Sometimes, the best way to honor the past is to move on from it.
Last week, Disney announced that it would change the Carousel of Progress attraction at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. The Carousel of Progress was one of Disney’s four attractions at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. After the fair, the ride came to Disneyland for several years before moving to Florida in 1973.
Disney will shift the Carousel’s timeline from the early 20th century to the late 20th century. When the show debuted in 1964, the Carousel portrayed life 20 to 60 years in the past. With these changes, the Carousel will do so again.
Disney managers anticipated the change would anger some of the company’s fans. Carousel of Progress is the only attraction at Walt Disney World that Walt himself ever saw. The announced changes will mean the removal of all the scenes that Walt knew.
If all the fans who have been complaining online about Disney’s announced changes had been visiting the show on any regular basis, Disney would not have felt the need to order changes to try to improve its low guest counts. But at least Walt Disney World is getting a reimagined Carousel. At Disneyland, the ride’s old Carousel Theater building remains mostly empty, housing only photo ops and some hospitality spaces these days.
I think that it is important to remember that Disney developed the Carousel of Progress in large part as a commercial for General Electric appliances. GE demanded that Disney move the show to Florida in 1973 so that it could reach new audiences. The company dropped its sponsorship in 1985.
If Disney wants to reimagine a sponsor-free Carousel of Progress to make today’s audiences feel better about the world around them, I have a cheeky suggestion. An all-new “Carousel of Regress” could show us how much worse the next 60 years are going to be if the world stays on its current course. Compared to that bleak future, today is going to feel great.
Seriously, though, if Disney wants to inspire visitors to feel good about their future, it needs to show us a story about how people can work together to change their destinies, because no one today believes that buying fancy new appliances is the way to a more beautiful tomorrow. The world has changed, though maybe not in the way that Walt Disney envisioned. A love letter to past consumerism is not the story that today’s Disney fans — or anyone else — wants or needs to see.
I hope that the new Carousel of Progress finds the great big audience that Disney wants. But I will not be surprised when it doesn’t. Disney does its best not when it copies Walt’s old work, but when it uses his work as inspiration for new stories, products and adventures.
That is the progress that today’s Disney fans really want to see. That is what needs to replace Carousel of Progress in Florida. When that happens, I hope Disney will return an old favor and bring that to Disneyland in California, too.