Main Street Electrical Parade at the 1978 Orange Bowl

[Ex-SmallWorld CM]

Hi everyone! I was surprised and happy to find this ELUSIVE appearance of the Main Street Electrical Parade at the 1978 Orange Bowl. Listen very carefully at some unique and rare music performed and arranged by Don Dorsey. Sean Marshall who plays Pete in the movie, PETE'S DRAGON, makes a cameo apperance with Elliot the Dragon.

Check it out here and enjoy:

YouTube - 1978 Orange Bowl Disney Electrical Parade Half Time Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http:...?v=gq7qto0VoJg

[mrfantasmic]

Ah yes... this was Florida's version, I believe.

[k_peek_2000]

Ah yes... this was Florida's version, I believe.

I'm sure they wouldn't fly California's version across the country when there is the Florida version just a few miles away.

[Luke Manning]

I'm sure they wouldn't fly California's version across the country when there is the Florida version just a few miles away.

No, I believe it's Disneyland's version. It had already ended in DL by that time, so it went to New York en route to Florida.

[Ex-SmallWorld CM]

No, I believe it's Disneyland's version. It had already ended in DL by that time, so it went to New York en route to Florida.

Nope, it's Florida's obviously!

[Luke Manning]

Nope, it's Florida's obviously!

Why?

EDIT: I'm sorry, I for some reason thought we were talking about the Hercules Electrical Parade.

[AaronInCal]

I was going to say.. this was 1978. The parade just debuted one year earlier...

[LittleScienceGuy]

Yeah. I saw that before. I almost didn't believe my eyes! After reading about it in the insert that comes with "Disney's Electrical Parade," to actually see it was life changing! I was also intrigued to see how the music was arranged slightly differently. It went Electric Fanfare, Announcement (not vocoded), and THEN Fanfare of Lights BEFORE the main theme starts. I LOVED the different arrangement. I never thought of it being played that way before, but having the Fanfare of Lights lead into the main theme worked just as well as the other way that we're used to, at least I think so. Then the Alice in Wonderland and Pete's Dragon Units had more music than what we're used to listening to in the parade. I don't know about the rest of you, but being that I was born in 1986, there was no chance of me hearing these other pieces outside of seeing a video like this. lol. That was incredible! Who knew Alice in Wonderland Unit had an ending, or Pete's Dragon Unit had three versus? Super cool!

Did anyone else notice that there were a few more whirlybugs than there should've been out there? There were about 10-12 of them out there, but in the actual parade (in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World) there are ALWAYS only 6; 2 turtles, 2 snails, and 2 lightning bugs/fireflies. There were TWO of the SAME turtles with glasses, TWO of the SAME red and white snails, TWO of the SAME green lightning bugs/fireflies, and
TWO of the SAME turtles with hats on. There were also two centipedes. That's all I could make out. I wonder if they did bring in some of the whirlybugs from Disneyland. You know how cheap Disney is. They wouldn't make duplicates in Florida unless it was really necessary. I don't know. What do you guys think about that?

I remember they said that the original boy atop Pete's Dragon in Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade was Sean Marshall. It was SO cool to see the real him on the float in this video. The music in the Pete's Dragon Unit during the Halftime show was SO awesome! I kinda wish they'd use the last verse rather than the first verse in the actual parade. As a matter of fact, unlike Alice in Wonderland, they could use all three versus in the real parade if they wanted to. It's a complete loop on all of them.

I wanted to also mention that although Jack Wagner mentioned "Disneyland and Walt Disney World's spectacular......," they only showed footage from Walt Disney World, even though the parade started at Disneyland. Can someone say biased? lol.

To Luke Manning:
I second AaronInCal when I say, remember this video is from January of 1978. The Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade had just made its triumphant return the year before, after the two year hiatus for America On Parade, all revamped, bigger, with more lights, more floats, and a whole different musical arrangement. The original floats that were used between 1972-1974 in Disneyland were retired and replaced by the new and improved units. Most of those floats are the same floats we see today in California Adventure. 1977 was also the year Walt Disney World Main Street Electrical Parade debuted. You're thinking of 1996 when Disneyland's parade was "retired," then made an appearance in New York the following year, then a 2 year engagement in Florida, and then back to Anaheim in California Adventure.

[DisneyKid1994]

what was that thing in the beginning?

[akfandisney]

Chronology of the Walt Disney Company
unofficial Disney Co. Time line web site.
1977
June 11

• The Main Street Electrical Parade premieres in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World.

From Wikipedia
The Main Street Electrical Parade had counterparts of the same name and layout at the Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort, which ran from 1977 to 1991. It was replaced by a similar parade called SpectroMagic,

[Radiobarry]

Back in the day, the Orange Bowl was on NBC every year, and the "World Of Disney" show was as well, and each year the halftime show was produced by Disney - just FYI.

-- Barry

[Kritter]

That was awesome!

[LittleScienceGuy]

what was that thing in the beginning?

What? You mean the lights parading arounf in formation on the field to the main theme?