Kelly 0:30

Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures, and novelties. We talk in, over, about, and through our week's topic, and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety, or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me as always is Peter Overstreet, University Professor of Animation and Film History in Northern California.

Pete 1:07

So, Pete. Yeah. What are we talking about today? Well, today we're going to talk about uh uh a fun little endeavor that Disneyland put together that to this day is still legendary. Uh they threaten to get rid of it, and they just can't seem to kill this thing because the fans love it.

Kelly 1:24

It's like playing whack-a-mole, trying to find where currently is running the Main Street Electrical Parade.

Pete 1:32

Aaron Powell That's it, the Main Street Electrical Parade. And so we're going to take everybody on an amazing spectacle of lights, shall we say? Uh and have a lot of fun. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Kelly 1:44

Perhaps a spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights, Pete. Thousands. And electro-synthemagnetic musical sounds.

Pete 1:55

I'm glad you did that one because that's too much of a mouthful for me. Unless I'm doing the prospector voice. So you want to do it in the prospector voice? I would I'll give it a shot. Howdy, folks, and boys and girls.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Disneyland proudly presents our spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination and thousands of sparkling lights and electro synther magnetic musical sounds. So hang on to your hats, because this here is the wildest main street electrical parade in the wilderness.

Kelly 2:32

I think that works. You know, if we could get uh Dallas McKay through a um Vocoder, wouldn't that be great? It might even be better.

Pete 2:39

That would be the Frontierland uh candlelight parade, right? It would just be all these thousands of candles burning the parade float. Wait, I'm giving away my plus up. Anyway, so the electric Main Street electrical light parade is uh pretty pretty legendary for many Disney fans. Yeah. And for something that seems so simple and so rudimentary, people still have a tremendous fondness for this parade, myself included. Yeah, my I love it.

Kelly 3:11

I I do too. You know, this is the first time since we started doing this show. Um you know, I I I don't want to re reveal Pete and my methods because you know people h hedge in on our ground. But we do do some research, uh some of the stuff we know and some of the stuff we research. And um this was the first thing that I researched where I found myself getting so nostalgic at points that I actually got choked up. And um some of that is probably me going back to the the initial retirement of the parade, which was I think ninety-six. Roughly, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um and I got to be there that season. I think you did too, right? I did too, yes. Yeah. And I remember I wasn't there the last day, but I got to be there during the last season when they said it was going. You know, sit sit on the curb at Main Street and watch it. And I remember crying. I I I was so sad. And it's really interesting that this particular attraction parade has such a profound effect on people. Uh there's kind of two interesting things I sort of wanted to note from the onset. This is the first uh Disney Park thing that we've done that was created long after Walt was gone. Yeah. Uh Walt had nothing to do with it. It was not a dream in Walt's head, it wasn't the uh final result of plans that Walt had started. This was completely new. And the second thing is that this parade speaks to Walt's childhood more than anything else that either of the parks have done.

Pete 5:06

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Big time. Uh big time.

Kelly 5:09

Yeah. I think that there is just well, I'll just I'll just leap into it. So when I first started looking into this, I got really interested in Electric Park in Kansas City, Missouri. Okay. This was a large-ish theme park. Uh it became quite large. Theme park opened up its first incarnation in 1899. Wow. Opened up its second incarnation, I think, around 1907. It was built by the Haim Brothers, who ran a brewing company in Kansas City. Wow. And originally what happened was they had a streetcar line built to their brewery, thinking that people would come out of Kansas City downtown just to come drink beer. Um didn't? No, it didn't really work. Oh no. So they started looking for a gimmick to get people, because they'd paid a lot of money to bring a singular streetcar line all the way out to their brewery. And the gimmick was that they were going to build a park, an amusement park that featured hundreds of thousands of electric lights. So this is turn of the century. Electric lights are still novel. Oh, yeah. In this number, it's unheard of. And every building uh is is framed in electric lights. The center of the park has a giant fountain that's covered in electric lights and colored electric lights where women would rise up through the middle of the fountain and do sort of poses in, you know, bathing suits while the lights shifted and and the colors changed. Wow. Um it it was evidently really spectacular. Holy, it sounds amazing. Yeah, and and so there were some rides there. Yeah. They um had, you know, some it was kind of standard Coney Island stuff, which is partial they were they were in interested in emulating Coney Island a little bit. Oh, of course. They were interested in emulating the uh Chicago Columbia Exposition. Uh but there's a couple things. They had a Ferris wheel, they had a loop the loop, they had a gravity railway, and they had what I think is the earliest simulator ride that actually used film. Oh wow. It was a thing called Hale's Tours and Scenes of the World. Oh, wow. Yeah, and you would get in a train car and they would show films both on the sides and in front of you. Okay. And you would travel like through the streets of New York, and a whole bunch of people would sit under the car and jostle it around while you were watching the films.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going.

Kelly 8:21

Really remarkably advanced thing. They had different places you could go. They had multiple films. So great. Um, you know, it took Star Tours like, what, 15 years to get a second film.

Pete 8:32

Right.

unknown 8:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

These guys had it in like 1900. You can imagine George Lucas like, uh, just get outside of the Star Cruiser and just wiggle it. Just grab a two by four. Go ahead. It's fine.

Pete 8:46

But they um so my bad George Lucas left.

Kelly 8:49

That was good, though.

Pete 8:50

Thank you. Mirthless and without reason.

Kelly 8:54

So there's a there's an interesting thing about electric parts. Several interesting things. So in around 1907, they moved their location because it was astonishingly successful. They were they were making a fortune, so they decided to move it, get m s get some more land.

Pete 9:11

We have to get all these people away from our beer.

Kelly 9:14

Oh, oh, they actually they actually built a pipe from the brewery down to the park. So beer would just constantly flow down there. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Oh my god, this sounds like a heaven to me.

Kelly 9:34

Yeah, it's but they so in 1907 they closed the original one and they expanded to this bigger location in a different part of Kansas City. More lights, more attractions. Turns out they hadn't quite worked out the liquor license. Oops. So they were never allowed to serve beer at the new park.

Pete 9:58

I was about to say, like, did a bunch of kids figure out that there was a hardware store nearby where they could buy some drills? Yeah, yeah. It looked like a piccolo after a while. Let it drain down and drill a hole. Ah, beer. Yay. How come we're not getting so much out of the tap, Captain?

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Well, we better check the line. Hey, you little kids, get out of here. Go buy some corks.

Kelly 10:23

Damn dead end kids.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Well, yeah, Zakats and Jamas, yeah.

Kelly 10:30

But yeah, opening day of the the second electric park, 53,000 people showed up.

unknown 10:38

Wow.

Kelly 10:38

Now, if you go to Disneyland today and say 80,000 people show up, they're on the verge of shutting the park. It's so crowded. So 53,000 people for a park in 1907.

unknown 10:55

Wow.

Kelly 10:55

Incredible. But the other interesting thing about this park is that Walt Disney and his family lived a couple of blocks away.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Huh? Uh-huh. Wow.

Kelly 11:08

And Walt and his sister Ruth spent a lot of time at Kansas City's electric park.

Pete 11:15

With drills.

Kelly 11:16

With drills.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Come on, Ruth, let's go get a beer.

Kelly 11:25

But what I what I think is so interesting about this, you know, if you look into Electric Park, it pretty much everyone will mention, well, Walt went there and was inspired. Yeah. And he was. Um First off, it was a park that had no alcohol. Which certainly is what he did too. Oh, yeah. Um, it was meticulously clean, unlike places like Coney Island, uh, which were pretty rough and tumble. Oh, yeah. It had a Bavarian village area. I know the fantasyland in Disneyland didn't start with that, but it was initially the plan. They just ran out of money. It took Tony Baxter coming in later and getting it in gear. They had evening fireworks. Huh? They had a shooting gallery. They had a penny arcade.

Pete 12:16

Wait, wait, this was a while ago. Are you sure they didn't just have a firework? All right, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Here's your one bang. Boom. Go home.

Kelly 12:27

Yeah. Just an old guy threw a cigarette button of a bale of hay. They had this place called the Monkey Cage Gabo.

Pete 12:39

I like it already. I want a t-shirt. There was no actual thing. Oh, now I'm you've ruined my childhood.

Kelly 12:45

But if you look at pictures of the Monkey Cage Gazbo, it is clearly the ticket booth to Disneyland. Wow. I mean, the structure is exactly the same. Wow. It's amazing. Now there's one thing. As we've done this podcast, here's the thing I've learned. People on the internet are often ill-informed. Including us.

Pete 13:13

We will correct ourselves.

Kelly 13:14

That's right. And we we work at it. You know, we really try and make it mostly Kelly.

Pete 13:19

Every once in a while I'll come up with an addendum myself. But Kelly's meticulous with his corrections of us. So Pete messed it up again.

Kelly 13:26

So I well, you know, the thing I found is that if I see things printed sort of verbatim over and over and over again, I get suspect. There is a thing that's printed about Electric Park that I am pretty sure is not true, but it's interesting. In the second Electric Park, they built something called the Scenic Railway. And what you will see over and over and over again is this was a railway that completely circumnavigated the park, and it's what inspired the rail railway at Disneyland.

Pete 14:04

Just when you said that, that's the first time I ever heard that.

Kelly 14:07

Yeah.

Pete 14:08

And it already makes me feel dubious. That's not just me saying it. I really was like, uh. But anyway, go ahead.

