The current version of Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress takes its final spins this Fourth of July holiday, and we wanted to send it off with a farewell. Its last day of operation is July 5th. The closure begins July 6th to make way for a reimagining that Disney expects to reopen in 2027. Carousel of Progress holds a special place in Disney history. It’s the oldest attraction at Walt Disney World that Walt himself worked on – a passion project he shepherded for years. The idea traveled from an unbuilt 1950s concept to the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and eventually to Magic Kingdom. In this article, we’ll trace that history. We’ll also take a look at the attraction in its current state one final time.
A Farewell to Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress
- Harnessing the Lightning
- Carousel of Progress: A Smash Hit at the 1964 World’s Fair
- Fifty Years at Magic Kingdom
- How the Theater Works
- Outdoor Pre-Show Video
- Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair (1964)
- Inside the Theater
- Carousel of Progress FULL Show & Pre-Show Video
- The Show, Act by Act
- What’s Next for Carousel of Progress
Harnessing the Lightning
The story behind Carousel of Progress reaches back further than the 1964 World’s Fair. In the 1950s, Walt looked to expand Disneyland. He sketched out an extension of Main Street USA called Edison Square. The Walt Disney Company recently revisited that origin in a history of the attraction. The square would have been anchored by a walk-through attraction named Harnessing the Lightning. Its theme: how electricity and technology reshaped daily life for the American family.
Edison Square was never built, but the core idea survived. The premise was simple. Technology would keep evolving while people stayed essentially the same. That became the foundation for everything that followed. When Walt and his Imagineers took on the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, they reworked the concept into the centerpiece of the General Electric Progressland pavilion.
Carousel of Progress: A Smash Hit at the 1964 World’s Fair
The fair marked the debut of two things that have defined the attraction ever since. One was the rotating theater system. The other was the earworm “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” written by Disney Legends Richard and Robert Sherman. That show proved an enormous success. It had Walt’s personal fingerprints all over it, down to small details. The company’s retelling of the history points to Walt’s hands-on direction. One example: how Uncle Orville’s toes should wiggle in the bathtub.
Few people captured how personal the project was to Walt better than Disney Legend Admiral Joe Fowler, who oversaw construction of both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Reflecting on Walt’s body of work, Fowler said there was “more of Walt in the Carousel of Progress show than there was in anything else we’ve done.” The Carousel of Progress truly was a classic.
After the fair, Walt brought the show to Disneyland. It opened on July 2nd, 1967, in Tomorrowland with several changes. The most notable was a refreshed finale set in Progress City, Walt’s vision for what would become EPCOT.
During the Disneyland run, the show continued to present “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” The tune echoed sponsor General Electric’s outlook at the time. The attraction closed at Disneyland on September 9th, 1973. America Sings later took over the rotating theater.
Fifty Years at Magic Kingdom
Carousel of Progress opened at Magic Kingdom on January 15th, 1975. It has operated in Tomorrowland ever since. It arrived keeping its original scenes set in the 1890s, 1920s, and 1940s, the eras guests still move through today. Disney notes that it stands as the oldest attraction at Walt Disney World that Walt himself worked on. That distinction has given the show much of its weight with longtime fans.
When the show reached Florida, its anthem changed too. The Sherman tune gave way to “The Best Time of Your Life.” The swap tracked sponsor General Electric’s shifting corporate philosophy. That song still plays today as background music throughout Tomorrowland. General Electric ended its sponsorship in 1985. Even so, the attraction kept running across new scripts, new voice actors, and full scene rewrites.
A 1993 rehab brought back “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” for nostalgia’s sake and themed the four scenes to different holidays. That’s the version guests ride today. The following year, in 1994, the show took on its current name, Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. As Chris Beatty of Walt Disney Imagineering put it, the show was “designed to celebrate change, not to stand still.” And change is on the way. More on that in a bit.
How the Theater Works
The Carousel Theater centers on a hub. Six wedge-shaped theater sections rotate around four stages and two load and unload areas. You take a seat and face the stage. Then, the entire auditorium turns counterclockwise at about two feet per second, carrying you from scene to scene while the set stays in place. It remains one of the only attractions of its kind anywhere.
That rotating format was the heart of Walt’s pitch at the World’s Fair. He wanted a high-capacity show that kept audiences moving. The design delivers, with the Magic Kingdom version able to hold 1,336 guests across its six seating sections at once. That same mechanism has carried guests through the family’s living room for decades.
In fact, it looks like part of the updates coming to the attraction are for the theater structure itself, not just the set dressing. Permits filed by Walt Disney Imagineering suggest that work will be done from the studs to the scenery, and everything in between.
