Walt Disney World Parade, March 25 1988
Today is a continuation of a series of photos from the Magic Kingdom, taken by Lou Perry back in March of 1988 (and scanned and shared with us by Sue B.). This is the "Spirit of America" parade.
A few of the Country Bears are on a hayride, and they are wearing some interesting red and white checked overalls and bandannas. Bob's Big Boy must have given them some fashion advice.
Next comes a riverboat (hauling a series of...um...barges? With plenty of New Orleans dancers and performers; even a Dixieland band! (I like seeing the tower of the Firehouse here).
I'm going to imagine that the band is playing "When the Saints Go Marching In". Say, who's that way up at the top?
Why, it's Captain Donald! He doesn't really care what the pilot does, as long as he gets to ring the bell. Even in New Orleans, Donald dispenses with trousers.
There's some of the dancers I mentioned earlier; it must be quite challenging to dance on a moving float like that. The men are playing tambourines, which reminds me of my time at Julliard. I wanted to become the first tambourine superstar, but just didn't have the chops.
It's nice to see Daisy Duck, dressed in Spanish-influenced attire. Maybe she even quacked in Spanish.
Hola, Daisy!
Now we are moving from the South into the Southwest, with Cowboy Goofy (followed by his faithful sweeper). Am I crazy, or does it look like the horse is twirling that lasso?? I hate it when a horse is more talented than I am!
Apparently a bird has built its nest in Goofy's 14-gallon hat. And normally Goofy's feet are pretty big, but they look positively petite here.
There are lots more photos from this "Spirit of America" parade! Many thanks to Lou and Sue for sharing!
23 comments:
Major-
More great images from a lively parade. And to answer your question: "Am I crazy, or does it look like the horse is twirling that lasso??" Yes and Yes. (I couldn't resist).
Thanks to Lou and Sue.
In the Country Bears float, the CM's 'viewport' in the throat of the Bear is impossible to miss. I wonder if little kids noticed it? And what did they think about it?
Major, maybe the 'barges' are meant to be elongated parts of the whole, complete riverboat? Sort of like the Mark Twain being sucked into a black hole and becoming spaghettified.
In the close-up of Donald, I wonder what the riverboat's smokestacks are made of? Metal? Or plastic?
Major, Daisy Duck does NOT quack! She always has a very mellifluous voice.
A lasso twirling horse... who knew? I'm sure the rope is stiff as a board, but still. I guess I can cross that one off my bucket list.
Ha! You're right, Goofy's feet look pretty silly and totally out of scale with the rest of him. I wonder if that red bird in Goofy's hat flapped its wings?
Lou Perry certainly captured some great, and colorful, images of this parade. Thanks to Lou & Sue, and Major.
Is that Admiral Boom up there on top of the Riverboat? By the way, Glynis Johns turned 99, earlier this month. Well done, Sister Suffragette!
Twirling a lasso while relieving itself at the same time....that is a talented horse!
I love a parade, especially a vintage Disney parade. Thank you Lou, Sue, and Major, too!
Seeing Goofy’s stirrup-sized feet got me thinking about the concessions they have to make for costumed performers wearing the full character suits in the name of safety. In these pictures, you can see the fairly steep and tall ladders both Donald and Daisy had to climb to get to their respective parade perches, and I don’t think it would be possible to make those climbs in full character suits, definitely not with the feet and head in place. I wonder if they climbed up first and then put the costumes on? Note that we can’t see Daisy’s feet in either of these photos, so her costume for this parade may not have included the duck feet.
TM!, that horse does have an impressive skill set. About only thing I can do while relieving myself is read. My preference is A.A. Milne.
I agree with JB (which sounds like an ad slogan if you say it out loud), the riverboat barges are supposed to be all the same boat. It's kind of like those super long hinged busses you see in some cities.
I guess the horse ate the lasso by the time the second picture was taken. That's why you can't trust a horse to lasso cattle. That and the fact that United Brotherhood of Cowboys will rough you up for being a scab.
Thanks Lou and Sue and Major too, from Stu!
Nothing like a Disney parade to make me want to run off and ride the Haunted Mansion four times in 40 minutes!
This photo set is a tribute to those CMs in character suits. I can’t imagine riding horseback in a Goofy suit. I can barely imagine riding horseback at all now, but wearing a 50 lb. Fake head too?
Donald has almost normal human shoes, maybe his big flat feet roll up on the sides? I think they would have to get in position before finishing wardrobe, climbing into those precarious spots with limited vision and altered center-of-gravity seems dangerous to me.
Seems like I’ve seen some frames or supports on some floats for the performers to lean against, but not today.
I wonder if the video shot by the guy in the last pic is on YouTube anywhere?