Kelly 14:16

But so the um there is there was a thing called the Scenic Railway. It it's very, very difficult to research because there's not a lot of pictures, because it's 1907. Um there's there's not a lot of really detailed accounts of the place, but when you look at maps of it, you can see that there is a very small, like mini steam train that operates in one area, and then there is a roller coaster that takes up a a corner of the land, and and it's called the scenic coaster.

Pete 14:56

Interesting, because traditionally scenic railways were were kind of a mix between a roller coaster and a dark ride.

Kelly 15:02

Yeah.

Pete 15:03

Because you would actually kind of travel through it. I mean, if you really wanted to get technical about it, the closest ride at the park in Anaheim is you'll have to correct me, the cars ride in Radiator Springs. Oh yeah, Radiator Springs Racers. Yeah, Radio Springs Racers, where you're traveling along, wow, look at this vista, look at this miniature waterfall. Yeah you know, and then you go into this dark tunnel and you have this thing, and then you start racing around.

Kelly 15:30

Oh, so that would be like a scenic railway.

Pete 15:32

That's very much inspired, very much like it's just a high-tech version of scenic railway, because that's what they would do is you would go through past these paper mache, you know, water fountains and things. You go in through little tunnels, so you could smoochy smoochy, and then you pop out and you do very simple hills and rolls and come down, you're done. There were scenic railways, uh there was one at Coney Island, there were uh at the St. Louis Fair.

Kelly 15:57

Yeah.

Pete 15:57

Uh there was one at the Midwinter Fair in San Francisco in the 1890s, 1898, I believe the year was. So yeah, that that when I hear, oh yeah, it circumnavigated the park, that's a scenic railway. I call it I don't think you know your history well enough to substantiate that. So sorry to pull out my professorial uh attitude.

Kelly 16:17

Well, hey, it's interesting because you can see signs. There are pictures of signs that that show a sort of entranceway to something called scenic railway. Sure. There's also signs that sh show that say scenic coaster. They may be the same thing. Um it's it's unclear, or scenic railway refers to a smaller steam train. But I I looked at this is how far I go for our audience. I hope they appreciate me. Um I looked at a fire map of the time, like something they would have had to submit to the city. Where did you find a fire map? Oh man, I spent hours. Um I found I found um a Kansas City history site. Wow. And it showed tracks and and where attractions were and rides and stuff. There is no track that circumnavigates that park at all. There you have it, folks. So so the scenic railway is much about this park clearly inspired Walt Disney. That's not one of them. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank your local safety inspectors.net, you'll find some of the most well-considered and insightful writing about the Walt Disney Company, Disney history, and the universe of theme parks available anywhere. Come join us at BoardwalkTimes.net. Uh for the m almost all of Electric Park burned down. Oh. Uh, which, you know, if you consider this started in 1899, it's surprising it took that long.

Pete 18:35

Insulation on wires, what do you mean? What do you think this is? Evermore Park?

Kelly 18:43

But one person, interestingly, that saw the park burn was a journalist you'll be familiar with. And I'd like to read a quote. And by the way, this is another thing that has been misquoted and misquoted and misquoted because I kept seeing this quote and saying something's wrong about this. I eventually found a copy online, actually, of the book it came from. Oh wow. And here is the quote. Our Hill overlooked, a half dozen blocks away, Electric Park, one of Kansas City's early amusement parks. One night after closing it burned in a spectacular fire. The Ferris wheel seemed to turn as flames climbed up its sides. The grease caught fire on the two parallel tracks of the Greyhound Racer roller coaster, and twin blazes raced up and down with the speed of the cars that once followed the torturous circuit. The fun house collapsed collapsed in a terrible shower of sparks. Walter Cronkite.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Wow.

Kelly 19:50

And the cigarette is Carlton.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Sorry.

Kelly 19:56

And interestingly enough, um Cronkite had a desperate fear of fire because of that for his entire life. Wow. A massive phobia.

Pete 20:08

I mean, uh imagine seeing that though. That the way he describes it, it's like, I mean, I feel bad for if anybody got hurt or and and the people who lost money because of this. But at the same time, it's like you kind of want to go back in time and see that for real because he's so evocative with his language there. It's so good.

Kelly 20:27

Well, and and you know, the the last thing I kind of wanted to say about Electric Park. Um when I was when I was doing this research, I thought this is interesting. We've got this thing that's framed in light bulbs and this thing that's framed in light bulbs. Let's put them together. And I started to wonder if it was a stretch until I found an interview uh with a man named Ron Mitzaker. Why is that name familiar? Aaron Ross Powell Well, he was a parade coordinator at Disneyland for a very long time. Okay. Uh he worked with Robert Jenny. Okay. So he and Robert Jenny are considered the people that actually designed the Main Street Electrical Parade. Okay. And what I found was an interview with him in the LA Times. Mm-hmm. Where he said when he was designing this parade, he actually went to the LA Public Library to look up turn of the century spectacles. And discovered the the appeal of people seeing incandescent light bulbs. And so he was deliberately trying to make something that fit around like 1900, 1903. Yeah. When he made the Main Te Main Street Electrical Parade. So it is Electric Park. Yeah. Wow. Amazing. Isn't that interesting?

Pete 22:01

Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, you have to keep in mind, too, is when Electric Park opened, it was even though as spectacular as it was, it was not necessarily an outlier.

Kelly 22:12

Because this sort of There were a number of electric parks. Yeah.

Pete 22:15

Yeah, there were electric parks in um it it became a sales point for a lot of entertainments at that time. Um and uh like for example, in San Jose, in downtown San Jose, there was a proposal to improve the lighting of the streets, to move it from gas lamps, because this is what everybody's still trying to figure out AC and DC. Yeah. Right. This is the Edison and Tesla conference, right? Right. Um, with you know, Tesla showing off his alternating current generator that eventually will be chosen to be installed at uh Niagara Falls.

Kelly 22:55

Yeah.

Pete 22:56

And then you've got uh Edison killing elephants and going, oh, Tesla's full of crap.

Kelly 23:01

Right. Um not not mentioning that whether you used AC or DC, if you electrocute an elephant, they will die.

Pete 23:08

Yeah, and and do not watch the film, folks. I love elephants, they're my favorite animals in the world, and I watched, I cry every time. Um because the elephant does not deserve it. No, it's like, yeah, anything will die if you put that much electricity through it, Tom. But anyway, uh there was this rush to figure out how to electrify cities. Yeah and and because I mean at the time, electricity is still such a new technology. It's to some people it's akin to magic.

Kelly 23:38

Yeah.

Pete 23:39

And magicians like Thurston, Carter the Great, even Harry Houdini would actually and and also uh um Harry Keller would actually incorporate, ooh, check out this electrical illusion with you know light bulbs and stuff. You know, if you if you see the movie The Prestige, that gives you an idea of the pursuit that magicians had with light bulbs because it's magic. You flick a switch and it lights up.

Kelly 24:05

Is it is yes, absolutely. And is Carter the Great the same Carter as in Carter Beats the Devil?

Pete 24:12

Yes. Yeah. That's the same Carter Beats the Devil, for those who don't know, it's a it's a it's an interesting little novel. It's it's I like it a lot. It's it's actually very good. Yeah uh and it ties a lot of uh San Francisco Bay Area history in to it. Yes. For several reasons. One is that uh Carter the Great was a magician who lived in Oakland, California, fabulous palace, and would take his lion, his pet lion and tiger for walks around Lake Merritt, and people would like look out and see this guy walking these huge dogs. Yeah. Like, who is that? I don't know. And his brother lived in the ferry building in San Francisco back when they actually had apartments, uh luxury apartments in the upper floors, which are now the offices. Um but anyhow.

Kelly 24:57

I just I I've always loved that line. At the end, someone's trying to to get in to to help Carter with something, and one of the stage hands just walks up to her and goes, Listen, in the third act, when Carter beats the devil, you don't want to be anywhere near that stage.

Pete 25:18

Yeah, I don't want to give away spoilers, but the uh invention of television is mentioned plays into it because the invention of television took place in San Francisco.

Kelly 25:29

Right.

Pete 25:29

Right. Uh right right in the the uh goat hill area, actually, in a little warehouse.

Kelly 25:36

Um and uh And you can still see those stairs that his home was as you walk around Lake Merritt, they're easy to find because they're well described.

Pete 25:47

Oh yeah, it's right there. It's like, well, there it is. Yeah. So uh I mean entertainment uh was uh not the only pursuit here. Like everybody was trying to figure out how do we amuse people, how do we keep them safe, but also how does this work. Now, there is a rumor, and I have not been able to substantiate this one, but the rumor is that the reason the Brooklyn Dodgers were named the Brooklyn Dodgers, and it has to do with direct current.

Kelly 26:16

Oh, interesting, because I had always heard it was that they would dodge streetcars.

Pete 26:22

It wasn't just the fact that they were dodging streetcars. There was a specific way they were dodging them. Oh you are correct. They were dodging streetcars because um because of the Tesla and Edison ACDC conflict.

Kelly 26:37

Yeah.

Pete 26:37

This is the rumor. So the rumor is that Edison actually won out getting Brooklyn to go direct current, including all of their streetcars. So it comes back to streetcars again in this uh broadcast. And the top of the streetcar would be connected to the wire, but there was a large metal foot that would connect underneath the streetcar, thus creating the circuit. Right. Run the motor in the inside of the electrified streetcar.

Kelly 27:06

Okay.