Outdoor Pre-Show Video
Before guests reach the theater, an outdoor holding area sets up the history of the attraction with a pre-show video. It opens with footage of Walt alongside the Sherman brothers performing the theme song. From there, it turns to narrator Rex Allen. He introduces himself as a performer from the original World’s Fair run more than 30 years ago (at the time). Allen walks guests through the show’s origins. Walt built Carousel of Progress for the 1964 New York World’s Fair as part of the Progressland pavilion. The goal was a warm portrayal of how progress had improved daily life from the turn of the century forward.
Allen also lays out the technical leap the show represented. Visitors to the fair always expected the latest innovations. So Walt created a revolving theater where the audience moved around the stages, performed by a cast of Audio-Animatronics figures. The narration notes that Walt and his Imagineers built 32 of these figures for the show. The pitch was that these performers could run all day without a break. The crew assembled the whole cast for a dress rehearsal just two months before opening, working around the clock to finish on time.
Archival footage of Walt brings that history to life. He had an actor demonstrate the control harness used to program the figures’ movements. He walks guests through how the harness recorded each gesture onto tape. Then Walt plays the moment for laughs, offering to light the host figure’s pipe before catching himself with “No smoking on stage.”
Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair (1964)
The video clip below was originally featured in “Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair,” which aired on television on May 17, 1964. In it, Walt gives viewers behind-the-scenes looks at the Carousel of Progress. It was one of a handful of attractions he and his team of WED engineers were creating for the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair. Walt proudly shows off the carousel’s model and tours the sets under construction. He also demonstrates the latest Audio-Animatronics technology and offers the first listen to the theme song, “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”
Portions of this clip play in the Carousel of Progress pre-show video today.
Inside the Theater
Guests then move into the Carousel Theater. A narrator welcomes the audience and frames the show one last time before it begins. The introduction leans into Walt’s personal connection, calling Carousel of Progress his own idea from beginning to end. From there, the narrator recounts how Walt introduced the show at the 1964 World’s Fair. It became an immediate smash hit seen by millions.
The welcome also sets the show’s claim to history. It has had more performances than any other stage show in the history of American theater. The narrator closes on the heart of Walt’s idea, his love of progress and of the American family. Then the theater begins to turn counterclockwise, and Act One comes into view.
Carousel of Progress FULL Show & Pre-Show Video
While we’ll have scene-by-scene photos and descriptions below, here’s our full show, multi-angle 4K video of the Carousel of Progress. This is a great place to start as it contains exterior video of the attraction, the full outdoor pre-show that we talked about, and, of course, the entire theater show.
The Show, Act by Act
As the theater turns into the first scene, the chorus picks up “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” The roughly 21-minute show follows one family, led by John and Sarah, across four acts that move through four eras and four seasons. John acts as our narrator, carrying the audience from the turn of the century to a near-future holiday.
Act One: The Turn of the Century (1900s)
The first act opens around 1900 on Valentine’s Day, with John introducing his family and the marvels of the age. Actually, it’s 1898, if the calendar on the wall is to be trusted (and it shouldn’t be trusted). John shows off gas lamps, a telephone, an icebox that holds fifty pounds of ice, and a kitchen pump that beats hauling water from the well. Then he name-drops Thomas Edison’s work on snap-on electric lights and dismisses two brothers from North Carolina tinkering with a flying machine. John tells the audience he hears “tell about two brothers from North Carolina who are working on some kind of flying contraption,” then adding, “It’ll never work.”
The running jokes start here, too. John insists the weather will hold because his lumbago isn’t acting up, then the rain comes down on Sarah’s wash. Sarah gets the last word every time, setting the rhythm the rest of the show runs on. Here are some more detailed photos of Act One. Click on any photo throughout this entire article to bring up a full-screen version.
Act Two: The Roaring Twenties (1920s)
The theater turns to a hot Fourth of July in the 1920s. The hottest on record, according to our patriarch. John has an Essex with an electric starter, a house full of electrical servants, and a habit of blowing every fuse on the block. Charles Lindbergh is about to cross the Atlantic, and John is certain he will never make it. John’s historically poor inability to predict the future, or even believe in something, is a bit that will carry into the new version of the attraction.
Sarah’s ladies’ club is running the town’s Fourth of July celebration, and she has volunteered the family to perform in the program. She and John will be dressed as George and Martha Washington; John loves the idea of playing the role as the Father of our country. Uncle Orville claims the coolest spot in the house from the bathtub, under a fan and a block of ice, delivering the line that follows him through the rest of the show, “No privacy at all around this place!” The new version of the Carousel of Progress will see Uncle Orville returning to the tub, but he may just find a bit of privacy after all thanks to a new invention.
