10 of Our Favorite Disney Parades From Years Past

There’s just something magical about a parade, especially when it’s happening in Walt Disney World. The music, pageantry, and interactions between the crowd and performers make the air hum with a contagious sense of joy. Over the five decades that Walt Disney World has been operating, it has hosted some of the greatest parades the world has ever seen.

That’s why we wanted to revisit a few of our favorites.

1) The Character Parade (Magic Kingdom)

This was Walt Disney World’s first parade, and it ran from the Magic Kingdom’s opening day on October 1, 1971, until December 9, 1971. The parade was a mix of characters, musicians, and antique cars. Mickey Mouse led the procession, leading a marching band through the park. Other characters included Minnie Mouse, Dumbo, King Louie from The Jungle Book, and the Big, Bad Wolf and Three Little Pigs. The following year, the parade saw a new addition when Winnie the Pooh joined it as a presidential candidate. (Yes, really!) His platform was based on presenting the “Bear Facts” and promising a supply of bottomless honey jars. As part of his campaign, he appeared in the parade aboard a patriotic float.

2. America on Parade (Magic Kingdom)

America on Parade was held at both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World as part of America’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976. The Sherman Brothers, who had left the Disney Studio, were called back to contribute a song. The result was a number called “The Glorious Fourth.”
Barnett Ricci and Marilyn Magness choreographed the parade’s dance routines, and Don Dorsey provided its soundtrack. The parade actually debuted in 1975, and mainly remembered for the “People of America” characters, which resembled dolls and stood eight feet tall. There were also a number of floats designed to honor cultural, scientific, and historical milestones in the country’s history.

3. Main Street Electrical Parade (Magic Kingdom)

The roots of this beloved parade can be found at Walt Disney World and the Seven Seas Lagoon. That’s where the Electrical Water Pageant has been held for the last 53 years. Though it wasn’t an opening day attraction (debuting a few weeks after the Magic Kingdom opened), it was featured in “The Grand Opening of Walt Disney World” episode of The Wonderful World of Disney. Card Walker, who served as President of Disney at the time, decided that Disneyland needed something similar. The result was the Main Street Electrical Parade, a “spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-syntho-magnetic musical sounds!” The parade used over 600,000 lights to adorn the floats and performers. The soundtrack was built around the song “Baroque Hoedown,” originally composed by Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley (Don Dorsey and Jack Wagner updated the soundtrack in 1977.)
As beloved as the parade is today, its survival was not always a given. Its first rehearsal in Disneyland was termed a “disaster,” complete with one float crashing into a building on Main Street and performer costumes emitting sparks. Fortunately, the problems were squared away before its debut, and the rest, as they say, is history.

4. The World Showcase Parade (Epcot)

When Epcot opened in 1982, it hosted a parade known simply as the “World Showcase Parade.” The parade featured an original song by The Sherman Brothers titled “There’s No Place Like World Showcase.” They would later recount that “On the night of October 1, 1982, at the celebration of EPCOT Center’s Grand Opening, a park full of invited guests became members of a small but elite group: those who were lucky enough to see the short-lived ‘World Showcase Parade’. Hundreds of dancers, musicians and costumed characters marched all the way around the mile-long World Showcase Promenade, accompanied by our theme ‘There’s No Place Like World Showcase.’ It was a colorful, inventive and fun parade, but for a variety of reasons, it was only performed a handful of times before it disappeared forever, ensconced in the world of Disney legend.”

5. SpectroMagic (Magic Kingdom)

In 1991, as part of Walt Disney World’s 20th-anniversary celebration, Spectromagic debuted in the Magic Kingdom, welcoming Guests into “the splendor, the spectacle, the sparkling sensation, where the romance, the comedy, and the thrill of Disney fantasies come to electric life.” A whopping 118 Cast Members were required for the parade, which used 948 batteries and over 100 miles of fiber optic cable. There were 39 floats and over 45 characters, including the Three Little Pigs, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Captain Hook, and more.

6. March of the ARTimals (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)

Animal Kingdom’s first parade debuted with the park’s opening in 1998. Disney’s tease for the parade was cryptic, noting, “It’s not a parade… it’s not a procession…so what is it? Join us and find out as we present our fun, zany and fanciful one-of-a-kind’ moving celebration’ of imagination and living art inspired by the world of animals.”
Unlike other Disney parades, this one featured no Disney characters or music. Instead, it was intended to highlight the creations of various artists who created representations of animals out of “found” items. The artists in question were meant to be residents of Safari Village, the original name of the park’s central hub, and images of the artists were even incorporated into some of the parade costumes. Among the parade’s various animals were seahorses, frogs, bees, elephants, a tiger, a monkey, a lion (the last of which played a xylophone), and a large, walking spider with moving legs.