Pete 27:07

Uh when that would happen, the conductor would ring a bell and everybody knew stand back, thus dodging the streetcar. And then it would make the contact, sparks would fly out on the side, freaking out horses. I mean, if horses were too close, they would get electrocuted if their hooves were making contact with the rail too close to the car. I mean, it was insane. So people were suffering electrocutions because they were too close to the streetcars, and that's why, as the rumor goes, they're called the Brooklyn Dodgers. And it's they didn't want to get electrocuted. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, I mean, that would make sense based off of you know all the mishaps of direct current. Sorry, Thomas, but yeah, you know. Anyway, uh San Jose, California tried to kind of follow suit with Tesla with running alternating current, but also kind of going along with his notion that there could be towers built all over the city that could benefit people through electricity.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Right.

Pete 28:08

Their idea was highlights, literally putting lights so high that they can illuminate the streets. So they utilized the design of the Eiffel Tower as an inspiration to build this electrical tower that stood in downtown San Jose for quite a while to illuminate the park and the area, and they realized this thing was just too expensive.

Kelly 28:32

Right, okay.

Pete 28:33

Um and eventually it fell apart. But they would decorate it for Christmas with ceramic light bulbs in red and green. So it became like one of those municipal, like, we're gonna like the Christmas tree because it looks like a Christmas tree kind of thing. Right. And eventually it fell down, you know, it just rotted because it was metal and it rusted. Yeah. Uh but there is a replica of it at the San Jose History Park in San Jose, near Happy Hollow's Petting Zoo and theme park.

Kelly 29:01

Wow, that's cool.

Pete 29:02

So you can see that it's yeah, it's kind of half-scale, and they have electric streetcars that run underneath it and around it. So, and there's streetcars from all over. Uh I believe one of them is still a direct current one that you can actually see. They have an electric car from that era as well. So electricity was uh something to be feared and something to be admired and something to be held in wonder at this time.

Kelly 29:26

Yeah.

Pete 29:27

And you have uh theme parks like Coney Island that are adding huge strips of lights all over it, not just to provide light, but to add to that majesty of the kind of roadie theme park. No offense, New Yorkers. I love Coney Island just as much as you know, the next one, uh Ian Nathan's hot dog on me. Yeah. But but but I'm telling you, like the whole point was to make it classier. Right. And um there was another theme park that I do want to mention that goes along this line of uh colored light spectacular.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Yeah.

Pete 30:02

In 1906, yeah, the San Francisco Bay Area was rocked by a massive earthquake. Yeah, destroyed most of San Francisco's lower market area uh and a lot of buildings. I used to live in a house that was made out of bricks uh that were called clinker bricks because not only were they from knockdown buildings, but they also were distorted by the fire. The fire was so intense it actually melted and warped the bricks. Wow and so they would reuse the materials. And this house was also built in the transition from handmade nails, square nails, to round nails. All the basement uses square nails, and everything from the first floor up was round nails. So they were and that came about just after the earthquake. Some industrious soul went around going, I'm gonna make a million. All these people are you know making new houses. So instead of having blacksmiths everywhere, I'm gonna sell these new Fangled machine-made nails in big buckets, you know. And so he did. And so this was one of the houses that was built. Yeah. Uh there used to be a photograph uh that hung in this house that was a picture of San Francisco burning, and there are people eating lunch, watching it burn, but they're standing on the spot where this house would be built. Oh so right on Castro Street. So you have this nice overview of everything, right on the top of the hill of Castro Street. Yeah. Um, and so anyway, San Francisco had a problem at this point because everybody, you know, even Caruso, the great opera singer, was terrified. I never want to go back and do it, San Francisco. Um that's crazy at the shake everywhere. Um he nobody wanted to go back. Nobody wanted to do business in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Yeah.

Pete 31:47

So what do you do? Right. How do you attract people back to a city and tell them we're safe, we're back in business, we're rising from the ashes. You know, so um nine years later, it took them all this time to plan it, get the permits, and also establish the proper foundation for it. They built a theme park. The Panama Pacific International Exposition, or Pee Pie for sure, where they built it is what is now known as the Marina District in San Francisco, one of them one of the hoity toitiest areas in San Francisco for the fabulously wealthy. Uh, but it's all built on landfill, mostly gravel, sand, and remnants of old buildings. Right. Most of which was from the 06 earthquake. That's where they dumped it all. Yeah. So it used to be a beach and they just filled it in. Yeah. And when I talk a theme park, I'm talking something that is about eight or nine city blocks long. Yeah. It's huge. And if you've ever visited San Francisco, for those who are not from the Bay Area, you can actually still see one of these buildings. It's uh still standing to this day. Uh for those who grew up in the Bay Area, it's where the exploratorium used to be. Yeah. Where Oppenheimer first opened it.

SPEAKER_07 33:09

Uh-huh.

Pete 33:10

Oppenheimer, of all people. Uh that was his way of kind of sorry about the nuclear bomb thing.

Kelly 33:16

Uh I am become exploratorium.

Pete 33:19

Yeah. Uh I'll let your kids get their hair zapped.

Kelly 33:22

Um, it's cute.

Pete 33:24

Yeah, it's no, it's really cute. They'll like it. They'll like it. Don't worry about the radiation. It's okay. Um, but anyway, it's called the Palace of Fine Arts. It's this large dome with a swan. Little movie nerd trivia fact. All around that dome are all these fabulous Bass Relief friezes of Grecian gods and so forth. They were all made of plaster. Yeah. Hand sculpted. There was some molding involved, but they were all these identical figures. That was made by about three or four different artisans. But the main artisan who did a lot of that work was a guy from Oakland who uh was a prize fighter.

Kelly 34:05

Yeah.

Pete 34:06

Once took on Jack London in a prize fight. Whoa. Became a news correspondent briefly, trained himself to be a sculptor, yeah. And became a sculptor at the Peapie for regular amounts of money. He lived on top of the Bank of America, or as it was called, the Bank of Italy building on Market Street. So if you ever visit San Francisco, there's a turnaround area where the cable cars turn around. That Bank of America building still stands.

Kelly 34:34

Yeah. I've been in that building.

Pete 34:36

Yeah. And on the top was a wooden structure where he worked. He had his little workshop up there. And he would goof around with clay and wire. Yeah. And his name was Willis O'Brien. Willis O'Brien, for those who do not know, invented stop motion animation in that little shed on top of Bank of America by doing a film in 1915 on a camera given to him by the Thomas Edison Corporation. Uh-huh. Called uh uh The Dinosaur and the Missing Link.

Kelly 35:10

Yeah.

Pete 35:11

And it's the first stop motion animated cartoon. Yeah. And it's all it's basically the Flintstones with clay. Right. And he used to sit on top of that building where he started animation. And he would eventually go on to animate King Kong. Right. And uh very, very famous for it. And he would later become the mentor of Ray Harryhausen, et cetera, et cetera. But that's a different story.

Kelly 35:35

You know, can I can I real quick let me interject? First off, I I think it's awesome that pretty much every episode we do, we we talk about the 64 World's Fair and King Kong. Um that great. Both of which are fascinating. So that's great.

Pete 35:49

It's our our mutual obsessions. Yeah.

Kelly 35:52

Interesting just sort of uh geographical thing to kind of tie a bunch of stuff together. Yeah. If you go to the Walt Disney Family Museum on the tunnel tops at the top of the presidio, you can look down and see the Palace of Fine Arts. Yep. You can also l visit the museum, which is lovely. And you are a couple of blocks away from a giant statue of Ray Harryhasen.

Pete 36:18

Yep. Yep, absolutely. And um that entire marina area was built just for the pea pie. And it was a massive, massive theme park.

Kelly 36:31

Yeah.

Pete 36:32

Um, and all the buildings looked like huge temples. There was a uh hall of industry, there was a hall of agriculture, there was a hall of um different cultures from all over the world. And it was basically an expansion of the Midwinter Fair in the 1890s. I think it was 1896, is when the Midwinter Fair happened in San Francisco, which was in Golden Gate Park. Um anyway, the Pea Pie also featured everybody who's anybody was there. Marconi was there. Graham Bell was there. Everybody, Edison, Tesla, they all came.

Kelly 37:08

Houdini. I was gonna say Houdini must have stopped in at some point. He did.

Pete 37:11

He popped in House. He never missed one of these. Yeah, he popped in, did one of his straight jacket escapes, talked about spiritualists, bat on him, and walked away. Yep. Um and one of the things that is in this park is extraordinary, and it ties into what we're talking about here with a colored light spectacle. Yeah. Which could be seen from just about any spot in San Francisco at night.

Kelly 37:35

Yeah.

Pete 37:36

Was this massive tower. It must have been 12 to 14 stories tall.

Kelly 37:41

Yeah.

Pete 37:42

Um, and it had all of it, it was built with this kind of semi-Moroccan style, because it had these holes cut into the sides of the building, like little stars. Yeah. And so during the day you would walk in and they would fill the air with Catholic smoke, which, you know, which is, you know, smoke machines, but very, very toxic.

Kelly 38:03

Yeah.

Pete 38:04

And so you've got embrasures filled with all this marvelous smoke and scents. And the sunlight would pour in through the holes in the sides of these buildings. And it affixed in each hole was a crystal, lead crystal gemstone. Some are about an inch in diameter, some are four inches in diameter. They were huge, and they came in every color of the spectrum.

Kelly 38:29

Yeah.

Pete 38:29

Purples, pinks, reds, golds, etc. And this was called the Tower of Jewels. The Tower of Jewels during the daytime, because of the Catholic smoke, it looked like a laser light show on the inside with all these beams of color coming in every direction.

Kelly 38:44

Oh, that's so cool.

