Moviefan12: Hello & welcome back to the Christmas celebration, here on A Look at Disney and today, I've brought along a friend that has visited A Look at Disney numerous times before as we look at the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade. This is a special parade that is well known and sometimes mocked by the Disney fan community but when you do things like have a Frozen themed parade and don't have any cast members from Frozen show up or air this at night on Christmas, when most people are either eating dinner or tired. There are bound to be some hindrances but this has been airing on ABC for 33 years and I've decided to look at some highlights from the parade's history, both good & bad. This will be both good, bad, and just huh? So, please welcome back to A Look at Disney for this Christmas celebration, Richb.
RichB;Hello my friend. I didn’t watch the parade much as a kid, watching TV on Christmas morning wasn’t a thing that happened, but have watched it over the years since. And it over the years there have some thing I thought were done amazingly well, and other things just pissed me off!
Moviefan12: Now, let's take a look at some of the hosts.
Hosts
Moviefan12: The special has seen many hosts throughout the years ranging from Alan Thicke to Regis Philbin to Robin Roberts and to this year, Derek and Julianne Hough. Now, I cannot speak for all the hosts as I'm mostly familiar with Regis and Kelly as the hosts and growing up to me, it always felt right to have them host. Honestly, I probably knew Regis more from this than this talk show.
Yes, that is Alan Thicke singing a Christmas song with the Ninja Turtles. Enjoy!
RichB;I can understand you knowing Regis more from this than the talk show since for a time he was synonymous with this. Until Who Wants to be a Millionaire anyway. And he did a great job. For me I loved Joan Lunden when she did these, even though I didn’t watch as much. The thing with this parade especially these days is that the hosts are mostly superfluous. You don’t even need them which is probably why they have several hosts covering different parks.
Moviefan12: Before, we get to the good stuff, I want to talk about some of the snafus that the parade has had over the years, two in particular.
The Bad
1999 Nighttime Parade
Moviefan12: I can't find too many images of this one but I don't blame ABC for this as the special is always a big event and does bring in ratings and I can see why, they may have thought that doing a nighttime parade may have been a good idea but from the people that I've talked to, they hated this one as it just felt weird to have what is traditionally shown on Christmas morning airing at night. The special itself wasn't bad but this works better as daytime event. Now, let's move onto something more recent that irked me.
Frozen Christmas Celebration
Moviefan12: Look, I am a Frozen fan. It is one of my favorite Disney movies but even I'll admit that Disney has a tendency to slap Frozen onto anything, even if it doesn't make sense like Frozen Hot Chocolate K-Cups. As I said two years ago, this was my least favorite thing of 2014 from Disney as it was insulting as a Disney fan and as a Frozen fan. Here's what I said and I still stand by it.
This This… THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was insulting to me as a Frozen fan and more importantly as a Disney fan. Every year on ABC, Disney airs a Christmas parade from the Disney parks but there was one element missing from this year. They barely showed the parade. Oh, we got to see some of the characters for 20 seconds. Mickey & Minnie weren’t in the parade. The performances of the songs from Frozen ranged from decent to awful. They couldn’t get any of the cast from Frozen to make an appearance. FOR THIS BEING THEMED TO FROZEN, THERE WAS A LACK OF FROZEN IN THE ACTUAL SPECIAL. Elsa & Anna, the big draw were only in the parade for the last five seconds, which resulted in some of the worst TV CGI , where Elsa froze over the Magic Kingdom. Olaf was in more of the special as Olaf along with some young dancers performed “In Summer”. This was a slap in the face to anyone that is not only a fan of Frozen but also a fan of Disney. This ties back into what I was saying about the Frozen hype. Disney thinks they can just slap on Frozen on anything and people will like it. Well, this proves that’s not true. And also, where were Kristoff and Sven? If you are going to label this as a Frozen themed event, I’d like it if all the Frozen characters were in the parade. Oh, that’s right, you didn’t think that you needed to have a parade because you just tried to coast by on Frozen. Which is an insult to that wonderful movie. Disney, Frozen deserves to be treated better than what you did with it here. I pity Anna and Elsa for being used like this. Yeah, they were used. If you didn’t see this, count yourself among the lucky.
This to me, thus far has been the worst abuse of the Frozen name. Furthermore, you couldn't try and get any of the actual cast members from the movie to take part in this special.
RICHB:I get you’re argument about the Frozen cast members not being in it, but for me it came down to one simple thing. IT’S SUPPOSED TO A DISNEY PARADE NOT A FROZEN PARADE! Believe it or not Disney, the whole world hasn’t seen that movie so some, like me, didn’t need it shoved down our throats for two hours!!
Uh, guess I was more upset about that than I thought
As for prime time parade, I guess it was worth a shot. But most, like me, are a little busy that time of day at Christmas to watch TV. If it is on I promise it’s basketball or something. Nice try.
Moviefan12: Now, let's talk about things that we liked about the parade.
The Good
The Previews for new things at the Parks
Moviefan12: I admit that I am perhaps in the minority here as a lot of people don't like that parade is also used as a vehicle to promote what is coming to the Disney Parks but I love it. I love that just as much as the parade itself because to me, there is just something neat about seeing what the Imagineers are working on and if it'll be complete by the next time, I go to Disney World or Disneyland.
I know a lot of people say that this makes it feel like a giant commercial for the Parks but that is kinda the case and I don't see a problem with it.
The Disney/Christmas Spirit
Moviefan12: It's hit and miss with this but when the parade is really good, you can feel the perfect combo of Disney and Christmas spirit and they really go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly. From seeing the characters dressed in winter clothing or waiting for Santa to come but instead, you see Stitch dressed as Santa.
Sure, after watching it every year, this has become expected but that doesn't mean that I don't love it. It's hit and miss as I said but when they are able to capture the spirit of Disney and the spirit of Christmas, the parade is something special to watch.
RICHB:The parade is the best part and honestly the only part I really watch it for. I can’t begrudge them for advertising, since they always do that in all their specials, but it seems very often like the parade is barely a quarter of the run time! The parade itself is always fantastic I love it (well except for the way they commercialize Star Wars but that’s another story). It’s also clearly recorded which bugs me, why can’t it ever be live? Oh yeah then we can’t get in the endless segues and plugs.
It sounds like I am bashing this but do what I do, watch it the next day with your remote so you can fast forward through some of the pointless stuff. The parade is fantastic and the music numbers are usually amazing. It’s part of my holiday tradition every year.
Our Final Thoughts
Moviefan12: As we've said the parade is hit and miss but it's still pretty enjoyable to watch.
RichB:In this day and age when even saying the word Christmas is taboo, and classic Christmas specials almost non existent, this is a nice tradition that I hope never goes away!
This came out good. I should have added, after watching this year's parade, that it seems the "parade" is less and less part of the show these days. But it's still a good Christmas special to watch on Christmas morning.
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