Electrical Parade gets an extension at Disneyland

Disney’s Main Street Electrical Parade, the nostalgic extravaganza of lights, dancing and upbeat synthesizer music, has had its nightly gig at Disneyland extended for another two months.

Instead of ending June 18, the nighttime parade of 22 floats, dozens of dancers and 600,000 blinking lights will run until Aug. 20, the park has announced.

The parade was originally launched at the Anaheim park in 1972 and continued through 1996 before it was taken on the road for stints at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland Resort. There was also a two-year gig at Disney California Adventure Park, which ended in 2010.

The parade returned in January with LED lights added to the incandescent bulbs that decorate the floats and dancers’ costumes, plus an upgraded sound system to play its theme song/ear worm, “Baroque Hoedown.”

The announcement of the new closing date was posted Saturday on the Disney Parks Blog, with the explanation that the extension was “due to popular demand.”

But the comments to the blog post showed that some Disney fans wanted the park to bring back the previous nightly parade, Paint the Night, which was created to celebrate the park’s 60th anniversary. The celebration ended Sept. 5.

“I have to admit that I’m disappointed. I really want Paint the Night to return,” commenter Fred Sindi said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun that the Electrical parade came back for a little nostalgia, but extending its run feels like a step backwards in terms of technology and creativity.”

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