Fantasmic!

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Located in the area named Sunset Boulevard, if you follow the avenue, you’ll see the Theater of the Stars were you can watch the amazing show “Beauty and The Beast Live on Stage”, and also the entrance to the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater when you’ll see a one-of-a-kind show, Fantasmic!

Located in the area named Sunset Boulevard, if you follow the avenue, you’ll see the Theater of the Stars were you can watch the amazing show “Beauty and The Beast Live on Stage”, and also the entrance to the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater when you’ll see a one-of-a-kind show, Fantasmic!

For 25-minutos, you’ll be hypnotized with the things that are going to happen in the stage. The Walt Disney Imagineering (as they call the designers) made a moat that contains 1.9-mil. Gallons of water, and a mountain of 57.5’ high that rises in the middle of the stage and plays a significant part in the show.

The show will count with the participation of more than 46-actors and it will use approximately 78-dresses beautifully made and full of color! The actors will make action sequences and other stunts, even high in the mountain, that will keep you glued to the stage.

Do not worry for seating, cause Disney has thought about everything! This amphitheater has 6,500 seating chairs and more than 2,500 people can fit standing. Usually, the Cast Members let the people make the line 90-minutes before the show starts. If you are hungry, don’t relinquish your position in the line, you just let someone in your party stay there while others go to the Sunset Ranch Market, which is across the entrance to the Fantasmic! show, to get a counter service type of meal. They serve a variety of food like Hot Dogs, Nachos, Burgers and more easy-to-carry food. It is specially recommended to get there on time during the high season, so you can be able to pick the best seating. This is an amazing show that easily gets full in a heart beat!

We suggest you to seek out the seating in the middle-center grounds, so you can see the whole stage and show in a comfortable way. And also, so you cant miss anything that happens!

This show uses the best technology up-to-date from fireworks, lights, laser beams, color, music. Everything is used in a wonderful way to enhance the story that will unveiled in front of the stage.

Once the lights turn out, the female announcer will welcomed you to this show, and you’ll see front stage the star of this show, Mickey Mouse! Like in the scene of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in the movie Fantasia (1940), when Mickey plays with the seas, you’ll see Mickey doing the same thing but to much of your surprise, it will be a scene reflected in a wall made of water! After that little taste, the scene changes to a full array of different flowers falling from the sky, that will certainly make your lady to swoon!

After a brief interlude, the scenery changes to shows us elephants, giraffes, monkeys, birds, ostriches, rhinos, crocodiles, and cheetahs. This will re-create one of the scenes in the movie The Lion King (1994) when Simba is with Nala and singing “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”, followed by a collection of bubbles that are filled with the “Hakuna Matata” scene. Also appears bubbles with others Disney movie scenes, like: The Jungle Book, Dumbo, Pinocchio, Snow White and the seven dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland, Hercules, Aladdin, Mulan, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Fantasia, Bambi, in a rapid succession.

Then, we see that in the wall its showing the “Be Our Guest” scene from the movie Beauty and the Beast and all the plates and glasses and champagnes are showing and making an old Hollywood-Broadway play; and also, the “Under the Sea” scene from The Little Mermaid with the infectious rhythm that will certainly make you dance a little!

Suddenly, in between the bubbles, shows up Jiminy Cricket from “Pinocchio” and the bubble burst a little and fills with water. This will make us see that we are entering into a little nightmare. Then from the depths Monstro, the villain from Pinocchio comes bashing everything at its path. But Jiminy escapes and he is safe and sound!

Again, the image changes and reveals in the wall one of the scenes from the movie Pocahontas. A loud cannon blast thru the air and we see that the stage is fill with the first sequence from that movie, “New World” were Governor John Ratcliffe and the colonials are destroying nature and all around. The Powhatan Indians goes around the moat by paddling in their Indian boats. once they disappear from sight, the wall of water shows us images from the movie where the Indians consult the gods and they see that battle will happen between them and the colonials. This is a beautifully orchestrated sequence between the live actions and the water-wall scenes. And the fighting is very lively and full of nice stunts. John Smith appears and goes from one end of the mountain to the other, which is fantastic. And then Pocahontas appears and she is spotlighted for a moment to then shows in the water-wall the “Colors of the Wind” scene of the movie. That sequence breaks just in the nick of time when John Smith and Pocahontas are about to kiss. And then followed with romantic images of princesses and their princes sharing a dance: Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Jasmine and Aladdin flying over the clouds in the magic carpet. Lights dim a little. Suddenly from the moat comes out an array of platforms that are lighted with roses around. Inside you’ll see, live, other famous Disney couples: Belle in her night gown and the Beast, Ariel in her Little Mermaid form and Prince Eric, Snow White and Prince Charming dancing.

