Escape the Ordinary: Goodbye Fantillusion! Tokyo Disneyland | 2001

Disney’s Fantillusion! The parade premiered at Tokyo Disneyland on July 21, 1995.  Created specifically for Tokyo Disneyland, Fantillusion! was developed by the team behind Fantasmic!, with the aim of condensing the story of Fantasmic! and putting it into a parade format.

The 31 floats were split into three acts. The parade starts with Tinkerbell, Mickey Mouse, and the three fairies from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty “wishing upon a star to bring the gift of Disney light” before being disrupted by Disney villains who “take the light and make it a night”, then ending with the Disney Heroes and Heroines who “turn the dark back into the light”.

Disney’s Fantillusion! was designed and built for the parade route of Tokyo Disneyland. Each act would enter one portion of the park’s parade route and then halt for a “show stop”. The parade would progress to the next section and halt for the next show stop. This ensured that every guest watching the parade could see all three acts of the story.

After six years at Tokyo Disneyland, the parade closed at the end of its “Sayonara Disney’s Fantillusion!” season on May 15, 2001.

While the main context of this video is spoken in Japanese, it’s easy to follow along as Goofy makes his way to Mickey’s house with this scrapbook of Disneyland Nighttime parades.   We get to see the Tokyo version of the Main Street Electrical parade; the music needs no translation.  Tinker Bell welcomes us into the scrapbook when they turn the page to the Fantilussion Parade!  While the parade has elements reminiscent of Walt Disney World Spectro Magic, the music and floats are unique.