Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress

The attraction begins with a brief introduction about Walt Disney's idea for the attraction's debut at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair and how he always had a passion for progress. Regarded as the longest-running stage show in American theater history, the theater then begins to rotate for each act to the theme song "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" by the Sherman Brothers.

The first act is set on Valentine’s Day, "right around the turn of the century". The father of the family, John, is sitting on a wooden rocking chair in his home, his dog, Rover, lying on the floor. He mentions that two brothers in North Carolina are working on a "flying contraption" but comments it will never work, followed by mentions of the new inventions and technological achievements of the day. After he shows off the new technology, he calls to his wife, Sarah, who is ironing in the room to John's left. The two discuss how Thomas Edison is working on an idea for "snap-on electric lights", to which Sarah comments "no more kerosene, no more gas" will be needed to illuminate rooms.

She also shows her new "wash-day marvel" that helps her do laundry in five hours, instead of two days, and she needs to get the laundry off the line before it starts raining. John initially denies that it is about to rain as his lumbago hasn't acted up, but is immediately proven wrong. Shortly after, the family's son, James, begins to talk from the right room and is scolded for using his father’s Stereoscope without permission. James is watching Little Egypt dancing the "Hootchie-Cootchie". John comments that she is going to be the star of the upcoming World's Fair, and that James better put the Stereoscope away before his mother finds it. As John and James finish talking, John tells talks about owning "one of those new talking machines", after which, the family’s grandmother appears on the left room, having fallen asleep while listening to the phonograph. John's attention is then drawn to a room on the right, where his daughter, Patricia, is getting ready to go to a Valentine’s Day dance on the other side of town. John explains that she will be taking one of the new "horseless trolleys", before telling her that she better be home by 9 o'clock. He then mentions he's going to take one of the said trolleys downtown to have a root beer, which he explains is just a sarsaparilla with a new name.

The second act is set in the "Roarin' Twenties". John is once again sitting in his kitchen, this time on a smaller kitchen chair on Independence Day. Wires and new electric machines are all over the room. He says things have changed a lot in the last twenty years. He proceeds to tell guests the new accomplishments of the era, such as Charles Lindbergh about to fly over the Atlantic Ocean, sports stadiums being built all over the United States, regarding Babe Ruth as the country's best baseball player, advertisements for a film, where Al Jolson will talk and sing, electric starters replacing cranks in automobiles, and travel time from New York to California in three days.

John then tells guests that Thomas Edison has brought electricity to his home, after which, the electrical appliances all turn on at the same time, blowing up a fuse, shutting the power in the house and the neighborhood. John then tells his son, Jimmy, to go put in a new fuse and power is restored. John's wife, Sarah, who is sitting on the front porch, is sewing a George Washington costume for John to wear to the town's Independence Day celebration, as her Ladies Club is in charge of the festivities. John tells the guests that the whole family will be performing in their presentation, with John and Sarah going as George and Martha Washington. Sarah is happy electric lights can be installed on the porch. Sarah tells John that Jimmy has volunteered to pick the music for the celebration. Jimmy then appears with his grandfather in the left room, dressed in a colonial outfit and standing next to a radio, which is playing patriotic music.

John tells guests that they can now get news and entertainment on their radio from all over the country. The radio programming announces crowds have begun gathering downtown for the 4th of July. After hearing this, John rushes his daughter, Patricia, to get ready. Patricia is sitting in a room on the right, wearing a Statue of Liberty costume, worrying her new boyfriend will be scared away if he sees her in her costume. John then mentions the house now has indoor plumbing which is great for cold days, especially for Uncle Orville, who is shown sitting in a bathtub on the left side of the stage. John informs guests that he has set up an air cooling system next to the bathtub, with a fan sitting in front of a block of ice, blowing on him.

The third act is set on Halloween during the "Fabulous Forties". John is wearing a sweater while sitting at a circular booth-style kitchen table. New kitchen technologies include a refrigerator that holds more quantity of food and ice cubes and an automatic dishwasher. John mentions he is now part of the "rat race" and they now have television, when it works, and that John Cameron Swayze brings the news every night.

The grandparents then appear on the right room, where the grandfather is sleeping and the grandmother changes the television channel to wrestling. A now teenage Jim calls from his room and asks for his father's opinion on the Jack-O-Lantern he carved, to which John says it's scary; Jim remarks he used his "beautiful sister Patty" as a model. Patty is seen on the right room using an old exercise machine that was "all the rage in the twenties", while talking on the phone about her date for that night. After this, John tells the audience that he is caught up in the "do-it-yourself" craze as they are redoing their basement and making it into a rumpus room. On the left room, Sarah is putting up wallpaper using a "paint mixer" that John says he made for her, using Sarah's food mixer. As John admires his handiwork, the paint mixer goes haywire and shoots paint everywhere.