7. Aladdin’s Royal Caravan (Disney-MGM Studios)

The second parade to hit the streets of Disney-MGM Studios (following Dinosaurs Live!, inspired by the ABC sitcom Dinosaurs) was Aladdin’s Royal Caravan. Debuting in 1992, the parade featured several Genie variations, including a “split in two” Genie, a Genie in the bathtub, a Genie peeking out of a treasure chest, and a 32-foot-tall version of the big blue man. Visitors to the Magic Kingdom can still encounter one of the more memorable aspects of the parade: the golden, spitting camels. While they can now be found at The Magic Carpets of Aladdin in Adventureland, they originally rolled through the Studios, squirting water at unsuspecting Guests. As an amusing side note, the villainous Jafar was relegated to being a mere street sweeper at the end of the parade. He pushed a wheeled trash bucket along, and Guests could hear Iago’s squawking voice from inside.

8. Tapestry of Nations (Epcot)

Introduced as part of the Millennium Celebration (along with IllumiNations 2000: Reflections of Earth and the Millennium Village), the Tapestry of Nations Parade was built around the themes of unity and world peace. The central figure of the parade was the Sage of Time. The massive “Millennium drums” that beat throughout the performance symbolized a human heartbeat, and the procession was filled with a vast array of gorgeous and towering puppets. It all took place against a soundtrack provided by Gavin Greenaway. A 30-piece choir recorded the vocals for the parade, singing in a language made up by Greenaway. As he recalled, “The words are made up to sound like a language, as I didn’t want to have some people understanding and others not. So, this way, nobody understands the words! But I chose the sounds and syllables to sound like some sort of proto-language. Very simple vowels and limited consonants. Each listener can attach their own meaning.”
But for many Guests, the true stars of the parade were the puppets. They included Hammer Man (a humanoid character made of metal sheets), The Sprite (a winged character with a three-tiered tail), and Disc Man (a character whose body was made up of discs and whose head was adorned with dreadlocks).

9. Mickey’s Jammin’ Jungle Parade (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)

The parade debuted in 2001 as part of the 100 Years of Magic Celebration. An official release touting the parade proclaimed, “New for our 100 Years of Magic Celebration! It’s a rompin’ and rollin’ afternoon event in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park. Mickey and the gang have packed up a caravan of crazy, colorful safari vehicles to blaze some trails through this wildly imaginative world. Adding to the rhythm of the ride is a herd of giant rolling drums cleverly disguised as exotic animals.” The animals referenced in the parade were designed to be folk art representations. The safari vehicles were each devoted to a separate Disney character, and each reflected the character’s personality in some way. Goofy’s was a sprawling mess, complete with a smoking grill being pulled behind his jeep. Donald Duck’s resembled a boat, while Minnie Mouse’s was all polka dots and picnic items!
A holiday overlay version of the parade was also created, with the Jammin’ Jungle Parade being replaced by Mickey’s Jingle Jungle Parade.

10. Festival of Fantasy Parade (Magic Kingdom)

Debuting in 2014, the Festival of Fantasy Parade was created to celebrate the recently completed New Fantasyland. A joyful celebration of imagination, it features eight floats representing a dozen stories straight out of Fantasyland. A total of 40 Disney “friends” appear in the parade in both animated and sculpted form.
The parade is most famous for its enormous, steampunk Maleficent float that is shaped like a dragon and breathes real fire. At 52 feet long, she’s quite an impressive creature and was Disney’s first float to require a bending chassis base. As elaborate as that is, don’t overlook the detailed work that went into creating the character costumes as well. Designed by Mirena Rada, each is a detailed work of art. Some of the characters from Tangled require as many as 28 different types of fabric to create their costumes, while the seashell girl from The Little Mermaid takes 30 yards of fabric per costume and uses 12 different mesh colors!

That’s just a brief summary of some of the parades that have graced the streets of Walt Disney World. What does the future hold? We can only speculate, but one thing’s for sure. Each new parade will bring with it new floats, new costumes, and new technologies, and every one of them will make us gasp in awe and wonder, “How did they do that?” Now, pardon us; we need to stake out our spot for the next parade. Let the festivities begin!

Catch up on Summer Fun in Walt Disney World with the new Summer issue of Celebrations Disney Magazine!

Immerse yourself in the magic of Disney with features and pictorials on:
• Summer Fun at Walt Disney World
• The BoardWalk and BoardWalk Inn Resort
• Disney Parades Throughout the Years
• Percy Jackson
• Wayback Machine: The World of Motion
• Top Ten Facts About the Dreamfinder

• and Much More!!