But not everything is roses! The dastardly wicked witch from Snow White shows in the middle of the stage, reminding us that darkness always lurks beneath the dreams! She communicates with her magic mirror in the wall “of water”! and goes to her cauldron and prepares a dark magic potion. In this one, she calls all the powers of the evil villains from Disney movies. She transformed herself in her evil old lady form! From the water screen it shows all the different Disney villains: Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, Scar from The Lion King, Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Jafar from Aladdin.

Then, in the water screen, shows the wall of secrets that is rising from the middle of the desert, and Mickey is getting off from it by flying the magic carpet. When Mickey escapes, Jafar decides to show his force in another wicked way, so he changes to a serpent. In the middle of the stage, there is a snake with neon colors and its two eyes are like two headlights! This snake measures 120’ and has 18-sections. From the water wall, Mickey takes out the magic lamp and rub it, releasing the genie! However, the genie changes and is Hades from the movie Hercules! And he calls out the demon Chernabog from Fantasia. This one let the ghost and spirits goes out everywhere!

In the middle of the stage, Malefica, the wicked witch from Sleeping Beauty, send fire and other spells toward Mickey, but he defends himself! She then transformed into a dragon, trying to be stronger than Mickey. And sends a wall of fire to the moat. This dragon is 50’ high and its wing span is 50’. Mickey is trapped with fire everywhere and we think that he cannot escape. He is in the middle of this nightmare!

But Mickey has hidden powers, and uses his to send water to the fire, so he can quench it! Then he goes to The Sword in the Stone (which is also a movie by Disney) and release to combat this evil villains.

By using the sword, Mickey finishes quenching the fire and with the rays that are release from the tip of the sword, he destroys the other villains! One by one, it shows on the water screen, how they are exterminated. Showing that white magic is stronger than dark magic! At the end, everything is dark and tinker bell shows up in the middle and touches her magic wand to release the magic…

In the moat, it comes floating the Steamboat Willie boat, which is an 80’ large reproduction of the same boat were Mickey was first introduce in 1928! The driver is none-other-than Mickey Mouse itself, but this time as if he were send from the past! And in the decks, the passengers are about 30 characters from the Disney Universe, like: Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Megara and Hercules, Donald, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Chip ‘n Dale, Pinocchio and Geppetto, Br’er Bear from Song of the South movie, Lilo and Stitch, Snow White and the seven dwarfs plus Prince Charming, Aladdin and Jasmine, Pocahontas and John Smith and Meeko, Mary Poppins and many more!

Get ready and shoot as many pictures as you can because this sequence is beautiful and is to dream of!

Suddenly, Mickey is up in the top of the mountain and he plays “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. The fountains and the columns of water and colors fill the premises, and fireworks starts to come out filling the starry night!

In the last explosion, everything turns black and we see Mickey. But this time, he is at the bottom of the mountain. And you are asking how did he got there so fast. And he wakes up from this “dream”, and says “Some imagination, huh? Ha Ha!”. And that’s when the last blast comes and Mickey disappears!

Guest Review:

“I went to this show with my children after a long day at the park. One of the Cast Members (like they called Disney’s workers) told us that if we were going to the show Fantasmic! that we have to be there an hour before the show starts. And that’s what we did! Thank God that across the entrance to the show there’s the food market, cause we were hungry! I left my wife with some of the kids and I went with some friends to get the things while the wifey's waited in the line. Finally, the cast members open the entrance to the show and we took the middle seats, cause we hear some people said it was the best place to see the entire show. I brought my children some toys that had lights on it, which came in handy while we waited there. Suddenly the lights turned out and everything was extremely quiet. However, I wont tell you how were my ears when Mickey came out. It was so loud that I thought for a moment that the entire stage was going to crumble down! Boy, what a show! The special effects in the water were absolutely awesome. And, in the final scene, when the boat came out and show all the Disney characters, I was like crazy shooting pictures! It was lovely when Mickey was waking up from his dream. All in all, whatever you do, DO NOT LEAVE THE PARK WITHOUT SEEING THIS SHOW!”
-Andrew V