fall into the Mirror's trap when it invites him to look closer within.
  • No Budget: Aside from the fact Imagineering built a whole theater for it, the Disney World version seems cheaper to perform than the others. It relies much more heavily on projections, and its dragon and boats look less elaborate than those at Disneyland. The projections aren't even HD.
  • Spiritual Successor:
    • Kingdom Hearts contains scenes of Mickey fighting villains who did not face him in their respective movies.
    • World of Color features clips projected against mist screens, including clips of Chernabog and Sorcerer Mickey.
      • Recursively, the Tokyo DisneySea Fantasmic! seems like a Spiritual Successor of both Disneyland's Fantasmic! and World of Color, retelling the basic concept of the former with technology on par with the latter (especially apparent if one tries to compare the fountains).
  • This Was Her True Form: Queen Grimhilde transforms from a hag back into her queenly self after Mickey slays the dragon.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Subverted. Mickey does use a sword (pulled from a stone) to defeat Maleficent, but instead of throwing it like Prince Philip does, he shoots a plume of sparkles through it!
    • Justified, since in the beginning he displays the power to shoot sparkles from his fingers.
  • Title Drop: The hag from Snow White boasts that she'll turn Mickey's dreams into a "nightmare Fantasmic".
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?:
    • Few would probably have thought that Mickey Mouse's dreams would look so epic.
    • When it's raining too hard in Disney World for the performers to come on stage, the stagehands unleash the loaded fireworks with as much flair as one would expect from a normal Disney fireworks show.
  1. ↑ This isn't the current dragon, by the way.
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