A Brief History of Magic Kingdom Parades
Since the earliest days of Disneyland, The Walt Disney Company has been in the parade business. When Walt Disney World opened in 1971, a parade was part of the opening day festivities, and the park has hosted one ever since. Here’s a brief history of Magic Kingdom parades.
The Character Parade
Factoring in repeat performances and limited time presentations, Magic Kingdom has hosted literally dozens of parades over the past half-century. Some of them are more memorable and significant than others. We’re going to cover the highlights today, starting with the original parade.
Back in 1971, the Character Parade became the first official parade hosted at Walt Disney World. Its run was extremely limited, and its ambition was negligible.
The earliest parade mainly involved a marching band, a few antique cars, the Sensational Six, and some of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs. Calling it a parade is rather generous. Floats weren’t even a part of the earliest proceedings.
Park officials quickly decided that they could do better and shut down the processional after a short run. Its replacement would have floats and be a better representation of what we consider Disney parades.
America on Parade
Over the years, Disney has performed several patriotic parades. This trend started during the run-up to the Bicentennial in 1976. The year before, Magic Kingdom introduced America on Parade, highlighted by a new song from the Sherman Brothers. The duo had previously cut ties with Disney but came back for this exceptional event, the 200th anniversary of America.
America on Parade was a daytime event, temporarily replacing another parade that we’ll discuss next. The Magic Kingdom version actually went better than the Disneyland one, which suffered a fatal flaw. The floats were too large, which made them visible when cast members returned them back to their hidden areas, a huge no-no at Disney parks. These monstrous floats broke the illusion!
The most memorable part of this parade was kind of creepy, too. Disney built 8-foot tall People of America costumes. Cast members had to wear oversized heads (think Bobblehead dolls for giants) of famous Americans like Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross. I have no idea how they were able to see out of these monstrosities, some of the ugliest costumes in Disney history.
Cavalcade of Characters
The modified version of the Character Parade struggled aimlessly until 1974. From day one, park officials were never satisfied with it. They worked tirelessly on a replacement, which became the Cavalcade of Characters.
To many people, it’s the first actual park parade since it was more than just a bunch of costumed cast members walking down Main Street U.S.A. This parade was the first at Magic Kingdom to feature moving floats.
One highlight of this daytime parade was the Casey Jr. train, which had King Richard the Lion from Robin Hood playing the pipe organ. Since the animated version of Robin Hood came out the previous year, 1973, its characters had a strong presence overall in the parade. This would become a theme of most Disney presentations, with parades selling new films while refreshing the shows.
Cavalcade of Characters went on hiatus for America on Parade. When it returned, it added a cool new feature that would have a long-term impact on Magic Kingdom shows. Pete’s Dragon had just entered theaters when the show returned. For this reason, the parade added an Elliott float. Dragons have since become an integral part of afternoon parades, even though they sometimes catch fire.
Main Street Electrical Parade
The parade that you know the best opened in 1977 and ran continuously for 14 years. You can learn a lot about the Main Street Electrical Parade here, but the fact that it even existed at Magic Kingdom is amusing.
The entire reason why it was created is that Disneyland executives were jealous about the Electrical Water Pageant at Walt Disney World. West Coast park officials countered with this parade, which means that its presence in Orlando is somewhat recursive.
Photo: Gene Duncan, photographer
From a historical perspective, the most crucial aspect of Main Street Electrical Parade is the obvious one. It was the first unforgettable nighttime parade at Magic Kingdom.
Mickey’s Street Party
Not all Disney parades are particularly memorable. Those of you who were around during the mid-80s might remember Mickey’s Street Party. But you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t. The most memorable line of dialogue was: “Thank you Mickey, thank you Donald! Let’s all give a cheer!”
Yeah, if you don’t recall that, Mickey’s Street Party is just a blur of bright 1980s colors, the kind that you’d have found in a Benetton commercial. This daytime parade emphasized bright colors like pink, orange, yellow, and red.
Beyond that, the biggest deal about it is that more than 40 characters appeared, including ones that you’d never see today. Yes, Song of the South was represented in Mickey’s Street Party. Coincidentally or not, the parade lasted barely a year.
SpectroMagic
The next major nighttime parade at Magic Kingdom wouldn’t arrive until 1991. For more than a decade, no one could imagine the need to replace the Main Street Electrical Parade. Alas, Disney plusses everything at some point.
The most significant addition with SpectroMagic was its theme song, On This Magic Night, a grandiose and upbeat tune. The other significant changes in the parade were of the technical variety. The floats now received bright illumination via bright fiber optics. Also, there were a lot of them.
Disney counted the parts of SpectroMagic as pieces, listing 23 of them. Some of those were combo units, though. Overall, 39 different floats rolled down Main Street U.S.A. during each performance. And there were a lot of those, too.
This parade ran daily through 1999 before temporarily taking a back seat to the millennial return of the Main Street Electrical Parade. Then, it came back in 2001 for another nine-year run. Despite its beloved status, SpectroMagic came to an abrupt and finite ending. Park officials confirmed that they tore down many of the floats by 2013. It won’t be coming back.
Move It! Shake It! Dance and Play it! Street Party
A 35-minute long daytime parade would come next at Magic Kingdom. The Move It! Shake It! show began in 2009 and has run for more than a decade. It has changed a couple of times during that timeframe, both of which led to a slightly modified name change.
This parade is the most modern at Disney. It comes with silliness such as members of the Sensational Six taking selfies. They ride gift box floats that have digital screens, and these displays show the lyrics of the various songs. It’s intended to appeal to kids who have grown up in a second-screen culture and works great in that regard.
You’re almost certainly familiar with this presentation, which has anchored the Cinderella Castle area for so long. The one unusual aspect is that some of the characters who appear during this parade like Clarice and Max Goof are ones you’re unlikely to see elsewhere.
Festival of Fantasy
The newest parade at Walt Disney World is the one that comes with the old cast member joke. Many Disney employees swear that a question that they’re asked frequently is, “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” Amusingly, the answer is occasionally NOT 3 o’clock, as Disney moves the parade schedule up during end-of-year ticketed event season.
However, for most people, the Festival of Fantasy is synonymous with the 3 o’clock parade. For the past several years, Magic Kingdom visitors have watched with awe as Maleficent has breathed fire into the air, ominously warning all who see her that she’s not a people person…well, dragon.
This parade has a more focused story than previous ones. It celebrates the stories of Fantasyland, the tales that once anchored the early days of Disneyland. If it was good enough for Walt Disney, it’s good enough for you. And it always be…until Disney’s ready to bring a new parade to life at Magic Kingdom.
