Parades Based On Individual Movies... Gone For Good?

[Prince John]

I'd like to rewind back to a magical time called the 1990's. Music wasn't exactly the greatest back then, but new movies were stellar. From Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Titanic, and Forrest Gump just to name a few mammoth releases from that era, needless to say life was good in the cinema.
During that time we also enjoyed a Renaissance for Walt Disney animation. When a new animated feature was being released from the House of Mouse... it felt like an event back in those days.
I'll never forget being a wee little lad back when The Lion King was about to be released in 1994. It felt like the grandest animated film ever to be released... before it was even released. That's how you market. From flooded store shelves at The Disney Store with all sorts of TLK merch, specials and "Making Of" documentaries on TV, mega toy promo at Burger King, huge TLK merch displays at other various store locations... they made that movie an event, and it was well deserved.

Then there was that parade which ran at Disneyland for awhile based solely on TLK, which was a nice way to pay tribute to the box office success. "Celebration Of The Lion King" or "The Lion King Celebration" I think is what that parade was called. It was nice to have a daily parade focusing on just one story rather than the traditional mashup of characters.
Prior to TLK's parade, there was the Aladdin Royal Caravan, which ran at Disneyland and MGM for awhile. Again, a nice tribute for one decent film. I can't remember seeing any sole-movie themed parades prior to Aladdin (were there any?)
MGM also hosted a Toy Story parade years later and finally a Mulan one. I can't remember if there were any more than those.

So my question is, do you think Disney will ever run a daytime parade again focusing on just one new movie release like it used to back in the 90's? Or do you think people have gotten so used to the variety of characters and movie floats in parades of today, that the idea would fall flat? I'm not talking about short dance parties or festivities such as the Coco celebration that DCA ran, I'm talking about a traditional daytime parade.

For those of you who remember the old sole-movie parades of the 90's, would you like to see one of those pop up every now and then to change things up? I personally wouldn't mind.

 

[Cadbury]

So my question is, do you think Disney will ever run a daytime parade again focusing on just one new movie release like it used to back in the 90's?

I'm a true believer in the saying "never say never." My favorite parade from the late 90s was the Hercules Zero to Hero Victory parade that ran daily at MGM Studios in 1997.

 

[Prince John]

My favorite parade from the late 90s was the Hercules Zero to Hero Victory parade that ran daily at MGM Studios in 1997.

I had forgotten about the Hercules one. Sadly, I never saw it or Mulan's parade in person.

I'm thinking Hercules in 1997 and Mulan in 1998 were the final two of the sole-movie parades, before it went back to being the traditional mashup parades of all Disney, all Pixar, etc.

 

[Cadbury]

I'm thinking Hercules in 1997 and Mulan in 1998 were the final two of the sole-movie parades, before it went back to being the traditional mashup parades of all Disney, all Pixar, etc.

I watched an old home video of the Hercules parade and it brings back so many memories! Not to mention this was going on during the 25th anniversary.

 

[Prince John]

I watched an old home video of the Hercules parade and it brings back so many memories!

I remember when Disney "took over" NYC with the Electrical Parade one night with some Hercules floats added. They really went all out to promote that movie.

 

[JIMINYCR]

I think for the entertainment value to the guests that Disney would prefer having parades featuring a variety of character floats and spotlight a diverse group of characters. I think guests expect to see different floats that change up whats coming down the street. Each successive float brings more joy and a surprise of whats to follow the previous one.
For example... The short cavalcade of characters appearing when covid was in place was welcomed because it was at least a brief appearance when parades were forbidden, but it felt like we were being short changed by a lack of variety.

 

[Prince John]

I think for the entertainment value to the guests that Disney would prefer having parades featuring a variety of character floats and spotlight a diverse group of characters. I think guests expect to see different floats that change up whats coming down the street.

With the much larger crowds of today, that makes sense for Disney to go this route and keep the variety parades going. I get why most audiences like those better at the parks. Part of my nostalgic self just wishes they would do another individual movie tribute again for old times sake. They were a nice occasional change. Thankfully we have YouTube with some preserved videos of past ones, so they're not lost forever.

Another one I didn't think of until now was the "Mickey Mania" parade at MK back in the 90s. Focusing on just one character, using other characters to pay tribute.

 

[tl77]

I had forgotten about the Hercules one. Sadly, I never saw it or Mulan's parade in person.

I'm thinking Hercules in 1997 and Mulan in 1998 were the final two of the sole-movie parades, before it went back to being the traditional mashup parades of all Disney, all Pixar, etc.

I think Hercules and Mulan are the reason they stopped doing these parades, both films weren't as big a hit as the previous films Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King. So they stopped doing parades dedicated to a single film, but "Disney" was such a huge force in American popular culture by that time, they didn't really need the parades to draw people to the parks.

