DreamLights (2001) (“Version C”)
Tokyo Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade (“Version C”) took its last trip through the park a decade after its Japanese debut, in 1995. …Kind of.
“Version C” was shipped west to the new (and financially struggling) Disneyland Paris, where it launched alongside the Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre a la Lune in an all-at-once effort to right the struggling park’s finances and reputation… Yep, another instance of the Electrical Parade coming to the rescue.
In the meantime, Tokyo Disneyland offered a new nighttime parade called Disney’s Fantillusion. It may have been good, but it was no Main Street Electrical Parade. After six years, Tokyo initiated good old-fashioned “givesies-backsies.” Fantillusion went to France so that “Version C” of the Electrical Parade could return to Tokyo… but in typical Tokyo Disney Resort form, simply rerunning the original parade just wasn’t in the cards.
Instead, Tokyo Disney Resort officially launched the Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights in 2001. As the parade’s DreamLights Train unit (above) should make clear, technically it reuses several key floats (and key music, including elements of the “Baroque Hoedown”) from the Main Street Electrical Parade. However, all were radically updated or evolved for the DreamLights launch.
And in the years since, DreamLights has pulled ahead of the pack as a prime example of what a modern-yet-nostalgic nighttime parade can be. Year after year, the team at Tokyo Disney plusses the parade with new floats.
Today, its lineup includes units based on Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy, the “Knights of Light,” Mickey’s Dreamlights Train, Alice in Wonderland, Disney Fairies, Pete’s Dragon, Peter Pan, Toy Story, Aladdin, Tangled, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen and “it’s a small world.” The mix of classic and modern stories, technologies, and songs somehow gels, with the “Baroque Hoedown” still holding it all together after all these years.
If you consider yourself a fan of the Main Street Electrical Parade, do yourself a favor and relish in the wonder of its “spin-off” and successor in Tokyo by taking in the sights and sounds of DreamLights for yourself:
If that doesn’t put Tokyo Disneyland on your travel list, we’re not sure what will. The dazzling, mindblowing spectacle is nothing short of a visual wonder. But it still isn’t the most recent of Disney’s nighttime parades.
Paint the Night (2014)
In 2014 – as part of its reimagining and rebirth – Hong Kong Disneyland illuminated its own nighttime parade, Paint the Night. Packed with 740,000 LED lights across seven main floats, the parade was painted as a knowing follow-up and complement to the Main Street Electrical Parade, with a score remixing the “Baroque Hoedown” with Owl City’s “When Can I See You Again?” from Wreck-It Ralph.
Born in the era of Disney’s “Glow With the Show” (later “Made with Magic”) products – a line of light-up ear-hats, wands, and other accessories synced to nighttime spectaculars via radio-frequency identification – the parade’s initial selling point was an interactive “paint brush” that would “magically” change the colors of characters’ illuminated costumes with a swish or flick from onlookers. Naturally, the effect never really translated amid the chaos of a glowing, color-changing parade… but the sight of lighted paintbrushes sweeping through the crowd was picturesque nonetheless!
Meanwhile, the original Disneyland in California hadn’t had a nighttime parade at all since its own Main Street Electrical Parade ended in 1996 for LightMagic’s disappointing 1997 run. So when a copy of Paint the Night made its way to Disneyland in 2015 as part of the park’s 60th Anniversary Diamond Celebration – sans paintbrushes, mind you – it was an instantaneous hit.
Doubling Hong Kong’s count with 1.5 million LEDS and 76 live performers, the Disneyland version included floats dedicated to Peter Pan, Monsters Inc. (with massive door screens), Cars (with an unbelievable lighted depth display inside Mack, the 18-wheeler), The Little Mermaid, Toy Story, Disney Princesses, Frozen, and a mesmerizing, hypnotic kinetic sculpture in Mickey’s Lightastic Finale.
Paint the Night is a must-see after-dark spectacle in its own right, and a perfect encapsulation of what a 21st century nighttime parade from Disney Entertainment should look like. It’s got the gee-whiz wonder of a glowing procession, an infectuous earworm soundtrack, and some genuinely-mind-melting illusions. Check it out above.
No one actually expected that the brand-new, custom-copied, multi-million dollar Paint the Night would end when Disneyland’s Diamond Celebration did. But in 2017, after an 18-month run coinciding with the 60th Anniversary promotion, it disappeared. It seemed curious that Disney would allow a new hit parade to go dark. But it all made sense when – in one of the resort’s more clever, fan-service promotional videos – the truth came to light…
…More than twenty years after it had “glowed away,” The Main Street Electrical Parade would return… again!
Actually “Version B” (which, remember, ended its third Magic Kingdom run in 2016), the third run at Disneyland was likewise sold as a “limited engagement.” This time, it really was. The Main Street Electrical Parade played in Anaheim for just eight months – January 2017 to August 2017 – before “glowing away” forever… again.
Shortly thereafter, Paint the Night did return, but for an even more nonsensical seven-month run at Disney California Adventure. (It’s presumably been sitting in storage since, meaning the Californian copy of Paint the Night has spent more time in a warehouse than it has in the parks… Weird.)
But wait! When Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge launched in 2019 and allegedly failed to attract the audiences Disney had hoped, guess what came out of the warehouse again? Yep, the Main Street Electrical Parade returned for a fourth run, and third “limited engagement,” defying its third “glowing away forever” promise from two years earlier. More to the point, it was at least the third time that Disney’s trusted Electrical Parade had been called upon to reverse a declining audience trend. Now that’s star power.
Oh, and if you’re keeping track, that means that at the Disneyland Resort alone, the Main Street Electrical Parade (1972 – 1974) was replaced by America on Parade (1975 – 1977) which was replaced by the Main Street Electrical Parade (1977 – 1996) which was replaced by Paint the Night (2015 – 2017) which was replaced by the Main Street Electrical Parade (2017) which was replaced by Paint the Night (2018) which was replaced by The Main Street Electrical Parade (2019). Phew!
Lost Legend
Despite its starring role in the story of Disney Parks, the Main Street Electrical Parade had humble origins, a disastrous development, and a whole lot riding on its shoulders. Yet somehow, this sparkling spectacle – appropriately led by “The Little Engine That Could” – managed to become a legend in its own right, captured by kids armed with Polaroids, then Kodaks, then Canons, then iPhones.
Across three continents, this timelessly enchanting parade was beloved by the children of the children of the children who first laid eyes on its dazzling display. And though it flickered on and off, in and out of existence, there’s a reason the Main Street Electrical Parade was magically powered to life anytime Disney Parks needed a boost…
And maybe that’s why fans hope that – once again – it might not really be gone. After all, the Main Street Electrical Parade hasn’t just been with Disney Parks through thick and thin; it has been a panacea to all that’s ailed Magic Kingdoms around the world. Though new nighttime parades may glow brighter, there’s no question that the original Electrical Parade ran on more than Nickel-Cadmium batteries: it ran on nostalgia. And as its many reversed “glowing aways” show, nostalgia may just be the one thing at Disney Parks that can go head-to-head with synergy.
We hope you enjoyed our spectacular deep dive into the story of the Main Street Electrical Parade, but it’s not over yet! Our new Night Magic mini-series continues in our in-depth look at the Modern Marvel: Fantasmic! Make the jump to continue diving into the after-dark wonders of Disney Parks, or head off to our in-depth collections to set course for the story of another in-depth Lost Legend.
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