The original idea for the Main Street Electrical Parade didn’t start on a street as one would think. Its origins are in Walt Disney World’s Electrical Water Pageant. And like the Electrical Water Pageant—the longest-running parade at Disney—this light pageant just keeps going and going and going… and going. Most of the Main Street Electrical Parade‘s floats were not three-dimensional as they are today. They were flat, moving panels on wheels, which illuminated the parade route with “thousands of sparkling lights and electro-synthemagnetic musical sounds” (say that twice). It’s seen many iterations over the years, and even had its own farewell tour in 1996. Disneyland sold collectible bulbs, and the parade was succeeded by Light Magic. Disneyland brought the Electrical Parade back in 2001 at the opening of Disney California Adventure. And in 2010, it replaced the Blue Fairy with Tinker Bell and brought back a few re-created parade units from earlier years. Then, in 2011, it took a Floridian vacation at the Magic Kingdom—ironically, where the idea for it began 40 years ago. It can be seen nightly—illuminating Main Street, U.S.A. to Frontierland—spinning snails and all.
By D23′s Melody Dale, Billy Stanek, and Jose Velasquez
