Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I’ll be taking a look back at a Tokyo Disneyland Halloween parade that transformed during the night.
Halloween at Tokyo Disneyland begins on October 1, which seems shockingly late for those of us in America where Disney Halloween starts in August in Florida and early September in California. October seems like a much more reasonable time to begin the celebration in my opinion, but alas I have no say in the matter. In Tokyo, they decorate a lot of the park with Halloween decor. They are also the only park outside of Disneyland to give the Haunted Mansion the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay.
Halloween’s late start this year is not indicative of how Tokyo Disney always does things, as sometimes it can sneak up a bit earlier like it did in 2006, when Halloween began on September 12, 2006 along with a new Halloween parade known as the Scream and Shout Halloween Parade.
The opening float of the parade was directly adapted from the previous parade, Disney’s Dreams On Parade. The Good Fairies still kicked off the parade, but this time they had ghostly outfits on to show that this was no ordinary picnic. After their float, there were some cutesy dancers, with similar types of dancers appearing in between almost all of the floats.
The next float had a giant black cat on it with Minnie, Clarice and Clarabelle all dressed in some witchy outfits. It was really cool to see some girl power representation right at the beginning of the parade, especially with some deeper cuts like Clarice and Clarabelle.
Via DIsney Wiki
The Halloween spirit really flowed with the next group as it became skeleton mania with some skeleton dancers leading up to a giant skeleton float that had Stitch leading the way. Is it a Tokyo parade if Stitch doesn’t make an appearance somewhere?
After the skeletons were ushered along, everyone got to see another group of wacky looking background dancers, dressed up as birds and like pumpkins. They were a bit wacky looking, but fit really well in the context of the show.
The next float on the docket featured Chip and Dale along with a giant, spooky-looking tree. Creepy trees are a quintessential scary element, so it was a perfect choice to add to the creepy elements that could come in later.
Via YouTube
The main mouse was up next with Pluto at the bow of a pirate ship and Mickey Mouse himself guiding it along. They basically built an entire pirate ship that would drive through the whole park, a pretty impressive feat.
Goofy was the next member of the Fab Five to show up, this time decked out as a knight in front of a castle turret, with a squadron of knights in front of him. He needed to protect all his friends from the villains behind him, Pain and Panic chaperoning Cruella De Vil around for some reason. Their float was a sort of hellish landscape to fit their evil demeanor.
Donald rounded out the floats dressed as a vampire, with Daisy and his nephews hanging out on the back of the float. I really loved all of the effort that they put into the costuming for each of the characters, with each getting a full-on Halloween costume to wear. For a short-lived parade, they didn’t need to put that much effort into the costuming, but I appreciated that they cared about creating the best experience for guests everywhere.
Outside of what was discussed, the parade had a show stop in the middle of it, but there wasn’t too much extra to it. It was basically just a dance number where the dancers tried to get guests into the flow of the show more. It was a pretty standard parade otherwise, but once it hit nighttime, things got a bit crazy.
At night, things got a bit more intense with a different iteration of the parade called the Kooky Spooky Halloween Night that functioned a bit closer to a show than a parade. It started out a bit slow with a Dracula-type and a few of his minions chatting for close to five minutes in Japanese, which I cannot say that I fully understood. Once they were done introducing everything, most of the same floats came out from earlier, but in a slightly different order which was a nice change of pace to shake things up. The music was more ominous and scary to let you know that things wouldn’t be the same come nighttime.
With all of the floats in place, the actors did a little diddy before Maleficent appeared about halfway up the castle to do her normal schtick of summoning up a bunch of villains and transforming the parade into closer to a show. I was giving her a bit of crap there, but Maleficent really showed out with close to 20 classic Disney villains appearing as walkaround characters and just strolling around the entire area. It was truly a “wow” moment for me because it was scarier than the standard Disney fare and included a lot of pretty deep-cut villains that guests didn’t get to see every day.
Via Disney Wiki
But there was no need to fear because Mickey was here, appearing at the top of the castle to thwart off the villains before a bunch of projections lit up the castle and Mickey reappeared down on his pirate ship. It was a pretty cool trick that helped the show feel a lot bigger than it was.
The Kooky Spooky Halloween Night featured a bunch of performers and helped the daytime parade feel like an entirely different experience at night. It was a really impressive feat and not something I’ve ever seen done in the domestic parks, and a great use of resources, especially with the parades/shows only sticking around until October 31. Tokyo Disney really goes above and beyond with their experiences and these were no exception. The theme song of the nighttime park eventually found its way to Disneyland Paris for a handful of shows, but otherwise everything was used for a couple of months and that was that. That dedication is why I can’t wait to visit the park for the first time in a few months.
Via All Day Disney
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!