Pete 38:45

So you'd walk in, you'd look up at this column of sunlight coming through all these colors, and they would have musicians playing on the inside. Yeah. It was a spectacle. It was like, look at this. But at night, there are postcards of this. Um I actually own a couple of gemstones. And I'll explain how I own these in a museum. Yeah, please do. Okay, because yay. Um These belong in a museum. Yeah. Kind of. You're not that far off. Um actually there are collectors all over the Bay Area who actually do have collections of these gemstones, some in better condition than others. Right. Mine are in terrible condition. There's a good reason for that. But anyway, at night they would put limelights, huge limelights with reflectors on the inside of the tower, and they would shoot that light out through the crystals in the opposite direction. Oh wow. So in the fog at night in San Francisco, were all of these beams of color that would shoot out as far as the eye could see.

Kelly 39:49

Yeah.

Pete 39:49

There's postcards, you could see the beams of light. They were that intense. Wow. And it would be pinks and purples and scarlets and greens, and people loved it. And apparently you could see this rainbow of light over the city from the Bank of America building, which is Willis O'Brien would just go out, smoke a cigarette, look at the lights. Wow. It's just it's one of those great little things I would love to go back in time and see.

Kelly 40:15

Oh, it just sounds so magical.

Pete 40:17

It's it's pretty extraordinary. Um so you can still see the the Palace of Fine Arts today. It's one of the few structures that still survives. Yeah, it's a big museum.

Kelly 40:27

There's a couple of museum in there.

Pete 40:29

Yeah, it's a great museum. Um it's a fabulous wedding photography spot. Yep. It's used constantly for that. Uh you can see it from the Golden Gate Bridge. It's like very, very obvious, this big dome building.

Kelly 40:41

Yeah.

Pete 40:41

But in Los Gatos, California, there is a little park uh by a lake.

Kelly 40:48

Yeah.

Pete 40:49

Uh where there's a carousel and a small gauge railway. Yeah. Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad. Yeah. Next to the turnstile for that is a carousel that when I was 16 years old, my mother took me out for a summer, and she knew I loved carousels, and she said, Would you like to help me restore a carousel horse?

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Yeah.

Pete 41:09

And I went, sure. So we spent an entire summer. I I stripped one horse, she stripped another, taking all the old lead paint off with chemicals and heat guns, and then sanding it down, putting putty in all the cracks, smoothing it out, priming it, and we got to hand paint our with enamel paints our own horses. And my mom and I myself actually painted panels on the restoration of this carousel.

Kelly 41:35

Yeah.

Pete 41:35

The carousel was not a stationary loof or densel or any of the other builders. It was an English carousel horse on the inner two rows. Yeah. And there are German horses on the outer row.

Kelly 41:51

Okay.

Pete 41:52

So this whole thing is a mishmash. And so the supposition is whoever owned this carousel would just kind of pick up junk, stuff that was thrown away, and add it to his carousel as he went. So it started off as an English carousel, and you could tell by the floorboards that he had added a third row where he added the German jumpers on the outside. Right. Where the English horses are very small. They're, you know, they're like half the size of what you imagine a carousel horse would be. So it's not like the elaborate carousel at Disneyland. It's kind of a slightly clunky but still very charming little carousel. Right. It still has the circus wagon in the center of it with the old the giant wheels, with the leather, you know, treads, etc.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Right.

Pete 42:37

It has its old Wurlitzer. I don't know if they use it to play, but it's still there. It's in there. It's in there. So while we were restoring the German horses, you have to pull out the old gemstone so we could put the new glass ones in.

Kelly 42:50

Yeah.

Pete 42:51

It's the glass gemstones that we all know today, that kind of nice little faceted gemstone that you see on carousel horses. Yeah. Like the ones at Disneyland. So we had bags and bags of one. I just love putting my hands in the bag. It's a lot of fun. And also picking them up and looking at the lights through it, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Yeah.

Pete 43:08

But we had to get rid of the old gemstones, which were worn out, some were cracked, some were just years and years of scraping against stuff and kids kicking them and well loved. And so all the facets were like worn down. You can definitely tell they were faceted, but it was all rounded off. Yeah. And we started pulling them out, and we realized all the backs of them were gold leafed. Oh. And then we started, and then I started carving away at this, and my mother and I both found one. She said, Help me get this out. We pulled, and I was like prying and pulling, and they some of them had these little copper holders.

Kelly 43:45

Yeah.

Pete 43:46

To hang on to the gemstone. But it was a mounting piece that fit a little metal. It the best way to describe it verbally is when you take off the cap off of a champagne cork.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Yeah.

Pete 43:57

And you can make like a little chair out of it. Right. It's that thing. So it that's what the gemstone was sitting on the inside of was the wire part. Okay. But there was a flat medallion that was crusted over with tons of patina. Right. My mother at the time was also big on making steel etchings. So sh we had sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid in our home.

Kelly 44:19

Like you do.

Pete 44:19

Like you do. We're not serial killers or anything. We're artists. And we had a press. Is there a difference? Not really. So we uh but we had a press and we had all the steel, but we had all these chemicals. So we we decided to dissolve the patina away with the acid and scrub it away. So we're I gave myself a little bit of an acid burn on my thigh with this because it's splashed, but that's all right. And cut it away at it, cut away, and we started noticing a little Lady Liberty holding up her torch, and we went, wait a second. We kept scraping away and scraping away. It's like there's a medallion, there's something here, it's like a coin or something. Yeah. And it turns out it was a commemorative coin from the pea pie. Wow. These were souvenir coins that this guy took a bunch of handful and used them to make his own mounting frames from the gemstones, and all of the gemstones were from the Tower of Jewels.

Kelly 45:17

Wow.

Pete 45:18

So, along with the German horses. So he basically was at the pea pie with his English horse carousel. Yeah. Saw these guys going, we're not doing anything with them, we're gonna throw these horses away. I'll take them and put it onto his carousel. What are we gonna do with all those? These gemstones? Ah, we're throwing them out. But that's what they did. You know how long the pea pie lasted? Nine months. And then they tore the whole thing down. Wow, that's that's remarkably short. Yeah. Nine months. That was it. Just long enough for Teddy Roosevelt to come out, bully, just bully. We're gonna build the Panama Canal.

SPEAKER_07 45:49

Yes.

Pete 45:49

And then they tore it down. And so all the stuff was junk that this guy put together. So he made his own little mounting things off of with souvenir buttons and put them on to each gemstone to commemorate the Pee Pie where he got the gemstones from the Tower of Jewels. We confirmed the Tower of Jewels because we found a collector of them. And he went, Oh yeah, these are Tower of Jewels gemstones. They're in terrible condition. I said, Well, they're from a carousel.

Kelly 46:13

Yeah.

Pete 46:14

He's like, Oh wow. Okay. Didn't know that story. That's pretty cool. So some of those gemstones are still on display in a little glass case at the Los Gatos Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad Carousel. Yeah. And you can see artwork that I did when I was 16 years old. Yeah. I painted a tiger, my mom painted a lioness in her cub, and I painted a giraffe.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Yeah.

Pete 46:35

And there they are. But that's that's our connection. That's my connection to the pea pie. So who knew? But the pea pie is very definitely another like the West Coast equivalent of like Electric City, because they had a lot of electrical displays. Yeah. But the the one of no was the Tower of Jewels of looking at brilliant colored lights at nighttime.

Kelly 46:55

You know, it's it's notable. If you wanted lights that were colored, you were gonna have to tint them yourself.

Pete 47:01

Oh yeah. You had to use a certain type of dye mixed to a shellac.

Kelly 47:05

Yeah, which notoriously um the Main Street Electrical Parade had to do when they were building it. Five hundred thousand lights hand-dipped. Wow. Crazy, right?

Pete 47:19

Oh my god, that's it's Tony Baxter with roses from Michaels. Yeah. One can you imagine being one of the dippers and he's the first one. Oh, yeah. And he picks up that first bulb and he just goes, one, and he just looks over his shoulder, and there's like boxes full of 14,999 more to go. He goes, Okay, here we go. One, two.

Kelly 47:45

Well, the you know, the start of of the process of them doing that parade. As Yeah, let's get into the Yeah, let's get into it a little bit. Um so first off, you as w as everyone knows, and I'm sure pretty much everyone listening to this is is chomping at the bit to hear the words Baroque Hodown. So the theme song to the Main Street Electrical Parade is uh originally from a couple of musicians called Perry and Kingsley. They were French musicians, and and I'll get into them in a second, but they put a song together called Baroque How Down that was in Jack Wagner's record collection. Okay. But here's the interesting fact about this. Everyone knows Baroque Howdown, Main Street Electrical Parade. It was not the first use of the Baroque Howdown at a Disney park. Really? Yeah. The Main Street Electrical Parade, very famously inspired by the seven Cs Lagoon float parade, which is still happening at Disney World today. And Jack Wagner picked the song for that. Huh. So it actually started in Florida, as much as I hate to admit it. No offense, Florida. For that. Have you seen that? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. You know, it's but it's so simple, but it works. Yeah. It's like, you know, floats with chicken wire with lights draped over it that make pretty shapes. On, off, yeah, on, off. And they and they play the Borough Codan. Yeah. And I don't know if they still do, but they did initially. Yeah. So yeah, and that that that song was written by these guys, Jean-Jacques Perry and Gershon Kingsley. They're two really interesting guys. One thing about the Borough Codan that people don't know is that Perry and Kingsley didn't know it was being used for Corporate. Oh no. The way that they found out was and nothing untoward, like they they were getting paid. It was just being licensed out by whoever they're it wasn't being stolen from them or anything. But John Jack Perry went to Disneyland at some point in the eighties and saw the parade. And was quite surprised.

