The beloved “Main Street Electrical Parade” returns to Disneyland Resort for a limited time beginning April 22, 2022. In celebration of its milestone 50th anniversary in 2022, the parade will travel across Disneyland Park with an all-new grand finale that continues the enchantment for a new generation of dreamers.
To honor the milestone 50th anniversary of “Main Street Electrical Parade,” Disney Live Entertainment will introduce a magnificent grand finale that celebrates the theme of togetherness in an all-new float. This universal theme is reflected in the creative concept of the grand finale sequence, drawing inspiration from the original design of classic “Main Street Electrical Parade” floats and Mary Blair’s iconic art style on “it’s a small world.” The seven-segment float stretches 118 feet in length and brings to life more than a dozen Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios stories, making it one of the longest and grandest sequences in the parade’s history. These stories will be interpreted in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-synthe-magnetic musical sound, with unique representations of beloved characters as animated dolls.
Guests along each side of the parade route will see different stylized scenes from classic and contemporary favorite stories such as “Encanto,” “The Jungle Book,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Aladdin,” “Coco,” “Mulan,” “Brave,” “The Princess and the Frog” and more. The finale also pays tribute to the parade’s heritage with the return of the Blue Fairy character from “Pinocchio” and a unique, 19-foot-tall representation of Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Fun facts: A legacy of nighttime magic and imagination
The original “Main Street Electrical Parade” made its world debut at Disneyland on June 17, 1972, and since then, evolving versions of the parade have appeared at Disney parks around the world. Here’s a closer look at this “spectacular festival pageant”:
- Approximately 500,000 lights sparkle in the parade’s nighttime journey from “it’s a small world” mall in Fantasyland to Town Square on Main Street, U.S.A.
- 22 floats illuminate the parade route at Disneyland, nearly doubling the number of floats from the parade’s debut (12) in 1972.
- Two composers, Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley, wrote the iconic synthesizer piece known as “Baroque Hoedown” in 1967, and the song was adapted for the “Main Street Electrical Parade” in 1972, interwoven with classic Disney themes to create the now iconic parade soundtrack.
- This was the first parade to feature unique musical arrangements synchronized to each float unit as it moved along the parade route.
- 18 stories are represented across the parade floats and the grand finale: “Alice in Wonderland,” “Cinderella,” “Peter Pan,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Pinocchio,” “Pete’s Dragon,” “Hercules,” “Brave,” “Coco,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “Moana,” “Mulan,” “Pocahontas,” “Frozen 2,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “The Jungle Book,” “Aladdin” and “Encanto.”
- Performers throughout the parade wear dazzling costumes created with special, shimmering fabrics and built-in lighting.
- Five miles of electrical wiring is used in the parade.
- With a height of 23 feet, the Cinderella clock tower is the tallest float in the “Main Street Electrical Parade.”
- At 5,600 pounds, the massive Elliott float, added in 1977 for the release of “Pete’s Dragon,” measures 16 feet tall, 10 feet wide and 38 feet long.
- Six different colors of light bulbs flash throughout the parade, in amber, blue, green, chartreuse, red and pink. 150,000 glowing amber lights are used in the production, the most of any color.
- Five Disney parks have presented versions of the “Main Street Electrical Parade” including Disneyland Park, Disney California Adventure Park, Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort, Tokyo Disneyland Park and Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris.
- In 2005, “Main Street Electrical Parade” creator and former director of entertainment Robert Jani was inducted as a Disney Legend.
“World of Color” at Disney California Adventure brings animation to life with powerful fountains that create an immense screen of water. Combining music, fire, fog and laser effects with memorable animated sequences, “World of Color” floods the senses and immerses audiences in some favorite Disney and Pixar stories.
Here’s a closer look at the history, storytelling and technology behind the show:
Inspired by “Your host, Walt Disney”
- “World of Color” was conceived as a kind of “living ‘Fantasia,’” using music, animation, color, light and water to involve the audience in an exciting, whimsical and moving journey of storytelling.
- The Emmy® Award-winning “Wonderful World of Color” (1961-1969) was Walt Disney’s first color television series, an extension of his previous “Disneyland” and “Walt Disney Presents” anthology series. The music and kaleidoscopic images of this pioneering TV show inspired the “World of Color” nighttime spectacular.
- The show begins and ends with the original theme from the “Wonderful World of Color” television show, which was written by Disney Legends Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman.
Music and animation
- The “World of Color” score was recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, featuring more than 100 voices from soloists and choir. The 100-piece orchestra included 60 strings, 15 brass, a dozen woodwinds and a harp, plus guitar, percussion, keyboards and synthesizers.
- Among the characters and stories represented are Dory, Marlin, Crush and Squirt from “Finding Nemo,” Ariel and Sebastian from “The Little Mermaid,” Woody and Buzz Lightyear from “Toy Story,” Aladdin and Jasmine from “Aladdin,” Belle and the Beast from “Beauty and the Beast,” Wall-E and Eve from “Wall-E,” Simba, Mufasa and Scar from “The Lion King” and an array of heroes, heroines and colorful villains from the vast treasury of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios films.
- In addition to traditional and computer animation, “World of Color” employs some more unusual techniques. An award-winning animator contributed an “Aladdin” sequence to the show using the medium of “sand animation.”
Technology and fountain factoids
- The “stage” for “World of Color” in Paradise Bay is a platform composed of nearly one full acre of engineered superstructure. It’s longer than a football field!
- The show’s control system precisely manages more than 18,000 active points of control.
- “World of Color” features nearly 1,200 powerful and programmable fountains. Each fountain has multiple points of control for lighting, color intensity, water angle, height and more.
- The fountains can send water to heights ranging from 30 feet to 200 feet (by way of comparison, the Pixar Pal-A-Round reaches a height of 150 feet, some of it below the edge of the lagoon).
- “World of Color” features a gigantic projected water screen – a wall of water 380 feet wide by 50 feet high, for a projection surface of 19,000 square feet.
- 28 high-definition projectors (14 of them, submersible) are employed in the show.
- The show spans Paradise Bay, a 5-acre man-made lagoon with 15 million gallons of water.
- When design preparations for “World of Color” began, Disneyland Resort collaborated with the Orange County Water District to reduce water waste in Paradise Bay. Instead of draining the lagoon to the ocean when it is emptied, the water is sent through the Water District’s advanced Groundwater Replenishment System. After it is purified, the water is pumped into recharge basins and replenishes the county’s groundwater supply. For these efforts, along with other Resort-wide environmental practices, Disneyland Resort was recognized in 2009 with the Governor’s Environmental & Economic Leadership Award, California’s highest environmental honor.