Thanks Major, Lou and Sue!
JG
Steamboat Donald is my favorite part of this parade. Also that one guy in the audience with the red and white striped shorts. He's a barbershop singer from the waist down! Make of that what you will.
The steamboat float design is creative, and allows them to have more floor space, but I think a smaller float that was more literally steamboat-shaped would have been more effective. Then again, I'm still a few credits shy of that MA in Parade Float Design, so what do I know?
"C'mon, Tex, them horses ain't gonna rope themselves. Oh, wait a minute, mebbe they are!"
Señorita Daisy reminds me of that time Lucy got into Ricky's nightclub act as a Spanish lady being serenaded on a balcony and kept upstaging him every time his back was turned. But unlike Ricky, Donald would never lose his temper.
Great pics of a very lively parade.
JG, that's a good time to ride the rides with the usual long lines. One of the perks of spending more than one day at the park. Watch the parade once, and you're free to leave the crowd mesmerized by the floats for the duration. Or you could skip the parade altogether and do the Haunted Mansion or Big Thunder 4 times.
Those stacks sure look like metal but I'm guessing they are of some other, lighter plastic like material.
Really great fun photos, Lou and Sue, Thank you!
Even the guy attending to the horses wake looks happy.
Thanks Major.
Nanook, I’ll get you for that! ;-)
JB, kids probably didn’t even notice the throat porthole. You know how kids are! Maybe you’re right about the barges, I dropped out of Bargeology 101. I can’t tell what those stacks are made of, if I had to guess I’d say fiberglass, but… hard to say. Is this the first use of the word “mellifluous”? Not the last though! I’ll bet that horse slept in a fancy trailer with a color TV and everything. As befitting such a talent. There is probably video of this parade on YouTube, we could solve “The Mystery of the Flapping Bird” (another Perry Mason episode?).
TokyoMagic!, that is Admiral Boom’s nephew, Bobby Boom. Glynis Johns, wow, I admit that I assumed she’s passed long ago. Maybe that horse can only relieve itself while twirling a lasso? A rare condition that only hypnosis can cure.
Chuck, ha ha, the performers climb up the ladders completely nude, and get dressed once they reach their perches. The behind-the-scenes info that Disney doesn’t want you to know about! I need to read something with more action (I was going to make a “Pooh sticks” joke, but thought better of it).
Stu29573, I wish my car had hinges. It wouldn’t make my life better, but I just want it. Plus, if a passenger is annoying? Blow the hinges! That’s right, they would have explosive charges. Otherwise what’s the point? I trust horses for most things, but when one is twirling a lasso, I admit that I assume he is a con man (con horse?).
JG, ha ha, I know what you mean; I used to get rankled at Disneyland when I would exit a ride, and would want to head to the other side of the park, only to find a parade in full swing. Now that you mention it, I wonder how much those heads DO weigh? Maybe they are lighter than we think. Maybe they lifted the characters into place with a crane. I’d have to assume that some of those unsupported characters would sometimes fall over, how could it not happen? A float comes to a screeching halt, and Newton’s laws come into play.
Melissa, you like Steamboat Donald because it makes you think of “Showboat”! I know how you love those classic musicals. A barbershop singer from the waist down, I have to think about that, but I don’t want to. Don’t make me! They could have had flat barges being towed by the Steamboat Float, but I admit that their solution is prettier. Surprising nobody, I am not familiar with that episode of “ILL”.
DrGoat, something tells me that with today’s crowds, only a tiny faction of the guests would stop to watch the parades. Still a lot of people, but not enough to make the lines much shorter. However, your strategy was a favorite of mine back in the day. Looking more closely at those stacks, I’m going to double down on my fiberglass guess. I’m also going to put $30 on red.
Major, fortunately that parade-distraction routine did still work 3 years ago at WDW. I got on PotC 3 times in a row. Another time, that same trip during fireworks, I did a nighttime ride on the JC—even viewed some fireworks from the boat—then, if memory serves me right, I went on the HM. All without Lightning Lane, Genie+ and SuperExpensiveCutInLanePass.
I’ll be back later.
—Sue
Sue and Dr. Goat, that story about 4 trips on the HM in 40 minutes is true, I did that on my last solo visit in 2017 during some parade or other.
It was a little more than 40 minutes since the actual ride duration is about 10 minutes, but there was literally no line at all, just run from the exit back to the entry. I felt like a 10 year old kid again, and the best part was, it was the real HM, not the wretched Halloween version.
Now I make my PM plans to stay on the west side of the Park during parades. I notice a sign in one of today's photos that says "Parade Crosswalk", which is something I wish they had in the Anaheim Park instead of shutting down circulation completely.