The fourth and final act is set on Christmas in the 21st century, with the family gathered in the living room and kitchen. John is standing in the kitchen, working on Christmas dinner, while Sarah is working on her computer, nearby. A now-young-adult Jim and his grandmother are playing a virtual reality game, while a 20-something Trish and her grandfather sit around the Christmas tree. Sarah tells John that she has programmed the oven to recognize his voice. John comments all of the household items are now voice-automated and Sarah demonstrates by requesting the Christmas tree lights to brighten. She then asks John to try the voice-activated oven, to which he does with no problem and confirms John's temperature command.

The grandmother has reached a score of 550 points in the virtual reality game, impressing both John and James who repeat the score in awe. Upon hearing John say 550 aloud, the oven increases its temperature, although nobody seems to notice. The grandfather then remarks that he cannot believe the new gadgets that people have today. Between Trish and her grandfather, new technologies have arisen such as car phones, laser discs, high-def TV's, and automated plumbing. The grandmother has now beaten the video game's high score with 975, which John repeats the number aloud, the oven then overheats and begins to smoke and blare warning noises before opening the door to show a severely burned and blackened turkey. John jokes that maybe in the new century, ovens will learn to read minds.

In the late 1950s, after Disneyland's initial success, Walt Disney planned to expand the Main Street, U.S.A. area with two districts: "International Street" and "Edison Square". In Edison Square, guests would be treated to a show which was supposed to be called "Harnessing the Lighting" hosted by an "electro-mechanical" man named "Wilbur K. Watt". The show would chronicle the evolution of electricity in the home, from the late 19th century to the present and beyond — showing how much electrical appliances, specifically GE appliances, have benefited American life. After each time period, or "act", was over, the audience would get up and walk to the next one, but this idea was eventually scrapped.

However, the Main Street expansion idea fell by the wayside. One of the reasons for this was that the technology available to put on the show just was not up to par with what Walt Disney wanted. The idea, however, stayed in Disney's mind for the next few years. GE still wanted to work with Disney, but a better outlet was needed.

Poster of the Carousel of Progress from the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair

General Electric approached Walt Disney to develop a show for the company's pavilion at the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair. Disney leapt at the chance to rekindle his relationship with GE, who would fund the project and the new technology necessary to bring it to life. Reaching back to the Edison Square concept, Walt Disney again pitched the idea of an electrical progress show to General Electric executives, who loved it.

During the planning phase, Disney's Imagineers perfected the Audio-Animatronics (AA) technology necessary to operate the "performers" in the show, using the technologies in Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, another attraction designed by Disney at the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair, to as a basis. Besides the AA performers, the Imagineers, led by Disney engineers Roger E. Broggie and Bob Gurr, also devised a "carousel theater", so that the audience could stay seated and ride around a stationary set of stages, instead of getting up and walking from stage to stage. This allowed the audience to remain comfortably in place during scene changes and avoid the time-consuming disruption of changing seats repeatedly during a show.

Singing cowboy Rex Allen[4] was tapped to voice Father, the host and narrator of the show that replaced the original "Wilbur K. Watt" character. Allen later commented that he did not know exactly what he was getting into.

Walt Disney asked songwriters Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman to create a song that could serve as a bridge between the "acts" in the show. Walt explained to the brothers what the show was about, and they wrote a song with his enthusiasm in mind. The song was titled "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow". The Sherman Brothers later stated that they believe that the song was Walt's "theme song," because he was so optimistic and excited about the future and technology itself.

The show opened at the Fair as Progressland. It was one of the most-visited pavilions at the Fair. One of the unique features that made the attraction so popular was that a circle of six theaters connected by divider walls revolved clockwise around six fixed stages every four minutes. There were identical load and unload theaters with a dazzling wall of light, the "Kaleidophonic Screen", and the "performers" appeared in the 1890s, 1920s, 1940s, and 1960s — literally a "Carousel of Progress". Though more than 200 people entered and exited the attraction every four minutes, it was not uncommon to wait over an hour in line. For the 1965 season of the Fair, a massive covered queue was constructed next to the General Electric Pavilion on an empty lot to protect visitors from New York's hot summer sun.

