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Happy American Bicentennial!
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America on Parade
Daily at 3:00 and 9:00 p.m. throughout the summer season
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Happy birthday to the United States of America!
It’s been 200 years since the nation’s founding in 1776.
Celebrate by watching America on Parade—a spectacular tribute to America’s history, people, and traditions.
With 50 parade units, 150 character performers, and lasting over a half
hour, America on Parade is a grand experience.
The parade starts with the “Spirit of ’76,” featuring Mickey, Goofy, and Donald.
Then you won’t see any other traditional Disney characters until the end of the parade.
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Columbus sailed to the New World almost 300 years before the USA’s founding.
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America on Parade features the “People of America”—eight-foot-tall characters
with doll-like heads—including Christopher Columbus, Ben Franklin, Miss Liberty, Uncle Sam, Pilgrims,
and giant snack-food vendors.
The first half of the parade is a summary of American history, starting Christopher Columbus.
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Marvel at a turkey as tall as the buildings of Main Street.
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Watch as these “People of America” perform to some of the America’s most
popular tunes, recorded from a traditional band organ—including “Yankee Doodle,”
“This Land Is Your Land,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,”
and “God Bless America.”
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Watch Betsy Ross sew to the tune of “You’re a Grand Old Flag.“
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The parade floats are towering.
For example, eight-foot-tall Betsy Ross is dwarfed by her two-story-tall rocking chair, as she sews the immense, first American flag.
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Watch Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher “float” down the parade route on their float.
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The American frontier and the Westward Expansion play a prominent role in America on Parade.
For a while, the parade seems like a Salute to Frontierland—with units that suggest the Tom Sawyer Island rafts, the Mark Twain Riverboat, the old Stagecoach ride, and the Golden Horseshoe Revue.
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Elegant “People of America” follow a riverboat with two stacks.
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A gun-toting character travels atop a Western stagecoach.
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A steam locomotive follows an old Western saloon with dancing girls.
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America is on the move.
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You’ll see more just American history.
You’ll see contemporary American culture too, consisting primarily of sports, junk food, and Disney characters.
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See giant athletes and giant snack foods travelling down the parade route.
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What could be more American than the great American sandwich?
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Yes, this is still the same parade.
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The grand finale of America on Parade features a marching band from a high school or college—the only humans in the parade whose faces aren’t hidden within character costumes.
After the 9 p.m. parade, enjoy an extravaganza in the sky consisting entirely
of red, white, and blue fireworks.
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At Disneyland—and at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World—America on Parade ran from
June 14, 1975, through September 6, 1976.
Doing double-duty as Disneyland’s afternoon and evening parade,
America on Parade displaced the
Main Street Electrical Parade
for two summers.
Anyone who is old enough to remember 1976 will remember that the American Bicentennial was celebrated as a really big event—and not just at Disney parks.
So America on Parade was a big parade.
The floats were impressive and the recorded, amplified band organ tunes provided a fitting accompaniment to the various units of the parade.
The daytime parade, illuminated by California (and Florida) sunshine, was colorful and festive.
At night, the parade didn’t measure up to the Main Street Electrical Parade.
The “People of America” must have seemed like a good idea to the parade’s designers.
The dolls would be so large that even adults would feel like children.
However, the actual results were a bit creepy.
The characters were not endearing or lovable.
They were like adults with the faces of babies—sometimes babies with facial hair—with their huge eyes staring blankly.
The folks at Disney don’t like to throw things away.
The “People of America” characters were reused when EPCOT Center opened in 1982.
Instead of having the usual Disney characters wandering through the park, the former “People of America,” dressed in international costumes, inhabited World Showcase.
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The “People of America” were a bit creepy.
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© 2007 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks
Updated July 2, 2007.
Al photographs in this Yesterland entry are by Frank Taylor, courtesy of Chris Taylor.
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