Butterflies (Main Street Electrical Parade)

The Butterflies, alongside Butterfly Dancers, are characters from the Main Street Electrical Parade at the Disney Parks.
==Background==
The butterflies are lepidopterans featured in Electrical Parade. The one featured in the Alice in Wonderland-themed unit of most versions of Electrical Parade is the most common type and has occasionally in merchandise inspired by the parade. The one seen on the mushroom float of the Alice unit would occasionally flap its wings to give its expression and is the most recognizable out of all the butterflies from Electrical Parade.
Due to the popularity of Main Street Electrical Parade over the years, the butterflies occasionally appeared in merchandise inspired by the parade such as trading pins - more specifically the one on the mushroom being the most recognizable one from Electrical Parade.
===Effects===
The butterfly animatronic was 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 butterfly.
==Appearances==
===Main Street Electrical Parade===
The butterfly has been featured in the Alice in Wonderland-themed unit in most versions of the Main Street Electrical Parade in the Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Disneyland Paris, and California Adventure versions respectively. While parading down the street, The butterfly would occasionally flap its wings to give it expression.
In the original Disneyland version, butterfly dancers appeared during the Alice-themed unit, where they are portrayed as Cast Members where they led the unit, alongside cast members dressed as flowers with their costumes decorated with light bulbs around them. The butterfly dancers were since discontinued.
The Tokyo Disneyland version of Electrical Parade featured a similar long-legged arthropod character known around 1985 functioning the same way it did in the California, Florida, and Paris versions but were removed from the park but was removed from the parade as of 1995.
The Electrical Sky Parade version features a live butterfly 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.
==Trivia==
*The concept of the cast members wearing butterfly wings at the Main Street Electrical Parade would later be used again in certain nighttime parades such as the discontinued SpectroMagic parade which featured performers dressed as butterflies, albeit with a different costume design.
*A yellow butterfly from Encanto was also featured in the It's a Small World-themed unit during the parade's 2022 run at Disneyland. However, these butterflies were directly from Encanto, making them completely separate characters from the ones in the Alice-themed unit.
*The butterfly on the mushroom from Electrical Parade was featured as one of the collectible items in Disney Emoji Blitz where the item itself was labeled as "Mushroom" in-game.
==References==
Category:Butterflies
Category:Disney characters
Category:Silent characters
Category:Adults
Category:Theme park characters