At the end of the Carousel show, fairgoers were invited to walk up to the second floor of the pavilion and see the General Electric "Skydome Spectacular". The "Skydome Spectacular" projected images of nature and energy into the domed roof of the GE pavilion, similar to a planetarium. The show demonstrated the many ways that GE was harnessing electricity and the power of the sun for the benefit of its customers. At the end of the Spectacular, in the first demonstration of controlled thermonuclear fusion to be witnessed by a large general audience, a magnetic field squeezed a plasma of deuterium gas for a few millionths of a second at a temperature of 20 million degrees Fahrenheit. There was a vivid flash and a loud report as atoms collided, creating free energy that was evidenced on instruments. The temperature listed in the 1964 guidebook was 20 million degrees F; in the 1965 guide the temperature was up to 50 million degrees F.

Act 2 of the 1972 Disneyland version

The Carousel of Progress was re-opened at Disneyland Park on July 2, 1967, and this version only had small differences from the version at the New York World's Fair. The new home for the ride opened nearly seven months after Walt's death, as part of the New Tomorrowland. Due to the success of the attractions Disney created for the Fair, General Electric agreed to sponsor the Carousel of Progress at Disneyland. However, the Carousel of Progress was to be a permanent fixture at Disneyland, and it is unknown how many years General Electric would have sponsored the ride had it stayed there, although it is presumed the sponsorship would have lasted 10–12 years as many other sponsors throughout Disneyland Park had.

The actual attraction was located on ground level and a new nearly identical theater system was constructed. The sets and "performers" all came right from the Fair exhibit and remained in nearly their original state. There were some slight changes: a new voice was recorded for Mother, "Christmas in the Home of the 1960s" was slightly updated in set design and technology, all references to General Electric's passé "Medallion Home" campaign were dropped, and Father from "The Home of the 1940s" now sat on a bar stool, rather than on the kitchen nook bench.

After the show, guests boarded an inclined moving walkway that would take them to the second level of the building. On the upper level, a 4-minute post show, narrated by Mother and Father, with a few barks and growls from their dog, coincided with guests gazing at an enormous model of Progress City. Progress City was based on Walt Disney's original concept for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) and the Walt Disney World property.

As the 1970s rolled in, the Carousel of Progress saw dwindling audiences. GE thought they were not getting the most for their advertising dollars, surmising that 80% of the people that saw the attraction were Californians and had seen the attraction many times. GE asked Disney to move the show to their new Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The Disneyland show closed on September 9, 1973, and was packed up for Florida. The Progress City model was disassembled and portions of the center of it were re-assembled in Florida.

Disneyland soon incorporated The Carousel Theater into its plans to celebrate America's Bicentennial. The theater was filled with a new show in 1974 called America Sings, a salute to American music. That show closed in 1988, not to be replaced for ten years. Innoventions, a version of the popular Epcot attraction of the same name, opened with the New Tomorrowland in 1998, using a stylized rendition of "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" as its theme song. The building was then redesigned and reopened in 2015 as the Tomorrowland Expo Center, hosting the Star Wars Launch Bay.[5]

Act 2 of the Magic Kingdom version

Carousel of Progress opened in the Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland on January 15, 1975, alongside Space Mountain. General Electric signed a 10-year contract to sponsor Carousel of Progress at the Magic Kingdom. Unlike the small changes that had occurred when the Carousel of Progress moved from the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair to Disneyland, extensive changes were made when the attraction moved to Walt Disney World.

A new carousel theater building was designed to house the attraction: a one-story pavilion, with a loft above. The loft is used by the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover track, wrapping around the north side of the building. The interior and exterior of the building received new color schemes with blue and white stripes that grew smaller and larger as the building turned. The theater also now rotated counterclockwise, rather than clockwise like the two former theater systems.

The load and unload theaters no longer featured the stunning "Kaleidophonic Screens" that had dazzled guests as they boarded and exited their respective theater. The old screens had stretched from one wall to the other, with the giant GE logo in the center. They lit up in various colors and patterns like a kaleidoscope as the orchestral version of "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" played. Various problems plagued the screens after 1973, so a set of generic silver curtains with different colored lights shining upon the GE logo in the center took their place in both the load and unload theaters.

The Florida version was planned so that guests would load and unload on the first floor and without a post-show. The Progress City/EPCOT model was significantly sized down so it could fit in a window display that could be seen while riding PeopleMover. This display is located on the left hand side of the PeopleMover track inside the north show building which formerly housed Stitch's Great Escape!.