Pete 50:20

Wait a minute. Yeah. Oh no. That must have been a mortifying moment.

Kelly 50:25

Yeah, I think I think it maybe was. I actually supposedly he was fairly delighted by it.

Pete 50:31

Oh, that's good.

Kelly 50:33

Perry claimed in his autobiography later that he met Walt Disney at some point in the early 60s in at a cocktail party.

Pete 50:43

Okay.

Kelly 50:44

And he claims that Disney actually said some very inspirational things to him about like doing his best work and continuing on with the art that he believed in. So Perr Perry's very fond of Disney, so he was actually kind of delighted to see that that had happened. Okay. Weirdly, I mean Perry did write this in in his autobiography, so who am I to question it? But sure seems like a convenient story to me.

Pete 51:07

Well, nobody wants to write Walt Disney was a complete jerk.

Kelly 51:11

Yeah.

Pete 51:11

And then, you know, everyone wants You need to stop making music. You need to get a job. Like Walt would ever say that to anyone. Get a job, you hippie. You know.

Kelly 51:22

But yeah, Perry was both Perry and Kingsley were synth people. They were interested in in MOOCs. They did a whole bunch of other stuff too. Yeah. Gershon Kingsley, for example, wrote the music for the film Silent Night, Bloody Night. Wow. He also, later than after Burrow Coedown, wrote a little song called Popcorn. No way. He wrote that. Awesome. He was musical director for the original production of The Entertainer with uh Lawrence Olivier. Oh wow. Did a lot of stuff. Yeah. John Jack Perry was the master of this weird instrument called the Ondealine.

SPEAKER_07 52:09

Huh.

Kelly 52:10

The Ondeoline, if you go, you can find films, people have restored them. They uh don't make them anymore. But they're very, very early keyboard synthesizers. So they're pre-MOOG. Okay. And what's interesting about them is there's a keyboard and there's switches, and you know, it does what a synthesizer does. It shoots a tone through and you alter the tone and the keys uh affect that. There's even a w a little strip like you see in more modern synthesizers that that kind of does some interesting things with the tone.

Pete 52:43

Like pitch bend and that kind of stuff.

Kelly 52:45

Yeah. It can kind of be used for percussion too. Oh neat. Um it's interesting. But the most fascinating thing about the ondeoline is that to make vibrato, so keyboard vibrato, you don't there's no whammy bar, you don't use that strip for it. The entire set of keys wiggles back and forth. To watch someone play it, it's super funky. Like you they put their hands down, it's a single note synth, like most of them were at that point. Yeah. They put their hands down and then they wiggle their finger, and the entire keyboard goes back and forth with them.

Pete 53:23

I thought, yeah, they have to pick up the machine and wiggle it, but I like that solution better with the keys moving. Way better. Way better what I was thinking. This is this is why I don't invent synthesizers.

Kelly 53:32

Yeah. So well, I don't think very many of them lasted very long, so that wiggling motion might have been detrimental. Too many Slim Whitman songs played on them.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

But I'm calling you. Yeah.

Kelly 53:48

Oh boy. But yeah, so they you know, they wrote the song uh in the late 60s. They put it on an album. Uh the the two guys, uh Perry and Kingsley, they only made two albums together, even though they both had very long careers. Um both of them are pretty delightful. They're just filled with pop songs that are just like Baroque O'Down. Wow. Yeah.

Pete 54:08

I'm gonna have to check those out.

Kelly 54:10

After the Seven Seas Lagoon show happened, and this was not long after uh the Magic Kingdom had opened in Florida. Dick Nunes and Cardwalker and and those guys came back to Disneyland and said, Well, okay, we gotta do something for Disneyland now. And someone said, Well, let's just do that Seven Seas thing again, uh, but we'll do it on land. And so that was the original inspiration for we're we're just gonna m take those this light-up thing that we did and put it on the streets of Disneyland.

Pete 54:45

Aaron Ross Powell I'm surprised they didn't actually go for like the rivers of America with that.

Kelly 54:49

Yeah, it it is interesting. Um I I wonder if proximity is a problem. Like the I don't know. I don't know.

Pete 54:58

It might also be where do you put them? Right. Because it's like we can't just park them right behind the Columbia during the day.

Kelly 55:04

Aaron Ross Powell Right. Yeah.

Pete 55:05

What's all that chicken wire doing out there? Don't look at that. And when they, you know, you have to hide it over in camp wilderness.

Kelly 55:16

There was a couple of like interesting innovations that kind of came as they were putting this together because they decided they realized with Borough Codown they had something pretty interesting, which was a small world-esque looping song that was never gonna end. And and so they had to uh they decided, well, we want to put our our own musical themes in it. How do we do that? And so what they did was they they sort of built the parade route and they divided it up into a whole bunch of zones. Yeah. And what would happen is as a float would move into the zone, it would send off a radio signal that said, okay, now start broadcasting the music for that float into that zone.

Pete 56:08

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

So this Alice in Wonderland, deer, do, deer, weow, weow, weow.

Pete 56:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

And it's going along with ding-ding ding-ding-d-ding.

Pete 56:17

Yeah, but it's moving at the same tempo. Yeah, exactly. Okay, okay.

Kelly 56:21

And so it it was a really interesting thing because every zone got the exact same experience when they moved into the zone, the whatever the float was, that music came up through the speakers on top of the underlying Baroque Howdown. Ah, so cool. Yeah, it was really interesting. One strange thing is when you look at those, i there's not a ton of documentation of it, but when you look at the floats from the early versions of this, from like 72 to 74.

Pete 56:53

When was the parade first launched?

Kelly 56:55

72.

unknown 56:56

Wow.

Kelly 56:57

And uh it ran to 74, and then they stopped for two years so they could do the uh America on parade to celebrate the bicentennial. Right. But the that early run, they're pretty one-dimensional floats. They're a lot like the floats in the Seven Seas Lagoon.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Okay.

Kelly 57:16

In Florida. In some and a lot of them are actually just being pulled by people on with ropes. Don't touch that exposed wire. Don't touch that exposed wire. Well, it's crazy. When they were when they were trying to put this together, they so initially they they farmed it out to this company out of Chicago, who were the people that did a lot of the lighting on State Street in Chicago. Yeah. Um, but that company got so far behind that they just went and varied all of the flows that they were working on back to uh Glendale. Yeah. And start and decided we're gonna do it ourselves. So they're hand-dipping 500,000 lights. They're building these things like crazy. Oh man. They do a dress rehearsal where sparks are literally flying off of people's costumes. They uh during that dress rehearsal, one of the floats evidently just goes rogue and slams into a building on Main Street. Oh no. Cinderella's dress completely collapses. Oh God. It's a nightmare. So so it's bad.

Pete 58:24

And they're still they're putting there's I kind of want to see a movie made about that parade, the early days with Mark Ruffalo as like the designer.

Kelly 58:34

Well, they said like when they actually did opening night when there was uh honestly a crowd there. Yeah. Because, you know, they could do dress rehearsals back then because Disneyland wasn't open seven days a week. Right. And so when they first did it with uh an actual crowd, they said there were people that were literally stringing lights as the float moved towards the street out into the parade route. Like there were people on the floats putting lights in, plugging them in, and then jumping off right before it got into the crowd.

Pete 59:04

Whoa. That's how tight it was. Oh my god. And but it worked. The question is were any of the light bulbs one color on one side and one color on the other, like the Coca-Cola light bulb?

Kelly 59:18

I will have you know that when I was at Disneyland for the half marathon a couple of weeks ago when it was 107. Um degrees, by the way. Yeah, yeah. My my wife uh made me show her the half-colored light bulb.

Pete 59:37

That's what you guys got excited about, is a half and half light bulb. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, it's amazing.

Kelly 59:43

Also, I don't know if I had never noticed this before, but if you look in the windows that are sort of the displays around the entrance to that place where the light bulb is, there's um ancient Coke bottles, including one in Hebrew. I know, isn't that amazing?

Pete 1:00:00

It's so cool. Like they actually have one of the cocaine-laden Coca-Cola's on in the display. It's like so there is cocaine in Disneyland. I'm just saying. Trace Elements. Shh. You're ruining my joke. There might be snow on the manor horn, but there's coke on Main Street. Just look for the red and white light bulb, kids. That's our t-shirt. That's our first t-shirt for the show. There might be snow on the manor horn, but there's coke on Main Street. Drink Coke. You know.

Kelly 1:00:37

So they, you know, the parade uh it was a hit. People loved it. Yeah. Um, it went down for two years for the bicentennial. Then when it came back, they had redone most of the floats so that they were all now three-dimensional.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:51

Mm-hmm.

Kelly 1:00:51

And and they were self-powered. They could move themselves. Yeah. And they had rearranged the score. They had gone to Jack Wagner's studio. Uh-huh. Wagner was actually uh he did a a lot more at Disneyland than he's given credit for. Sure. We know of him as the voice of Disneyland. He didn't. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Yeah. Hermete series and tabos pour prefour. But he um he did a lot of the music selections. He had his own studio. Um so they took it, he and Don Dorsey, a musical arranger, took it and r did a brand new arrangement of everything. And they added that opening. Oh, nice. The opening. The opening. But uh-huh. For the first two years, the opening was just Jack Wagner saying it in his normal voice. It wasn't until 79 that they added that vocoder thing to it.

Pete 1:01:56

I just had a revelation.

Kelly 1:01:57

Yes.

Pete 1:01:57

When did Frampton Comes Alive come out?

