About a decade after the Main Street Electrical Parade left Disneyland, the cavalcade of lights and music is scheduled to return to the Anaheim park starting Jan. 20 and running until June 18.

The Electrical Parade was a fan favorite at Disneyland from 1972 until 1996. For the last six years, the Electrical Parade had been parading at Walt Disney World in Florida, but it went dark in October.

In May 2015, Disneyland guests got a new parade, created to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Anaheim park. The parade, dubbed Paint the Night, included Disney characters on floats adorned with more than 1.5 million LED lights synchronized with music. The 60th anniversary celebration ended Sept. 5.

Disney representatives haven’t said what nighttime entertainment might replace the Electrical Parade once it ends in June and have not disclosed what will happen to the floats after the parade is shelved.


Some fans of the original parade may be disappointed by the latest news. When the parade was discontinued in 1996, Disneyland launched a promotion urging fans to see the parade before it “glows away forever.” Huge crowds amassed at the park to see the last days of the parade.

“It went from this modest promotion to the biggest promotion Disney had in the history of the park up until that time,” said David Koenig, an author of several books on Disney.

Disneyland even sold individual light bulbs from the floats, marketing them as collector’s items.

Such commemorative light bulbs can be found for sale on EBay for as much as $300. They are described as an “original float light bulbs” that were removed from the floats before the parade was discontinued.


hugo.martin@latimes.com

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