Illuminations 25 (General Electric)
On September 21, 1996 — the night after the original IllumiNations took its final bow — Epcot lit the World Showcase Lagoon with IllumiNations 25, a brand-new nighttime spectacular built for Walt Disney World’s 25th anniversary and presented by General Electric. The recording preserved here is that first version of the show: Gregory Smith’s original score, the pavilion-by-pavilion welcome, the Mascleta, and a gospel “Circle of Life” finale — closing, as every night that year closed, with GE’s famous sign-off: “We bring good things to life.”
IllumiNations 25: A Worldwide Celebration
Version A, the anniversary original, opened with “Remember the Magic” — Walt Disney World’s 25th anniversary theme recast as a World Showcase salute, its greetings recorded by cast members from the pavilions themselves. Then came “A Worldwide Celebration” and the Mascleta, a calypso passage named for the rhythmic Spanish fireworks displays, before “International Fantasy” raced through the world in music: Asian, African, South American, British, Flamenco, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and a polka. Overhead, the show’s new hardware did its work — four added fireworks barges, and lasers dancing across a globe floating at the center of the lagoon. The “Discovery Suite,” built on Epcot’s own “We’ve Just Begun to Dream,” carried the Future World half of the park’s story before the finale: “Circle of Life,” sung by the Florida Mass Choir as every fountain blasted and the sky lit up.
And then the lagoon said goodnight in the sponsor’s own words. “The Epcot family and GE hope all of you from around the world have enjoyed IllumiNations 25,” the closing announcement ran. “GE, we bring good things to life. Thank you, and good night.” Guests walked out to “A Worldwide Celebration” and the GE theme — a corporate jingle as a lullaby, and in 1996 nobody minded at all.
Version B, IllumiNations 98, and the Globe That Followed
Version A played only eight months. On May 19, 1997, IllumiNations 25 returned as Version B: a thirteen-minute edition built on classical music arranged by John Debney — including his own original “IllumiNations Fanfare” — with Brian McKnight singing “Remember the Magic.” That is the version preserved on the 1997 Official Album CD. When the 25th anniversary celebration ended, the anniversary announcements came out and the show sailed on as IllumiNations 98, playing until September 21, 1999. Its replacement, IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, arrived with the Millennium Celebration on October 1, 1999, and its great Earth Globe held the center of the lagoon for the next twenty years — but the GE years had their own globe first, and their own sound.
That sound has a family tree in this archive: hear the original IllumiNations it replaced, and the World Showcase March that still opens the lagoon’s day. The full history of the show’s versions is traced at Wikipedia. So press play — the recording runs just over twenty-eight minutes and preserves the show in its original Version A: the welcome, the celebration, the Discovery Suite, and that “Circle of Life” finale, exactly as the lagoon heard it in the fall of 1996.