Tour of a Lifetime

Once again today, I take you back to 1996, when I had the good fortune of qualifying for a spot in the Disney Store National Trivia Showdown hosted at Disneyland. The actual competition took place in the Festival of Fools amphitheater and took on the flavor of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney's big animated release that year.

It was then that I met Dave Smith for the first time. For those who aren't familiar with Dave, he started the Walt Disney Archives in 1970 and served as Archives Director for forty years, retiring recently as a Disney Legend. For the trivia finalists that year, Dave hosted a special behind-the-scenes tour of Disneyland and the Archives. Previously, I shared with you moments from our visits to Club 33 and Walt Disney's firehouse apartment, but we got to see so much more.

Among the treats that day was a ride on the Lilly Belle. Originally the Grand Canyon observation car, considered Walt's private car on the Disneyland Railroad, it was later renamed Lilly Belle in honor of Walt's wife, Lillian. It's considered the Presidential Coach and is still occasionally used to host VIPs today.

After the train ride, we stepped backstage for a peek at some of the massive support facility that keeps Disneyland magical day in and day out. I recall visits to the machine shop and sign painter, as well as the Circle D Corral, the real working ranch out beyond Frontierland. This is where all the draft horses and other animals that work in the park are cared for. Look closely in the background of this picture, and you may even spot the back side of the Toontown hills, giving you a bit more of an idea where the ranch is located.

We also stopped by the Parade Barn. Since this was October 1996, the original Main Street Electrical Parade was making its final runs through the park before "glowing" away. We had seen the parade the night before, so it was amazing to be able to get this close to a bit of Disneyland history that was still so bright in our memories.

The next stop on our backstage tour of Disneyland was the relatively new Team Disney Anaheim building. Designed by architect Frank Gehry (who also did the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles), Team Disney opened in 1995 as a home to Disneyland's administration, marketing and other departments supporting the park.

Later, our tour moved to Burbank for a look around the Disney Studios lot and a visit to the Walt Disney Archives. Here, Dave showed off some of the Archives most special treasures, including the first ticket sold to Disneyland and a rare drawing of Mickey by Walt himself. We even got to hold a real Oscar (the one for the 1958 True-Life Adventure feature White Wilderness).

Particularly fascinating to me was the original mechanical bird Walt Disney purchased in New Orleans (a duplicate of which is in the Disneyland Dream Suite). It was this piece that inspired the creation of Audio-Animatronics.

Dave also pulled out a box containing a one-of-a-kind item which had only recently been uncovered and turned over to the Archives: the original book from the opening titles of Sleeping Beauty. This piece was on display at the D23 Expo in 2009, but back in 1996 no one had laid eyes on it in more than thirty years. The book was incredible, not just for the intricately jeweled cover, but for the fact that every page as seen on screen was an original painting by Eyvind Earle, the film's background artist.

Overall, it was an amazing day, filled with unusual sights and wonderful experiences I will never forget. On the way out of Disneyland that evening, we even got a sneak preview of the spectacular replacement for the Main Street Electrical Parade, in the form of this sign over the railroad tunnel. It sparkled with fiber optic energy, inviting us back for even more Disneyland fun.

I never did get back to see Light Magic. I only heard the music, but something tells me that was probably for the best.

Still Glowing Strong

It all started with the grand opening of Walt Disney World. For October 24, 1971, the night before the official dedication of the Magic Kingdom park, an Electrical Water Pageant was created to parade across the Seven Seas Lagoon for the press and invited Guests. The show was such a hit, it continued night after night (right to this day), and work soon began on bringing a similar production into the park.

The original iteration of the Main Street Electrical Parade (commonly known as the ELP) ran at Disneyland from 1972 to 1974. It was much more like the Water Pageant, with flat tableaux created in lights and pulled down the parade route. After a hiatus for the Bicentennial-inspired America on Parade, the ELP returned to the park in 1977, enhanced with the fully-dimensional floats that we've come to know and love.

That same year, a second version of the parade opened in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The ELP played there until 1991, when it was replaced by SpectroMagic for that park's 20th anniversary. The Florida parade was then packed up and shipped to France, where it played at Disneyland Paris from its 1992 opening through 2003. It has since been retired in favor of Disney's Fantillusion.

A third Electrical Parade made its debut at Tokyo Disneyland in 1985 and played for ten years. Disney's Fantillusion replaced the ELP in Tokyo from 1995 to 2001, before finding a new home in Paris. Today, Tokyo Disneyland Guests enjoy the updated Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: Dreamlights, featuring new versions of classic ELP floats along with units inspired by Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and Beauty and the Beast.

While the original parade at Disneyland remained the same over the years, a number of promotional units joined the procession at different times, celebrating everything from the release of The Fox and the Hound in 1980 to Return to Oz in 1985. There were even floats created in honor of Mickey's 60th birthday (1988) and Disneyland's 25th and 35th anniversaries (1980 & 1990).

Some of the classic units that remain part of the ELP today were originally created to promote Disney's "newest" productions. King Leonidas, playing the circus calliope, is from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Elliot is the oversize star of Pete's Dragon (1977), the Walt Disney Studio's big release for the summer of the parade's debut.

The Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade was retired from the park in 1996, making a one-night-only appearance a year later in New York City for the world premiere of Hercules (complete with a custom-built lead unit featuring Pegasus). It was also the Disneyland version of the parade that played the Magic Kingdom during a special engagement from May 1999 to April 2001 and returned to the Disneyland Resort (this time at Disney's California Adventure) that July.

As part of the Summer Nightastic! promotion in 2009, the parade received a pixie-dusted facelift and a new lead unit featuring Tinker Bell. With Summer Nightastic! being celebrated at Walt Disney World starting June 6, the Main Street Electrical Parade is once again making the journey east to march through the Magic Kingdom.

As it approaches its 40th anniversary, this "spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination" is still glowing strong "with thousands of sparkling lights and electro-synthe-magnetic musical sounds!"