Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams
| Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams | |
|---|---|
| Park | Magic Kingdom |
| Land / area | Cinderella Castle |
| Type | Fireworks spectacular |
| Opened | October 9, 2003 |
| Closed | May 11, 2017 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Creative Entertainment
|
| Status | Closed |
Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams, usually shortened to Wishes, was a fireworks spectacular performed at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida from October 9, 2003, to May 11, 2017. Presented above and around Cinderella Castle, it was built around the wishes made by Disney characters, good and bad, and narrated by Jiminy Cricket. When it opened it was the largest fireworks show Magic Kingdom had ever presented. The defunct show ran for nearly fourteen years and remains, for many guests of that era, the defining end to a day at the park.
History
Wishes was developed by Walt Disney Creative Entertainment under Steve Davison, Disney's vice president for parades and spectaculars, who was asked to create a successor to Fantasy in the Sky. That show, in various forms, had closed Magic Kingdom nights for 32 years, since 1971, and was a comparatively simple display set to classic Disney songs. Wishes was conceived instead as a story told in the sky, tied to the resort's Magical Gatherings campaign, which promoted visits by groups of family and friends celebrating together.
The show debuted on October 9, 2003. Its scale set it apart from its predecessor: contemporary reports counted 683 pyrotechnic shells fired on 557 cues, with fireworks launched not only behind the castle but around its perimeter, so that bursts framed the building itself. A signature effect placed a bright "wishing star" shell above the castle's highest spire. Tinker Bell's flight from the castle tower, inherited from Fantasy in the Sky, was retained and opened the show.
Wishes ran with little change for most of its life, with seasonal variants at Halloween and Christmas parties and a special New Year's Eve presentation that brought Fantasy in the Sky back as a supplement. On February 9, 2017, Disney announced that the show would close. Its final performance was given on May 11, 2017, to a large and emotional crowd on Main Street, U.S.A., and it was succeeded the very next night, May 12, 2017, by Happily Ever After, a show built around castle projections as well as fireworks.
Show
The show runs about twelve minutes and is hosted by Jiminy Cricket, the conscience from Pinocchio, with the Blue Fairy. Jiminy introduces the theme — that wishes, made with the heart, can come true — with the song "Starlight, Star Bright," and the show then listens in on the wishes of a succession of characters.
The wishes of the heroes come first. Snow White wishes for her prince, Ariel to be part of another world, and Peter Pan, in a comic turn, simply never to grow up, while music and fireworks illustrate each wish in turn. The mood darkens in the middle of the show as the Disney villains make their wishes: the Evil Queen, Scar and Jafar among them, and the castle is lit in sinister colours while lower, more menacing fireworks replace the earlier displays. Jiminy's faith in wishes is tested, and the Blue Fairy restores it, leading to a reconciliation and a large finale in which the earlier themes return and the sky above the castle fills with fireworks.
Only one character is actually seen in the show: Tinker Bell, who flies from a window high in Cinderella Castle down a wire toward Tomorrowland at the start, a tradition carried over from the park's earliest fireworks. Everything else is told through voices, music, lighting on the castle and pyrotechnics, in a structure later Magic Kingdom shows have kept even as their technology has changed.