Kelly 1:02:00

Oh gosh. It would have been 70s, so earlier.

Pete 1:02:03

Oh, okay. Yeah. So I'll I'll bet you anything. They're you know, they're sitting at Imagineering go, how are we gonna make this better?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:09

How do you feel? Like we do, you know. Well, wow, it sounds just like he's making that guitar talk, man. Hey Jack, we gotta make this happen. We gotta make this parade better. Make it for all them long-haired kids that are coming to the park.

Pete 1:02:27

Put a vote order on it. Call it even. That's like a delic.

Kelly 1:02:34

But yeah, I think that I think that 77, 79 version of the parade is the one that we all really remember. Yeah, absolutely. That's the one that we think of, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

Pete 1:02:49

Yeah. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it as the prospector with vocals.

Kelly 1:02:54

Oh man, we gotta make that happen.

Pete 1:02:55

That'd be great. Uh uh, we need to get a blue glass bluegrass band to do the rhapsody. And I'll do the introduction as the prospector.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:02

And it's like the candlelight parade.

Pete 1:03:06

Poor giant little turtle go-kart just lit on fire with hundreds of birthday candles all over it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:15

Somebody put it out! Somebody put it out! The driver's hair's on fire.

Pete 1:03:24

Oh, and you're the other Again, enough of my plus up.

Kelly 1:03:30

The other thing that Don Dorsey added um when he was rearranging it with Jack Wagner was the fanfare at the beginning that he's the guy that set up set it up so that the lights would dim with the fanfare so that there was a correlation between the two. That's cool. And that was the first time that they'd done that, but now all parades do that at Disneyland.

Pete 1:03:58

Little known fact, it's the only time I ever got injured at Disneyland. Really? Seriously injured. Yeah. I I twisted my ankle pretty badly because the lights were so dim on Main Street that I wasn't paying attention. And I my I was trying to cross the street before the parade and the fanfare was going off. Yeah. And I was like, what? I can't see what's going on. And I I was like 12 and I twisted my ankle. Oh. And so I spent the rest of the parade kind of going, I really want to enjoy this, but I'm in a lot of pain. Yeah, I need I need some help. I'm holding a Coca-Cola ice uh against my ankle, going, This really hurts.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:36

I want to go home now. Are you in pain, kid?

Pete 1:04:44

Uh no joke. I love this parade. You know, that but that moment, that was not my first time I was seeing it. So at least that wasn't my first experience with the parade. But uh that did actually present a lot of issues because they were turning off the flickering lights. Right. They were turning off some of the street lamps and so forth, so that way you could really enjoy the parade, which is a marvelous, marvelous solution for the parade. And they still do that. They do with fireworks shows with all the projector, you know, the projection mapping that they're doing these days.

Kelly 1:05:16

Speaking of turning off lights, did you know that they once did the Main Street Electrical Parade on Broadway? No way. Yeah. They did it for the premiere of Hercules for some reason. And they convinced everyone for a certain section of Broadway to turn off their lights while the parade passed. Whoa. There was one person, one store that refused. Macy's? The Warner Brothers store. Their lights stayed on.

Pete 1:05:54

That's brilliant. Oh my god, that's brilliant. Of course it was the

Kelly 1:06:03

Well you know, before we get too far away from Jack Wagner, I just I just want to pay tribute to Jack Wagner for a minute. Right. We're just gonna stand here and in silence. No. No. Jack Wagner is the the voice of my childhood in in the ways in in much in the way that this parade represents Disneyland to me in a lot in a lot of ways. Jack Wagner is the voice I think of as like that that's the voice of joy. Yeah. So I looked and I was like, I wonder what are all the things that he did.

Pete 1:06:41

Okay.

Kelly 1:06:42

What are all the voices?

Pete 1:06:42

Here comes Kelly's deep dive. You ready? What are the things that Jack Wagner did, Kelly?

Kelly 1:06:47

The voice of Disneyland. He did all the park announcements. Okay. He did the Matterhorn Bobsled seating announcement. Remain seated, please. Permanacers and Davos Borpal. He did and still does many of the I mean he's passed away now. No, he's still doing it, Kelly. The Walt Disney World monorail uh announcements. Yeah. Please stand clear of the doors. Wow. The tr all the train station announcements at Disneyland. Right. Uh the people mover narration. The Fantasy in the Sky Fireworks uh opening announcement. He was the original voice outside the ticket booth that explained how you could buy tickets and what and the books that they came in. I've actually got that recording somewhere. Oh, nice. Yeah, it's really cool. The A coupon, the B coupon, and the C coupon. The easiest way is to buy a ticket book.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:40

I love it.

Kelly 1:07:41

I love it. Parade announcements. He did all of the character training videos for people that were going to be in costume. And I just between you and me, don't let anyone know, I have a ton of those. They're really cool. Gotta see these. He did the Epcot morning announcements, the Magic Kingdom morning announcements. He was the announcer on the Skyway buckets. He is the announcer that opens the carousel of progress. He does the stop and start announcements when things go wrong on Snow White Scary Adventures, Pooh, Peter Pan, and Buzz Lightyear. He was not around when Pooh and Buzz Lightyear were built, but the they just kept the same things from the attractions that were in the world.

Pete 1:08:28

Wait, they didn't use Exatensio, going, you know, Cranky Pooh has slowed down our please remain inside your honey pot. He was sorry.

Kelly 1:08:43

He was just he was ubiquitous in the parks. He was also on um The Adventures of an Ozzy and Harriet. Really? He was the malt shop owner. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. But I found this great little Is he any relation to Robert Wagner? He i he is related to a Robert Wagner, but it's not the one you think it is.

Pete 1:09:03

Oh it's a different Robert Wagner. Dang it.

Kelly 1:09:07

Because I that I I had the same reaction.

Pete 1:09:09

We almost had a Natalie Wood connection. Yes. I said, oh sorry. Anyway.

Kelly 1:09:14

I read this great thing from the LA Times where someone was interviewing him. Yeah. And this is it just made me laugh so hard. So they're in his house. He gets a phone call. It says Wagner listens carefully and repeats back his assignment. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Lady Bird Johnson as she does what? Proceeds through Town Square for a dedication. Oh, a wildflower planting? Gee, I never heard of that. She's going to plant a wildflower, is she? Okay.

Pete 1:09:54

I want to hear that actually recorded.

Kelly 1:09:56

I know.

Pete 1:09:59

Ladies and gentlemen, the bathrooms are closed. I have to say this, you know, like who wrote this crap? You know? Actually, it would be great. Is we've all heard the blooper of you know Orson Wells talking about peas. Wouldn't it be great to Jack Wagner going, we know of a farm where peas are grown. Do you really mean that? Who wrote this? Yeah. I wouldn't take that. I directed Shakespeare. I wouldn't take this. I wouldn't even take that from this guy. You show me how to say peas naturally like this, and I'll wait, Jack, you can't say that. Well, this, you know, we'll put that in a knotts berry farm.

Kelly 1:10:37

I'll rip your tooth out by the root.

Pete 1:10:44

Jack Wagner. Jack Wagner. Yay.

Kelly 1:10:57

Hey everyone. Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Do you love monsters? Then Pete has some treats, and perhaps a few tricks for you. For four nights through October, Pete's alter ego, the macabre, Mr. Hives, will be hosting classic horror movies at the Douglas Morrison Theater in Hayward, California. There will be chills and thrills, puns and prizes, and a few classic horror movie gimmicks to sweeten the deal. October 7th, Horror Express. October 14th, House Unhaunted Hill. October 21st, The Tingler. October 28th, Night of the Living Dead. Links to buy tickets will be in the show notes. We hope to see you there. You find snippets of Jack Wagner still in the parks, but most of them have been redone. Yeah. But to me, that end of the park announcement, so nostalgic. Ladies and gentlemen, Disneyland has now finished its operating day.

Pete 1:12:15

Because it's kind. That's the thing I like about Jack Wagner's voice.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:18

It's like, it's not ladies and gentlemen, please leave the park.

Pete 1:12:23

It's almost like it's just as welcoming. It's not a goodbye. I'll see you next time. Yeah. That's how he says it. He's definitely saying, guys, we need to go home. Yeah. Buy your stupid Donald Duck toys and get out of the park. Kelly, Pete, get off of the statue. You know, it it's it's he's like, hey everybody, yeah. We know you had a good time, but we all do want to go home, but you can come back tomorrow and it'll be just as fun. And that's what I love about the that lullaby. It's like, put the park to sleep.

Kelly 1:12:54

There's there's an announcement that I also have a recording of. This is sad. I have a recording of him uh doing the park announcement when it's rainy. Oh no. Yeah, and he and it's just like into every life, a little rain must fall. We're sorry the weather is inclement today, but there are many things you can do. And it's just it's adorable.

Pete 1:13:20

I wonder if he did one for a rare snowstorm.

Kelly 1:13:24

Ooh, that'd be pretty cool. Like, just put the phone up to the speakers. Jack, you gotta do something.

Pete 1:13:31

There's snow on the Matterhorn, but there's Coke on Main Street. Thank you, Jack Wagner.

Kelly 1:13:41

One of the things they evidently loved about Jack Wagner was that he was this he was the whole package. Like you didn't have to rent studio time because he had one. Oh. And you didn't have to uh hire someone to mix and master because he could do it. And he could do his own sound effects. I saw a thing about like him finding a sound effect for like stabbing an eye or something. Oh my god. They were like, so Jack, how'd you do that? He's like, I don't know. I probably stuck a knife in a grapefruit. Anyway.

