Disney's Bicentennial Celebration

 I have decided to look at the way in which the Walt Disney Company celebrated America’s bicentennial. As anyone Native of central Florida knows, Disney World plays a large role in what goes on here in Orlando and Kissimmee and you better believe they played a central role in celebrating America's bicentennial!
Dr Crepeau has some items in his collection such as a pair of Mickey Mouse/Paul Revere socks. The significance of looking at Disney’s relationship with the bicentennial Is that if can speak to Florida’s participation AS WELL AS participation on a national and even GLOBAL level. Mickey Mouse is a recognizable image around the world so using that imagery, even with the patriotic overtones makes this something that can appeal to a wide array of audiences. Mickey Mouse, being an international symbol, would have had marketing appeal to people both domestic and international as well as to people of all ages. Disney, being a corporation, took the 1976 event to make money through marketing and various celebrations that took place throughout the park. Being that Disney World had only been in Orlando five years at that point; the bicentennial celebrations served its purpose by bringing in an incredible amount of money to this brand new park and potentially more tourists to the Orlando area.

From the summer of 1975 to a few weeks after July 4^th 1976,, Disney parks in both Orlando and Anaheim put together an elaborate parade titled: America on Parade. Included in this parade where all the nationalistic favorites Americans had been inundated with in 1976. Parade floats went beyond just the typical American Revolutionary period by including Christopher Columbus discovering America, Pilgrims celebrating Thanksgiving with the Native Americans, and settlers heading west on the Oregon Trail. Disney even pulled out song team Alan and Roger Sherman to write a song specifically for the bicentennial celebration. One of the interesting things about this parade was that it not focus a lot on the typical Disney imagery one would expect from a spectacle at a Disney park.

The beginning float of the parade shows the three Disney characters: Mickey, Goofy, and Donald in revolutionary regalia. A lot of this imagery will be included on the merchandise sold to commemorate the event as can be seen from the front of the park guide map that were regularly being distributed.

   

Also included are images from Dr Crepeau's collection:

   

This is example of one of several admission tickets from the Doctor's collection for guests to see "America on Parade". When the park first opened, a lot of attractions were experienced via tickets as opposed to the way guests experience the attractions today.

This is an example of a name tag that was worn by a Disney cast member. As you can see, the name tag was made specifically for the bicentennial celebration. This is an example of Disney trying to include their celebration in all of the minute details.

Here are some images included from the park’s parade. Fortunately, due to the touristic nature of the location, there are a lot of good images available.

This is Christopher Columbus on his ship “discovering” the New World

The First Thanksgiving complete with giant turkey, surrounded by American stereotypes of pilgrims and Native Americans getting ready to sit down and eat together.

Here is what appears to be George Washington’s continental army on parade. In front of them is Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin who is flying his kite. Not very visible in this picture is the key attached to the bottom of Franklin’s kite.

Betsy Ross sewing the very first American flag!

Disney had a large section in their parade dedicated to the new frontier in celebration of one of their themed lands, “Frontierland”. Here is a steamboat captain sailing his way through the park.

The float here depicts a group of Forty-Niners possibly on their way to California to pan for some gold. 

Fictional characters such as Tom Sawyer were depicted as well. Not pictured are the various other floats the followed including a group of varsity students, giant sandwiches to depict how much Americans love to eat, Thomas Edison inventing the light-bulb and a grand finale of Disney/American classics such as Snow White and her Seven Dwarfs followed Winnie the Pooh and Dumbo.

Below I have included a link to watch the entire parade on YouTube. Unfortunately, you are unable to hear the song written specifically for the event and I have been unable to find a good version of that. 

Here is a YouTube video of the entire parade: "America on Parade"