Because of the changing times, a new theme song written by the Sherman Brothers was created for the Florida show. GE asked the Sherman Brothers to write a new song because they did not want their customers to wait for a "great big beautiful tomorrow;" GE wanted them to buy appliances today, so a song titled "The Best Time Of Your Life" was created. Although the song was very peppy and positive, the Sherman Brothers still felt that "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" was a better fit.

A new cast of voices and "performers" were showcased in the 1975 version, including actor Andrew Duggan as Father. The first three acts had some cosmetic and set design changes. The finale was changed to "New Year's Eve in the Home of the 1970s," and the breed of the family's dog was also changed.

In 1981, the finale was updated to showcase "New Year's Eve in the Home of the 1980s." A new script was written for this scene change, but the rest of the show remained the same. The attraction closed briefly so that the changes could be implemented.[6]

Act 3 of the Magic Kingdom version

Act 4 of the Magic Kingdom version as it appeared in the 1980s

The entrance sign to the attraction prior to its 2016 refresh

On March 10, 1985, General Electric's contract expired, the company chose not to renew. The attraction closed shortly thereafter so that all General Electric references could be removed from the attraction. The GE logo was replaced with a logo that showed a blueprint of the six carousel theaters surrounding the six fixed stages on the signs outside of the attraction and the GE logo on the silver curtain was covered with a round sign with the blueprint logo and the name Carousel of Progress. The GE logo still exists on several household appliances throughout the attraction, like the refrigerator in Act 3. This is one of the remaining logos that can still be seen today.

On August 16, 1993, the attraction closed and many blueprints at the time showed a new "Flying Saucers' ride inside the show building. But this idea never came to fruition to being over-budget and it was decided to update the Carousel of Progress to better reflect the theme of the New Tomorrowland: "The Future that Never Was." Gears and other mechanical symbols were being prominently featured throughout New Tomorrowland, so the Carousel of Progress theater was redesigned to feature them. The attraction and show were renamed Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. A giant cog sign in the load and unload theaters that says "Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress" replaced the blueprint sign. The final scene was updated to "Christmas in the House of 2000", as it was envisioned in 1993. A new cast was hired for the narration recordings, with American writer, raconteur, and radio personality Jean Shepherd as the voice of the father of the family, John, as well as the ride's narrator. Additionally, Rex Allen, the voice of the father at the original Disneyland attraction, plays the Grandfather in Act 4 of the show. For the first time, names of some of the characters in the attraction were revealed. A 4-minute pre-show about the creation of the attraction was played on monitors while guests waited in line. A contemporary version of "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" returned as the attraction's theme song. The attraction reopened on November 23, 1993, and was the first updated attraction for the New Tomorrowland, which was unveiled in phases. Since then, the attraction has undergone many slight mechanical and cosmetic changes.

Due to a decrease in attendance following the September 11 attacks, Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress closed in October 2001. It was reopened soon afterwards on a seasonal basis, causing fans to become concerned for the attraction's future. Although numerous "permanent closure" rumors still plague the attraction, Disney has consistently said that there are no plans for permanent closure or any closure at all. For various reasons, the attraction has had some minor refurbishments in recent years. The Carousel of Progress has remained open nearly every day of the year and during the Magic Kingdom's regular park hours since 2003.[7]

The Sherman Brothers write in their joint autobiography regarding the history of the pavilion:

Three years after Walt Disney World opened, the Carousel of Progress moved east from Disneyland to Florida, and we were invited to write a brand new theme song: "The Best Time Of Your Life". In 1996, as a special tribute to the dreams of Walt Disney the Carousel of Progress was "updated" back to its original show, featuring our original theme song, "There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow".[8]

As of 2016, the gears-and-cogs paint scheme was replaced by futuristic "strikes" of various different colors. The attraction's name is now painted on the rotating part of the building.

• 20-story skyscraper
• Automobile
• Transcontinental railroad
• 1903 Wright Flyer
• Gas lamps
• Telephone
• Cast iron stoves
• Icebox
• Electric lights
• Washing machine
• Stereoscope
• Phonograph
• Cinema

• Transatlantic flight
• Sports Stadium
• Radio
• Indoor plumbing
• Electric fan

• Dishwasher
• Commuting
• Television
• Food mixer

• Virtual reality video games
• Voice activated oven and lights and voice recognition
• High-definition television
• Flat panel display
• LaserDisc