Disneyland Fantasmic CANstruction Brings Maleficent To Life

ANAHEIM,C A — When you think Fantasmic! Maleficent comes to mind. That enormous feat of engineering that comes to life nightly, with fire and cackling villain-esque fury just screams Disneyland Halloween Time.

Now, the Disneyland Resort Design and Engineering team brought the Maleficent dragon from the popular nighttime spectacular “Fantasmic!” to life by creating a 10-foot character overnight from 5,250 canned goods at the 10th anniversary of CANstruction Orange County.

Since the program’s inception, the Disneyland Resort team has joined local architectural and design firms to build creative structures made entirely of canned and packaged foods. Each of the Resort’s designs features a Disney theme.

This dedicated group of Disneyland Resort VoluntEARS designs and plans each build over a period of six months.

“It takes a lot of teamwork to design, coordinate, test-build and then do the final build for our structures,” said Giuliana Haro, Architecture and Facilities engineer, about the five-person team’s involvement. “There are many in our community who are not as fortunate as we are and it is important to get involved, volunteer and help those in need. We participate in CANstruction because it serves a great cause in providing food for our local community and we get to have fun while doing so!”

The Disneyland Resort team has left a lasting impact in its continued dedication to this annual event. Over the last decade, Disney CANstructures have helped to feed the equivalent of three meals a day for 10 years for a family of three.

“Disney cast members have helped educate people about the issue of hunger in a creative and compelling manner through magical and visually stunning structures that have entertained people,” said Mark Lowry, director of the OC Food Bank. “But most importantly, they have provided additional food to expand the capacity of the OC Food Bank to combat hunger.”

Through CANstruction and food drives, the Disneyland Resort has provided the OC Food Bank more than 65,000 meals for the local community over the last 10 years. Disney VoluntEARS regularly assist in food packing, and in 2016, volunteered more than 1,800 hours at the food bank.

To join in CANstruction OC’s mission to feed the world “one can” at a time, visit the CANstructures on display from September 2-24 at South Coast Plaza, John Wayne Airport and the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) to cast your vote. Vote for your favorite and help raise funds; $1 equals one vote.

Past years’ entries have included TOW Away Hunger, a “Cars”-inspired structure, which won the Juror’s Favorite award, and Sea the Difference a CAN Makes, a “The Little Mermaid”-themed structure, which won the award for Best Use of Labels.

And that's a lot of cans.

Photos, courtesy Disneyland Resort