Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party dates back to its original opening night of Oct 31,1995. Just one night. It has since grown to 32 nights each year and starts in August!
One of the highlights of the evening is the Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Boo to You Halloween Parade. The parade leads off with the headless Horseman making his way through the streets of the magic kingdom. When the headless horsemen originally made his debut he galloped quickly through he park to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”
However, due to an accident in 2012 when the horsemen fell as he rounded the turn by the Hall of Presidents, the horseman and his horse have since walked through the park more slowly to a new track that reflects the slowed down pace. That track is called “The Witch Hunters” by Atli Orvarsson and it’s from the Soundtrack to Paramount’s 2013 film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
Once the horseman makes his way through the park, the main event, The Boo to You halloween parade gets underway.
Over the years there have been two soundtracks to the parade since its 1999 debut. The first ran from the parade’s opening until 2005 and starts with a third party track called Ghosts and Goblins. The new version of the parade continues to run to this day and includes sections such as the Yo Ho Pirate Palooza, Villains Groove A Go Go, and the Halloween Hootenanny Hoedown, among others.
Villains Mix ’n Mingle
Back at the castle stage, there used to be something called the Halloween Villains Mix and Mingle, which was a song and dance stage show that featured various Disney Villains and ran through Halloween 2014. Then in 2015 it was replaced with the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular in which the notorious Sanderson sisters from Disney’s Hocus Pocus return to throw the most villainous halloween party the magic kingdom has ever seen.
Hallowishes
Of course an evening at the magic kingdom would not be complete without fireworks. During the first few years of the Halloween Party, the fireworks were just the original Fantasy in the Sky fireworks shows that normally took place nightly but with the addition of a Halloween Finale.
In 2003 the Magic Kingdom’s regular nightly fireworks show changed from Fantasy in the Sky to Wishes! A magical Gathering of Disney Dreams. In 2005, the Halloween party followed suit receiving its own fireworks display called, Happy HalloWishes: A Grim Grinning Ghosts Spooktacular in the Sky.
The story for Hallowishes is that the residents of the Haunted Mansion are preparing to celebrate Halloween with them eventually breaking out of the Haunted Mansion and into some haunted karaoke, or scary-oke as it’s called in the show which are arrangements of some of Disney’s scariest tracks such as “Poor Unfortunate Souls”, “Trust in Me” (from The Jungle Book), “Curella DeVil”, and “Whos’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”
After the scary-oke portion of the show is finished, Ursula, Jafar, Oogie Boogie, and Maleficent drop by to join in the festivities before the scream-along grand finale.
Area Music
During the Halloween Party various parts of the park change their normal daytime area music loops for the party.
The Main Street USA Loop runs for approximately 56 minutes and includes tracks from various sources but tends to lean more heavily into audio from Disney Official Movie Soundtracks such as “Be Prepared” from the The Lion King, “You’re Only Second Rate” from Aladdin and the King of Thieves, and the “End Credits” from Danny Elfman’s soundtrack to The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The Halloween soundtrack for Frontierland draws heavily upon classic Disney western themed movie and tv soundtracks such as Old Yeller, The Swamp Fox, and Davy Crockett.
In addition to music from Official Disney Movie Soundtracks such as “Mine, Mine, Mine” from Pocahontas, and”Les Poissons” from The Little Mermaid, the Fantasyland Halloween loop selects various tracks from a Halloween music album called Mickey’s Monster Bash.
The Tomorrowland Halloween music loop runs for approx 38 minutes and includes tracks from an album called Nightmare Revisited – a remix album of The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. It also includes a track from Saturday Night Fever called “Night on Disco Mountain”, and of course, three tracks from Mannheim Steamroller’s album, Halloween.