During the first few years of the Halloween Party, the evening's fireworks show was the original Fantasy in the Sky show, with the addition of a Halloween-themed finale. HalloWishes was created by Disney's Creative Entertainment division specifically for the event, first premiering in 2005 and before the show starts there was a fireworks show named villainy in the sky with new effects and projection. Its development was supervised by Steven Davison and designer Eric Tucker, who also designed Wishes, Holiday Wishes, Remember... and IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. The music has a predominantly electronic/rock/pop instrumentation with much symphonic arrangements, and was arranged by Mark Hammond and David Hamilton. The vocals were arranged by Tim Davis, who would then go on to work with Adam Anders and Jimmy Levine in the arrangements of the songs and underscore for Glee.
The premise of HalloWishes is that the residents of the Haunted Mansion, led by the mansion's "Ghost Host", are preparing for a celebration of Halloween. The 999 happy haunts, called by Madame Leota, are the first to arrive as the opening lines of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" are played, followed by a pop band version. After the Ghost Host welcomes guests, the mood is set with "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Then the guests are serenaded with the spirits' special brand of karaoke (which the script calls "scary-oke music; just a few tombs [tunes] we've 'dug up' for the occasion") in a medley of Disney's spookiest music. Later, some of Disney's most infamous villains join in, starting with Ursula from The Little Mermaid "plopping in" on the party and adding her own musical mix to the festivities. Jafar from Aladdin and Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas soon follow, and (until 2008) arriving last but far from the least is Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, showing us how Halloween should really be celebrated. The party ends with the "scream-along" grand finale.
Soundtrack
The musical soundtrack of the show is Halloween-themed, and is in many cases the music of villains from various Disney films:
× — Instrumental version is played. † – Was cut in 2008, moved to Disneyland's Halloween Screams in 2009.
Parts of the soundtrack, which are available on an in-park CD entitled "Magic Kingdom Event Party Music", have also been used in Halloween events at Disneyland Paris Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland.
On September 25, 2009, Disneyland kicked off their yearly 'Halloween Time' promotion. The park introduced a new nighttime fireworks show called Halloween Screams. It is very similar to Hallowishes in that they use the same soundtrack, but there are noticeable differences, the most notable being Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) replacing the Ghost Host as the 'master of scare-monies' and the inclusion of Zero, his ghostly dog.
On September 16, 2010, Hong Kong Disneyland kicked off their yearly 'Haunted Halloween' promotion. The park introduced a new nighttime fireworks show called Disney's Nightmare in the Sky. It is very similar to HalloWishes and Halloween Screams in that they use the same soundtrack, but there are noticeable differences, the most notable being Maleficent from Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty replacing the Ghost Host and Jack Skellington as the 'master of scare-monies'.
Wheelchair accessible