Pete 1:14:13

I mean, yeah, it's not like Paul Freeze, where you have to get him to the studio with a car. You know, he's got to be met, and then you have to sit ex attensio down with him for a half an hour where you talk about how great he is, and it's like, all right, let's get to work, Paul. Yeah. You know, it's like Jack Wagner's, let's get to let's get down to b let's get down to business.

Kelly 1:14:30

Yeah. But yeah, so wrapping it back around to where we started, um the it is it's doing something uniquely nostalgic and futuristic at exactly the same time. And that's what's so fascinating about it. I mean, you've got you know, in i in 1972, someone playing a MOOC was was nuts. Yeah. And you know, it was it was the synthesized stuff was becoming more and more common, but uh it was still pretty early for that, and what they did with it was pretty crazy. And if you listen to the 72 version of it compared to the 77 version, uh the 72 version starts out, it's almost Christmassy, and you're like, oh, this is a little feels a little watered down. But by the end, it's nuts. Like it's just these loud atonal sweeps of noise coming in. It's pretty crazy. Wow. And so they're doing that while at the same time doing this nostalgic, like, look, we have electrified lights on Main Street.

Pete 1:15:40

Well, yeah, and you think about the parade, the designs of the floats themselves. When I mean, I had an opportunity to see one of the snails.

Kelly 1:15:50

Yeah.

Pete 1:15:51

And um Pete uh Pete's Dragon, Elliot. Yeah, yeah. I should know the name. My name is Pete. Um, but Elliot was back there, and it was during the daytime. I actually got to go backstage and I got to see it unlit, and they're just these big metal and wire hulks. Yeah. And at night they light up and it's absolutely magical. And all it is, the the lights on the electric light parade, at least the ones that that ended in ninety-six, right, were Christmas tree lights.

Kelly 1:16:26

Yeah.

Pete 1:16:27

You know, just small filament bulbs, because that by that point they had perfected how to get colored lights.

Kelly 1:16:33

Right.

Pete 1:16:33

You know, you could get those manufactured now, so you just pull them out, put them in, you know, more dipping, you know.

Kelly 1:16:38

Right, yeah. And the those Christmas tree lights also required a lot less power, which was a big problem for years. They were trying to rent them all off of like rechargeable nickel cadmium batteries. And um, you know, for the first couple of years, it could make it about from Main Street to the Matterhorn, and then they were out. That was all the power they had. Wow. Yeah. So switching to things like Christmas tree lights and later more fiber optics, it's it saved them a lot of energy.

Pete 1:17:07

Absolutely. And and what I love about it is the ability to let the audience participate a little bit in the creativity of it.

Kelly 1:17:15

Yeah.

Pete 1:17:15

Because you're asking them to look at the Christmas tree lights on these metal meshes and accept the fact that that is Cinderella's dress. Yes. Or you're accepting the fact that that's a spinning snail running around.

Kelly 1:17:28

Yeah, everybody's favorite.

Pete 1:17:30

One of my favorites, the spinning snails. I love them. Or, you know, the mushrooms from Alice in Wonderland or Pete's Dragon. All of those fabulous floats are delightful.

Kelly 1:17:40

Yeah.

Pete 1:17:41

And um and it doesn't take much. And then you see parades like Soundsational and Which, no offense, is actually a very good parade. But it's meant to be viewed at dusk or in the middle of the day, and it plays well at night as well. Yeah. They actually did a special nighttime presentation of it that we got invited to by Kevin and Jody. Oh neat. And it was so great. Yeah. Um, but that's going to be a probably a different show another time talking about some of the other parades. Yeah. But those were very elaborate floats with lots of, you know, machining metal and fiberglass and color and paint. Yeah. And all the electric light parade is literally like they're not lying. It's just electric lights, guys. That's all you're getting.

Kelly 1:18:26

Yeah, it's electric lights on a metal frame.

Pete 1:18:28

And I don't care. It's such a great parade. You know, you got the combo, the music, and the sparkling lights, and everybody's cheering for it.

Kelly 1:18:34

Yeah. This is why I think the Main Street Electrical Parade is it's so nostalgic because it does speak back to, you know, Walt Disney himself being at Electric Park and and what that kind of turn of the century feel of the light bulb was. Um it's so nostalgic. And then when it happened, the the music is both this mix of futuristic, but it's also Baroque. I mean, it's a Baroque holdown. It's it's written in that form.

Pete 1:19:06

And you hit on something really interesting there, which is the word nostalgia.

Kelly 1:19:10

Yeah.

Pete 1:19:10

Because even though it's supposed like some like kids look at it as ooh, future light bulbs and you hear the synthesizer music.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:19

Older people go, Oh, that's like the old electric city, you know.

Pete 1:19:24

Isn't that interesting? And so it's nostalgic but futuristic in the same breath. Yeah. That's what's so cool about this parade. Yeah. And I think that's why it's lasted so long as it's got it's that gives it its longevity. Whereas the 76 parade, come, gone. Soundsational. No longer exists, which is a real magic. Light and magic. Light and magic. Yeah, all of the they're all come and go. Yep. Um, but electric main street parade, electric light main street parade has still got feet.

Kelly 1:19:54

People still miss it. Like when when it is not there. And and part of part of the reason that it it's only sporadically there now is I mean, they do like to try new things, but when they retired it in the 90s, they literally sold off all the light bulbs. Yes. And uh and and and that was cute in a way, you would get your light bulb in a package and it would show you what floated had come off of and stuff like that. But it was still running at the time in Disney World. So now there's this version of these floats that just keep getting shipped back and forth and back and forth, and sometimes they're in California Adventure, and sometimes they're in Disneyland, and sometimes they're in the Magic Kingdom in Florida.

Pete 1:20:41

All right, get in the truck, Elliot. We're on our way. It's just it's just nuts. That's funny.

Kelly 1:20:46

But I think what's so interesting about this idea of it being both nostalgic and futuristic is that if the Disney company would listen to me for God's sakes.

Pete 1:20:59

Well, be careful because you know, we we we've already predicted a couple things. So we put this out in the universe, we're not that far off. So let's see what happens here.

Kelly 1:21:09

I think that the future of the parks is in design. Yeah. It's not in technology. Yeah. Technology's fine, it's cool. Yeah. Um, throwing money at high-tech stuff is neat, but it's all about design because we can do anything now. Um there's nothing really beyond us. You see this in movies a lot. Yeah. Right? Like there was a certain point where CGI became so good that it became irrelevant.

Pete 1:21:37

Mm-hmm.

Kelly 1:21:38

It was not impressive anymore. So the things that we like are designed well. Yep. And the Main Street electrical parade is about the best designed thing Disney has ever done. It's simple, but it just works. Yeah. It works on every level. And I would love for the company to sort of take a step back and say, hey, let's stop chasing Universal. Let's stop trying to be as loud as they are. Let's concentrate on design. And boy, I you you could do worse than to look at the Main Street Electrical Electrical Parade as your model.

Pete 1:22:20

100%. Yeah. 100%.

Kelly 1:22:23

Um before we close out, I got a list of all of the floats that have appeared from 1972. Wow. To now. Okay. So I'm just going to read through these. It'll take a minute, but let's just enjoy our memories of these floats.

Pete 1:22:41

If it if it wasn't for copyright, I'd be playing the music softly in the background. So just so for those listening at home, start playing the parade music now.

Kelly 1:22:53

The Blue Fairy. Okay. Casey Jr. Circus Engine.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:57

Yeah.

Kelly 1:22:58

Alice in Wonderland. Mushroom with Butterfly and Ladybug. The snails. Beautiful little snails that spin. The mushroom with Alice and Cheshire Cat. Fireflies. Mushroom with Caterpillar and Frog. Frog was originally a butterfly. I don't know why they changed him. The turtles. Yeah. The centipede. Cinderella with a giant dress. The pumpkin coach behind her. The ballroom. Remember there's that one big stage they're actually dancing on the stage?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:38

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kelly 1:23:40

The clock tower. Right. Peter Pan. The pirate ship with Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and Wendy. Right. Smee's Boat. Remember he used to follow the Peter Pan seven? He'd just be in this little rowboat trying to keep up with them. That's so great. Dumbo's Circus. Hippo and King Leonidas Calliope. Wow. Four Ring Circus with Dumbo and Clown. Bear balancing on barrels. Elephant Bathing.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:12

Right.

Kelly 1:24:12

Briny Deep. Uh which is Pinocchio underwater. Oh, okay. Yeah. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Dopey's Mind Train with Dopey, Snow White, Doc, Grumpy, and Sneezy. Okay. Dwarf Mine with Happy, Sleepy, and Bashful. Pinocchio on Pleasure Island. I remember that one really.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:32

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kelly 1:24:34

The Funhouse Face from Pleasure Island.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:36

Yep.

Kelly 1:24:36

Pleasure Island with Pinocchio and Lampwick. Okay. So this is interesting. There's a chain of dragons. There was the Sleeping Beauty Dragon, which got changed into a Chinese dragon, which got changed into Elliot. Yep. Yep. Nice. Return to Oz. Wow. Yeah. Whoa. That one was actually destroyed in a fire.

Pete 1:25:06

Something kind of happened to it. Yeah, nobody's buying tickets for Return to Oz. Something should kind of happen to that parade float.

Kelly 1:25:13

Nice Oz you got here. Be a shame if something, you know, uh happened to it.

Pete 1:25:17

Yeah. Sorry, TikTok.

Kelly 1:25:21

Disneyland's 25th anniversary, which is just a replica of the castle.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:25

Right.