JG
JG, "maybe his big flat feet roll up on the sides". I bet Donald has trouble with ingrown toenails.
Major, I think "mellifluous" has been used here before... once or twice.
When I wondered about the bird flapping its wings, I kept thinking of the Dumbo ride, and the mystery of whether the Dumbi ever flapped their ears or not. The Supreme Court of GDB has decided that, yes, they did.
"Pooh sticks"... oh gawd.
Fiberglass does make sense for those smokestacks, Major.
Daisy’s pink shoes are visible in one of the shots. Her costume does have a sort of “Spanish” look but she’s on the AMERICAN SOUTH group of floats and I think rather than a bonnet she’s wearing what was called a “Snood” … or a variant called a “open snood” - very popular during the 1850’s and into the early 1880’s. Daisy’s costume for this parade is titled “DAISY BELLE”
And if yer gonna steer a 75 foot long Riverboat around Town Square and down Main Street : you gotta break the ship into sections!
Those guests are totally looking at that horse spin the laso! I bet if most you you had to spin a laso like that with your mouth with a 7 foot Goofy strapped to your back - you’d relieve yourself too!
Regarding those heavy costume heads, some of the cast members do end up having some neck problems. Those folks go through a lot, for too little.
Thanks for today's laughs, and for all your nice comments for my dad.
In the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, many floats have T-bars (kind of like fixed handlebars) for the people riding on them to keep their balance over questionable Manhattan streets. I'm surprised Disney doesn't have them by the late 1980s.
JB, ducks have toenails?
Jeff, I knew I had seen them somewhere, maybe in NOLA Mardi Gras floats too. Some of those even have on-board restrooms.
JG
Sue, I’m glad to hear that the “parade distraction routine” still worked that recently! Wow, viewing the fireworks from the Jungle Cruise sounds like a beautiful thing. I don’t think that would work at Disneyland though.
JG, my best experience with the Haunted Mansion was years ago, when my date and I stayed until just before the park closed. There was only one other couple in the stretching room, so… no screaming, or people saying the words with the Ghost Host, or bright cell phones. It was so amazing! We got off the ride and immediately got on again, and like before, there was only one other couple. Ah… I miss that. I do not mind the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay (much), but I do tend to go to the park after October, so it has been a LONG time since I’ve seen the original Mansion.
JB, do ducks have toenails? How do they clip them? It is certainly possible that “mellifluous” has been used before sometime in the last 16 years, but let’s say that it was used the BEST today! The Dumbi did flap their ears, and they also twirled their trunks.
Mike Cozart, I thought that Daisy might be wearing something like a Spanish comb along with her… what would you call it, a veil? That sounds wrong. Sure they had to break the steamboat into sections - or they could have made a “Slinky” version. I want (need) to know more about that talented horse with the lasso. We shall not see his like again.
Lou and Sue, oh boy, permanent neck problems, sounds great! “The bad news is that you will have a sore neck. The good news is that you will sweat more than you have ever sweated in your life!”.
Jeff, yes, I’ve seen bars like you described on the floats for the Rose Parade in Pasadena too, so it’s not a new idea. Maybe for the Disney parade they super-glued their feet to the float??
Of course I can’t find the quote now, but once I read some thing John Barrymore said about sweat being an actor’s blessing, because it means you have to pee less.
The first recorded use of the term “mellifluous” on GDB was on August 22nd, 2014, to describe the tones of the Entertainment Committee. At least that’s according to the search function in my phone. Your mileage may vary.
JG & Major, yep! Ducks do indeed have toenails. Also, the University of Oregon Ducks have toenails, too.
Major, the Dumbi twirled their trunks?!? When??? Oh man, another mystery to solve. ;-)
Melissa, thanks for that pleasant notion. ;-p
Chuck, ah, ha! I was pretty sure I'd seen 'mellifluous' on GDB before. Now, how the heck did your phone find that? It seems that more and more Junior Gorillas are dabbling in the Black Arts these days.
Well, now that pooh, pee, sweat, relieving yourself, etc., has already been discussed in today's comments, I no longer feel "crude" posting the following comment that I earlier emailed personally to Melissa. Here goes...
"He's a barbershop singer from the waist down!"
Melissa, your comment reminded me of a story that a funny co-worker told me:
She was once out in public when she accidently [loudly] "let one loose." Being quick-witted, she immediately and seriously said out-loud to the people around her, "Well, now that I've tuned my instrument, does anyone have any special requests?"
(Hey, at least you were spared Major's "Pooh stick" joke.)
:oP
Sue, I notice that you snuck-in that story in the dead of night, when only us degenerates would see it.
Gorillas After Dark
—Sue
Post a Comment