During Walt Disney's lifetime, the Disney films and Disneyland park were fairly popular with the American public, but after his death people began losing interest in the Disney Company/Disney Films. When my family started going to the parks in Florida in the late 70's early 80's friends of mine thought it was weird that we liked Disney so much. There hadn't had any kind of "hit film" since Walt had passed away, so to the general public "Disney" had really gone out of style.

That sting of films in the late 80's/early 90's Roger Rabbit, Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, that people now call "The Disney Renaissance" were such huge mainstream hits, they made the Walt Disney Company popular again with everyone. Those parades were a quick way to get those "very popular new characters" into the parks, and the only way to see them in the Parks because they didn't have "Meet and Greets" back then.

Frozen was the biggest film since the "Disney Renaissance" films, but no one at the Disney company saw it coming. At the last minute the Frozen girls got stuck on a rotating float built for Sleeping Beauty in WDW's Festival of Fantasy Parade... Rapunzel got her own huge float in that parade though. I hate to say it, but the animated films really aren't the company's main priority anymore, at the same time, it's such a huge company now they don't need to rely on a single film to keep "The Disney Brand" in the public eye.

The "single film parades" were great in that time, but Disney/Pixar have so many hit films each year, they couldn't possibly do parades for all of them

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The single-movie parades were a marketing gimmick to get people to see the movie and buy the video. It may have been funded by a different arm of the company, who eventually decided that it wasn't worth the effort if these movies were not going to deliver as expected.

Tarzan got a live show to coincide with the movie's release. Same as Pocahontas and Hunchback. Single movie stage shows are much more of a thing post-2000 with Aladdin, Finding Nemo, Frozen all getting productions, although now the trend is to mix movies again as seen with "Mickey and the [Wonderous Book, Magician, Magical Map etc)"

 

[Prince John]

Frozen was the biggest film since the "Disney Renaissance" films, but no one at the Disney company saw it coming.

Yeah I had a feeling when this type of parade didn't reappear along with Frozen's success, Disney no longer considered them in its playbook.

 

[cookiee_munster]

I think it's harder now because of so many releases in one year, not just from disney studio's but from pixar too, wheras back in the 90's it was just disney animation releasing just one movie a year. The focus could just be made towards that release, now it's a little harder.

 

[FutureCEO]

I'd like to rewind back to a magical time called the 1990's. Music wasn't exactly the greatest back then, but new movies were stellar. From Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Titanic, and Forrest Gump just to name a few mammoth releases from that era, needless to say life was good in the cinema.
During that time we also enjoyed a Renaissance for Walt Disney animation. When a new animated feature was being released from the House of Mouse... it felt like an event back in those days.
I'll never forget being a wee little lad back when The Lion King was about to be released in 1994. It felt like the grandest animated film ever to be released... before it was even released. That's how you market. From flooded store shelves at The Disney Store with all sorts of TLK merch, specials and "Making Of" documentaries on TV, mega toy promo at Burger King, huge TLK merch displays at other various store locations... they made that movie an event, and it was well deserved.

Then there was that parade which ran at Disneyland for awhile based solely on TLK, which was a nice way to pay tribute to the box office success. "Celebration Of The Lion King" or "The Lion King Celebration" I think is what that parade was called. It was nice to have a daily parade focusing on just one story rather than the traditional mashup of characters.
Prior to TLK's parade, there was the Aladdin Royal Caravan, which ran at Disneyland and MGM for awhile. Again, a nice tribute for one decent film. I can't remember seeing any sole-movie themed parades prior to Aladdin (were there any?)
MGM also hosted a Toy Story parade years later and finally a Mulan one. I can't remember if there were any more than those.

So my question is, do you think Disney will ever run a daytime parade again focusing on just one new movie release like it used to back in the 90's? Or do you think people have gotten so used to the variety of characters and movie floats in parades of today, that the idea would fall flat? I'm not talking about short dance parties or festivities such as the Coco celebration that DCA ran, I'm talking about a traditional daytime parade.

For those of you who remember the old sole-movie parades of the 90's, would you like to see one of those pop up every now and then to change things up? I personally wouldn't mind.

The Lion King is still the greatest animated film ever released. Of course, I've seen it so often that I can follow it without sound. Which is ironically the only movie or song I can do that with.

BTW...music is still dead. Of course, there are some good acts every now and then.

 

[Robbiem]

I loved the Aladdin parade when I saw it at MGM, the really clever part was how it tied into the Prince Ali segment of the movie.

I’d like to see these sort of things return it was a run way to promote a movie and have a changing attraction especially at the studios.

I also loved the old film star motorcade and handprint ceremony they used to do occasionally. I was lucky enough to see Ed Asner when I visited one time