Lightning Bugs

Lightning Bugs
Background information
Video games	Disney Emoji Blitz (as a collectible item)
Park attractions	Main Street Electrical Parade Tapestry of Happiness
Character information
Occupation	Dancing bugs
Likes	Dancing, interacting with guests
Status	Active

The Lightning Bugs (also referred to as Fireflies or Bees) are characters from the Main Street Electrical Parade at the Disney Parks.

Background

The fireflies are comprised of two fireflies featured in Electrical Parade. They are consistently featured in the Alice in Wonderland-themed unit of most versions of Electrical Parade and have since become one of the most recognizable characters from the parade, often appearing in merchandise inspired by the parade. Rather than just moving like standard parade floats in any typical parade, they would occasionally rotate to impress the guests during the parade, often wearing a propeller cap on their head as well as a glowing bottom point of the abdomen which would occasionally glow. Fireflies can come in different varieties of colors often in green, yellow, red, or orange.

Due to the popularity of Main Street Electrical Parade over the years, the fireflies occasionally appeared in merchandise inspired by the parade such as trading pins or in other merchandise such as the Walt Disney Classics set of figurines.

Effects

The fireflies were designed with a mix between iridescent and LED lights to illuminate the parade floats to give illusion of how the glowing effect works on Main Street Electrical Parade. Said lights are efficient than incandescent bulbs, making them combinable in different ways to make color combinations for the fireflies. In addition to the colors, the fireflies featured were actually driven by a person inside the float to give illusion of it being driven across the street and occasionally rotating to impress the guests.

Appearances

Main Street Electrical Parade

The lightning bugs have been featured in the Alice in Wonderland-themed unit in every version of the Main Street Electrical Parade in the Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Disneyland Paris, and California Adventure versions of the Electrical Parade respectively. While parading down the street, they would occasionally spin to impress guests with the parade continuing throughout the night with guests enjoying their visit at the parks. They would occasionally hum "Flight of the Bumblebee" during the parade.

The Tokyo Disneyland version of Electrical Parade used to include lightning bugs around 1985 functioning the same way it did in the California, Florida, and Paris versions but were removed from the park but were removed from the parade as of 1995.

The Electrical Sky Parade version features a lightning bug as one of the elements recreated through the use of drones during the nighttime show in Paris featured in the Alice in Wonderland-themed sequence. Unlike in the standard version of the parade, no turnaround effects were used for the lightning bug.

Gallery

The lightning bug (referred to as a "bee" through in-game text) as a collectible item in Disney Emoji Blitz

Trivia

• The lightning bug was occasionally referred to or interpreted as a bee in certain occasions, most likely due to the musical score "Flight of the Bumblebee" played during the part where the firefly would pass by.