The act closes on John declaring the family is on Easy Street, sure that life cannot possibly get any better.
Act Three: Mid-Century (1940s)
Next comes a 1940s Halloween, with “commuting” and the “rat race” newly entering the family’s vocabulary. Television has arrived. John Cameron Swayze reads the news, and John predicts a day when millions will learn Latin and Greek in front of their sets. After Grandma checks to make sure Grandpa is asleep, she switches the TV over to boxing. She’ll almost certainly have a similar moment in the new version of the attraction.
The do-it-yourself craze takes over the basement, now a rumpus room in progress. Sarah’s wallpapering goes sideways when John’s automatic paint mixer sprays paint across the room, and John shrugs it off with his advice that “if you’re going to be married, marry a girl with a sense of humor.”
John’s voice includes a fun piece of trivia. Imagineers cast Jean Shepherd, the narrator of A Christmas Story, to play the family patriarch during the 1993 redo. Shepherd could not sing, so when the family performs “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” voice actor Jess Harnell stepped in to imitate Shepherd’s voice for the song. Harnell has logged extensive Disney work over the years, from Sofia the First to the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.
When asked about voice narrators for the new version of the attraction, Imagineers said that they would have more details to share at a later date.
Act Four: A Near-Future Holiday (21st Century)
The final act drops the family into a near-future Christmas, surrounded by voice activation, virtual reality, and a talking oven. Sarah shows off the scene’s big marvel, a household voice-activation system she has just finished programming, dimming and brightening the tree lights on command. Grandpa is unimpressed and asks it to bring him a root beer, which is one thing the system cannot quite manage. John tries his hand next, setting the oven by voice, and the appliance talks back well enough that he mutters it reminds him of certain people he knows.
Grandma gets pulled into Jimmy’s virtual-reality space pilot game and runs up the score, and every time John calls out her rising point totals, the voice-controlled oven mishears him as giving it temperature commands. Nobody notices the two threads are the same joke until the numbers climb past 900, the oven overloads, and the door slams open on another ruined turkey for Christmas. The oven cheerfully informs the family, “Bake Mode complete. Enjoy your meal.”
Patricia suggests pizza, Sarah sighs at another holiday dinner lost to progress, and even Uncle Orville gets a callback during the scene, protesting the lack of privacy from offstage just as he did decades earlier. The show closes on a simple idea: that as long as everyone is together and happy, a burned turkey hardly matters, capped by Jimmy’s prediction that someday everything will be so automated that John will never have to cook a Christmas turkey again. With that, the theater turns one last time, the family sings, and the doors open to send you out.
What’s Next for Carousel of Progress
Disney has announced a major reimagining for the Carousel of Progress. The family stays, the iconic song stays, and the rotating theater itself remains. Beyond that, the new version shifts each act to a fresh decade, adds an introductory scene featuring a Walt Disney Audio-Animatronics figure, and rebuilds the finale around a future that no single decade can claim.
While the show will retain the “Walt Disney’s” label, it’s clear that this is a complete rebuild and that there will really be very little, if anything, left physically that can be tied to Walt. If there was even much left after the 1993 redo, that is. That said, we’re hopeful that the spirit of the show will remain, earning the title.
New Decades, New Scenes
The updated show reframes the family’s journey the way the original did, looking back roughly 60 years from today and moving forward through the decades. Chris Beatty of Walt Disney Imagineering framed the goal as keeping the show relatable, saying the team wanted “eras in which our guests have personal connections.” Act One opens in the summer of 1969, gathering the family around the television for the moon landing. From there, Halloween 1985 gives Sarah center stage for the first time in the attraction’s history. The third act celebrates New Year’s Eve 1999 as the Internet arrives (and Y2K), and the finale pushes into a far-off future on another planet entirely. The finale scene draws from concept sketches by Disney Legend John Hench.
Before any of that, guests will meet a Walt Disney Audio-Animatronic making its Walt Disney World debut in a new opening scene inspired by the 1964 television special “Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair.” Signs of the work stretch back months, including a Walt Disney Imagineering permit that pointed to the new figure earlier this year.
Disney expects the reimagined show to reopen in 2027, though no firm date or season has been announced. For now, this Fourth of July holiday brings the last chance to see the version that has run at Magic Kingdom for fifty years, and we wanted to give it the sendoff it deserves.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!