Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, we’ll be celebrating America’s Independence Day a few days late, with a Disneyfied version of the holiday.
Via WDW Radio
Walt Disney’s patriotism has been well-documented over the years, with the name of Main Street USA itself showing that he believed Disneyland should be tied to America. Over the years, we saw attractions like America on Parade and America Sings created for the Bicentennial as well as various CircleVision films. In the past few years, we have seen this patriotism die down a bit in the parks, but there is still the Flag Ceremony every day and special fireworks every July 4th. But today, we’ll jump back to the beginning of the Disney Decade and a parade that felt both cartoony and patriotic.
Via YouTube
In 1990, guests at Disneyland got the Party Gras Parade, celebrating Mardi Gras of course. The parade ran for almost the entire year and was such a success that Disneyland decided to go holiday-themed with its next parade as well, creating the Celebration USA Parade.
Opening a few weeks before Independence Day on June 21, 1991, the new parade was the first American-themed parade at Disneyland since America on Parade at the Bicentennial in 1976. It was an interesting choice to host a parade themed around the country that year since there wasn’t much of note in the years of ‘91 except for the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. I mean, yes that’s an important document, but it still seems like a bit of a stretch of a choice to me.
The opening float was a perfect encapsulation of the 90s, not necessarily because of the float, but because of the characters on the float. The float itself was really just decorated in American regalia, but on board were Minnie and Goofy who made a lot of sense. But with them were Chip and Dale and Roger Rabbit, and it's difficult to get more early ‘90s than that in terms of park’s representation. Outside of the characters, my favorite touch on the float was the “table of contents” that showcased the names of each of the different floats to give guests a bit of a primer for what was to come.
Via YouTube
Unfortunately, there aren’t really too many pictures of the floats (so you’ll have to watch the video above), but I’ll give some brief descriptions of them along with any of the cool characters on them, because this parade was chock full of characters. Each of the floats was based around a different archetype of American life, namely the suburbs, farmland, and city life.
First up, we had Suburbia USA, which really only had Pluto amongst its notable characters, but the float itself was a lot of fun. It was designed as a typical suburban house, but without walls, so we got to see how the family inside interacted with each other. There were a lot of really fun hijinks inside the house and the actors were pretty great caricatures, so this float was definitely knocked out of the park.
Via iCollector
Next up was the Heartland Ranch, where Daisy and Donald were running their own Duck Farm. Additionally, we saw giant spinning veggies throughout the float which all had the funny faces that you would expect on them from a parade that doesn’t take itself very seriously. On the whole, this parade was really geared more towards silliness than patriotism, which I think was the right choice for a parade not truly centered around any American celebration.
Our last city float was Metropolis where the Big Bad Boss (Wolf) was yelling out random cities and doing his best to boss everyone around. This float was easily my favorite because there were also just random coffee cups running around and doing their thing while Launchpad McQuack and Baloo ambled through the city. And then Gadget was helping the construction crew at the end and there was just so much going on that it is hard to put into words. There was just a kinetic energy to the float that really helped lead up to the closing float that cranked the patriotism back up.
Celebration Way was basically just Mickey Mouse hanging out with some American-dressed dancers around the torch of the Statue of Liberty. It was a bit underwhelming compared to the other floats, but hey if you don’t start with Mickey, you’ve got to end with him.
On the whole, I thought the show was pretty fun because it didn’t take itself too seriously. Most of the songs were just parodies of popular songs and all of the floats just had these really quirky looks to them. Honestly, the show felt more like a show that belonged in the early days of Disney California Adventure than Disneyland in the early 90s, but hey we’ll take it when we can get it.
Via Disney Geek
Celebration USA managed to stick around until November 24, 1991, a very good shift for a parade based on a holiday. Before World According to Goofy took the next summer, a cavalcade called Livin’ in the USA ran in spring of 1992, so three of the floats got a bit more run time than their original end date, which is always a happy ending especially for a cute show like Celebration USA.
Via Pinterest
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!