Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress

The Carousel of Progress recently celebrated its 45^th anniversary at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, but the attraction has actually been around for almost 65 years, with the design and concept dating back even further.

If you are unfamiliar with the Carousel of Progress, it is a rotating theatre show located in Tomorrowland. The show plays continuously throughout the day and often has little to no wait. It features four different scenes, each representing a different decade and a different holiday. These scenes follow the Progress family, an average Midwestern family, as their lives adapt to the changing technology around them.

The concept of the Carousel of Progress grew from an unrealized idea for Disneyland from the late 1950s. After Disneyland was built, Walt had some ideas for extensions of Main Street, U.S.A. including Liberty Street, International Street, and Edison Square. Despite never being built for Disneyland, parts of these mini-lands can be found at Walt Disney World. Liberty Street became Liberty Square at Magic Kingdom, and the idea of International Street was recycled into World Showcase at Epcot.

Edison Square was going to be located in the north-eastern corner of Main Street, close to where the Plaza Inn is. Themed around the inventor Thomas Edison, this mini-land would have been set in the same time period as Main Street, but would have had more of a big city look and feel.

The main attraction in Edison Square was to be called Harnessing the Lightning which would show the increased importance of electricity. Hosted by Mr. Wilbur Kilo Watt (a precursor to an audio-animatronic), guests would walk from room to room of his house. The rooms would be set twenty years apart and would feature changes in technology. General Electric was interested in sponsorship of Harnessing the Lightning and at the end of the tour guests could interact with GE products.

Edison Square was never realized, but the idea behind Harnessing the Lightning lived on. Disney created four new attractions for the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair, one of which was the Carousel of Progress. Now instead of guests walking from room to room, a rotating theatre was created which was inspired by a railroad roundhouse.

Walt was intimately involved with the design of the Carousel of Progress and it was said to have been one of his favourite attractions. Both Walt and the Carousel of Progress shared “a fond nostalgia for the past and an optimism about tomorrow” (beautiful quote from D23.) He personally chose voice actors with Midwestern or Southern roots to reflect his childhood in Marceline. GE sponsored the attraction at the World’s Fair, then called the General Electric Carousel of Progress, and it was located in their Progressland pavilion. The two clips playing in the queue today at Magic Kingdom were originally used to show GE what the attraction was like when they were considering sponsorship and were not meant to be seen by the public. One clip shows a model of the Carousel of Progress (which was built by Harriet Burns) and the other clip features the Sherman brothers.  The song “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” written by the Sherman brothers, was their anthem for Walt since they admired what an eternal optimist he was and how he always followed his dreams. The song was later used in Innoventions at Disneyland and in Horizons at Epcot.

The three original scenes set in the 1900s, 1920s, and 1940s remain pretty much the same today as they were at the fair. The first scene is set on Valentine’s Day, the second on the Fourth of July, and the third on Halloween. The fourth scene was originally New Year’s Eve during the 1960s and the Progress family was living in Walt’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (read this past post for more details.) This futuristic city could be seen through the windows.

After the World’s Fair, the Carousel of Progress was moved to Disneyland and opened in Tomorrowland in 1967. GE continued their sponsorship in the new location. In this new rotating theatre building, the first level held the Carousel of Progress, and then after the show, guests would go up a moving walkway to the second level. A model of Walt’s vision for EPCOT was located there and a four minute narrative by Mother and Father Progress would explain the concept of Progress City.

After a few years at Disneyland, the number of guests seeing the show was dwindling so GE asked Disney to move the Carousel of Progress to their new property in Florida. The Carousel of Progress was closed in 1973 and packed up to be sent across the country. Parts of the EPCOT model went with it. The show America Sings was created to celebrate the United States Bicentennial and went into the old Carousel of Progress building.

Two years later in 1975, the Carousel of Progress opened at Walt Disney World with a ten year sponsorship with GE. The Sherman brothers wrote a new song for the attraction called “The Best Time of Your Life” which better fitted the changing GE philosophy at that time. A third song called “New Horizons” was also composed by the Sherman brothers but was never used. The final scene was changed to feature New Year’s Eve in the 1970s and then was changed again to show the 1980s.

In 1985, GE ended their sponsorship and didn’t renew. In 1993, the attraction underwent some big changes including changing the theme song back to “It’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” renaming it Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress, and changing the final scene to Christmas in the 2000s. This was to fit in with the new theme of Tomorrowland, “The Future that Never Was,” since Tomorrowland was struggling to keep up with the ever-changing technology.

The Carousel of Progress currently holds the record for the longest-running stage show in America.

A previous blog post about the Marceline to Magic Kingdom tour at Walt Disney World features many fun facts about the Carousel of Progress so make sure to check it out for more information about this wonderful attraction!

• Here are some of my favourite fun facts:
• The audio-animatronic robin in the first scene is the same one that was used in Mary Poppins.
• This scene mentions the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair which Walt’s father took their family to.
• The score music of “It’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” changes scene to scene to reflect each decade, ie banjos in the 1900s to jazz music in the 1920s.
• The last scene features many hidden Mickey’s including an abstract Sorcerer Mickey painting on the wall and a plush Mickey under the Christmas tree.

Check out this post about It’s a Small World, another attraction from the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair!

 

Is the Carousel of Progress a must when you visit the Magic Kingdom? Did you learn anything new about its history from this post? Would you have liked to see Edison Square become a reality at Disneyland? Drop a comment below!