Kelly 1:25:25

Uh Mickey Mouse's 60th anniversary. Wow. It's a small world. 35th anniversary is just a logo. To honor America. Okay. That one has been there as far back as I can remember, and it was huge. Oh, yeah. This was that big flag that was waving. Oh yeah. The neon finale with Mary Poppins, Bert, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck, Chip, Dale, Baloo, King Louie, Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet. And the Fox and the Hound.

Pete 1:25:59

Wow. What a switch out. Like all the different such a great thing. You're surprised there was no black cauldron.

Kelly 1:26:08

Are you? Are you really?

Pete 1:26:09

No, not really. I mean, I don't think I don't think we need to see the horned king done up with electric lights. The cauldron would look cool, you know. You could have some ghouls running around.

Kelly 1:26:20

I forget um which park it's in I don't know if it's Japan or if it's in Hong Kong, but at least at one point they had a themed black cauldron walkthrough.

Pete 1:26:34

Wow.

Kelly 1:26:34

Yeah, and and it was like an adventure. You would go with a guide and things would happen. Wow. And I and I I remember reading about that. I was like, there's no way. And then I saw pictures of it, and sure shooting, there was a black cauldron walkthrough.

Pete 1:26:48

Wow, I had no idea. That's so cool.

Kelly 1:26:51

But is isn't it nice? Like you you read through that list and you can picture so many of those floats, and you're like, oh right.

Pete 1:26:58

Right. I remember that. Like as soon as you say because it's all about big pictures, part of that design thing you were talking about earlier. It's it's broad strokes that remain memorable because of the design and the color and the lights. Yeah. Pretty amazing.

Kelly 1:27:10

Yeah.

Pete 1:27:11

So now's the part in the show, I think, where we, without any sort of notion of budget or time or anything.

Kelly 1:27:21

No sense of responsibility whatsoever on our part.

Pete 1:27:24

Yep. We are going to plus up the Main Street electrical parade. Who wants to go first?

Kelly 1:27:30

You go first.

Pete 1:27:31

Oh no.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:32

Come on.

Pete 1:27:33

Okay. Well, you might actually hate me for this one, Kelly. Or you might not. You may actually think, like, okay. I do think that they should make it return. And I do think that maybe picking two or three of those absolute favorites.

Kelly 1:27:49

Yeah.

Pete 1:27:49

The snails. Um, maybe an Alice in Wonderland, maybe the ballroom, something like that.

Kelly 1:27:55

Yeah.

Pete 1:27:56

That are classics. Yeah. Keep those in. You know, certainly KCJ. Jones with the big drum with the logo of the parade on it. Right. That everybody knows. Yeah. But update it with some of the more modern characters. But still do it in that style.

Kelly 1:28:12

Okay.

Pete 1:28:13

Not going crazy with projection mapping or huge panels of LEDs like they did with SoundSational. You don't need that. Yeah. But just kind of give the Rhapsody a little, you know, I mean the Baroque Rhapsody a little bit more of a more modern electronic feel. Yeah. Just a little, just a little bit different, so it feels more updated. But because of technology of today, they could actually make it not just on the street, but in the air. They've already done the parade in the water. They've already done it in the streets. What if they use drone technology?

Kelly 1:28:51

I'm I'm so with you. You're pretty much doing my plus up. Oh no!

Pete 1:28:54

No, no, no, go ahead. Okay, so my idea is that drones would actually be placed on the tops of the buildings of Main Street.

Kelly 1:29:03

Yeah.

Pete 1:29:03

You know, on these little landing paths. So they're like the little mini drones that light up with different LED colors. Yeah. And so at certain parts, when the parade float goes, certain music cues come up. If if a if a parade float reaches certain locations on the parade route, like, oh, we're right in front of the Nickelodeon, or right in front of the Gibson Girl, or right in front of the Magic Store.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:25

Yeah.

Pete 1:29:25

Or making the round, you know, the roundabout right in front of the firehouse.

Kelly 1:29:29

Yeah.

Pete 1:29:30

The drones would then actually fly out and actually enhance or tell continue telling the story of whatever that float would be. So let's say they do a parade float of Chernobyl. Right. Just because I'm the dark weirdo. And and so in you have the giant electric, you know, happy go-lucky Chernobyl ding-d-d-ding ding-ding-d-ding. And like I'm trying to imagine Night on Bald Mountain done at that tempo. And as it's going through, you've got his big wings and the purple, and he's got that bellagosi stance. But then all of a sudden the drones would come out and swirl around overhead, so it's like a tornado of green and yellow with all the souls.

Kelly 1:30:15

Yeah.

Pete 1:30:15

And then he would pass by and they would vanish, and then the next set of the next batch would fly over and continue that pattern over and over again at certain spots in the parade route. So it stops and you go, Oh, that's cool. And you go back to look at the parade. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. The only drawback is, I'm sure, what if one of those little guys falls down?

Kelly 1:30:37

Yeah, yeah, that's an issue.

Pete 1:30:39

That's an issue. But because we're not worried about budget or safety or any sort of responsibility, that would be my plus up where you have a little touch of the modern, but because a lot of drone shows are doing this now where they'll actually form shapes in the sky, but there's hundreds and hundreds of drones forming these three-dimensional objects.

Kelly 1:31:00

Yeah.

Pete 1:31:00

And of course, the big, you know, the opening would be over the castle with all of the drones.

Kelly 1:31:07

Yeah.

Pete 1:31:07

And they form a face. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

Kelly 1:31:13

Yeah.

Pete 1:31:13

And it's Jack Wagner. No, it's it's the master computer program. You know, it's the MCP. The MCP, yes. I want him in the games until he dies playing. You know, they fly away. But some sort of like Mickey Mouse or Hi everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:29

Welcome to the Main Street Parade.

Pete 1:31:31

And then they all fly off, and then they become those little instruments throughout the rest of the parade. So that it's still electric lights, but they've been on the water. They've been on the land. Why not conquer the air with the electric lights as well?

Kelly 1:31:44

Yeah.

Pete 1:31:45

And that would be my plus though.

Kelly 1:31:46

I th I'm I'm with you. I was I was also thinking the use of drones, which is interesting because I was talking about the the superiority of design over technology, and then they jump immediately to a new technology. But the sparingly, like I I would love to see the drones sort of function as you know, color enhancements, as pixie dust flying through the air, uh stuff like that sparingly. But since since you you beat me to that, and it was my fault I made you go first, I I will uh uh addend my plus up and say, what if we really play off of this early twentieth century uh fascination with light with light bulbs? What if we start the parade instead of the way that it starts now, but we start it with like Edison at the beginning of the parade. Maybe in black and white. Because you can do that. You've got control, it it's nighttime, all the lights are off. Yeah. Um all the all you know, have him uh toying with electricity on a float. You know, maybe um showing showing uh a little bit of like early progress with electricity through a series of floats. Have him throw a lever and you can see like electricity start to fall back through the floats.

Pete 1:33:06

Oh, yeah.

Kelly 1:33:06

And as the floats go forward, they become more colorful and you know, color starts seeping in. Maybe, maybe it can be two strip technicolor to start with.

Pete 1:33:17

Lots of red and green, folks.

Kelly 1:33:19

Yeah, everything's red and green. Oh and everyone's cheeks are very rosy.

Pete 1:33:23

Yeah.

Kelly 1:33:26

And then, you know, as it's it morphs from this very much turn of the century, like you're watching a black and white film, into the brightly colored moog laden, colorful parade that we're used to. I love this. Yeah.

Pete 1:33:43

I love the use of color where it's like, okay, we no longer have to hand dip them. We can actually control these LED bulbs. Yes. And it's still, you know, it's still all on chicken wire. And I mean, they didn't use chicken wire, but you know what we're talking about. The wireframes.

Kelly 1:33:57

The Seven Seas Parade they did. That was exactly what they used.

Pete 1:34:01

Yes, they did. But for the for the later iterations of the Main Street electrical light parade, it was it was definitely like just metal frames. So but I love that. I love that notion of like yeah, enhancing with airborne technology, but also using that modern technology to maintain the nostalgia rather than take away from it.

Kelly 1:34:19

Yes. Yeah, to even even enhance it. Like because you know, we've reached a point where that kind of stuff is foreign enough to our eyes that it's weird again.

Pete 1:34:34

Yeah, well, you if you show some students who are young enough a filament light bulb, yeah. It blows their mind. Wait, that wire lights? I'm I'm not joking.

Kelly 1:34:45

Yeah. Okay.

Pete 1:34:46

Uh time for a history lesson. Uh. Time to listen to our fourth episode. Uh which nobody listened to. No, I'm joking.

Kelly 1:34:57

What do what do all you people have against the hotel and Wally Bogue?

Pete 1:35:01

I know. We gotta watch you know, Wally Bogue. Come on, guys, it's Wally Bogue. Oh well.

Kelly 1:35:06

No, people have listened, but they they are lower than the other ones for some reason.

Pete 1:35:11

So, but but you know, Dunkishin for all of our fr fans in Germany for listening to the Wally Bogue episode. You guys have been marvelous. We really appreciate it. And remember, there's snow on the manor horn, but there's coke on Main Street.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:28

And with that.

Kelly 1:35:31

And with that, yes. I'm Kelly McGovins. And I'm Peter Overstreet. And this is the Lowdown on the Plus Up. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us. And if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at Boardwalk Times.net. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I on our Lowdown on the Plus Up Facebook group or send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-up.com. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at Incompitech.com. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:17

Drive carefully on your way home. Tonight.