Disneyland's 70th anniversary: A look at the new entertainment, celebration outfits
Disneyland's 70th anniversary: A look at the new entertainment, celebration outfits
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Disneyland offering special anniversary ticket offer
Disneyland is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, leading to a handful of discounts and deals to celebrate the occasion.
Fox - LA
Disneyland Resort is celebrating its 70th anniversary with year-long festivities starting Friday.
New entertainment includes the "Celebrate Happy Cavalcade," "Tapestry of Happiness" projection show, and "World of Color Happiness!" nighttime spectacular.
Returning favorites include the "Paint the Night" parade and "Wondrous Journeys" fireworks show.
ANAHEIM, Calif. – When Walt Disney first welcomed guests to his happy place in 1955, he told them, 'Disneyland is your land.'
Over the past 70 years, many longtime guests have made it so, returning to the Southern California resort for personal milestones including birthdays and engagements, as well as everyday occasions like the latest food or festival entertainment.
Now, it's Disneyland's turn to celebrate.
The resort's 70th anniversary festivities kick off Friday with new experiences and returning favorites that feel like a love letter to existing fans. It's also an invitation for first timers to discover why Disneyland is called the Happiest Place on Earth and to make it their own.
Here's what's in store for the yearlong celebration.
New 70th anniversary entertainment, outfits and more
The theme of the 70th anniversary is Celebrate Happy and everything about it – from its infectiously bubbly and seemingly ubiquitous theme song performed by the Jonas Brothers to its bright blue, pink and purple decor – is designed to delight.
'We wanted this to be the best birthday party ever and we want all of you to celebrate with us,' David Caranci, manager, Creative Development for Walt Disney Imagineering, said during a preview USA TODAY attended earlier this week.
Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and their friends have vibrant new party outfits just for the occasion, which guests can see in person during meet and greets and in the new Celebrate Happy Cavalcade at Disneyland Park. That mini parade is also where guests can spot Duffy the Disney Bear and his friend Shellie May, who typically only appear in Disney's parks in Asia. Duffy is marking his 20th anniversary at Disney parks and it's ShellieMay's first major appearance at Disneyland.
At night, guests can see a new projection show called Tapestry of Happiness on the facade of 'it's a small world" at Disneyland. It's inspired in the artistic style of Disney Legend Mary Blair.
On the park's actual anniversary date, July 17, a new show called Walt Disney – A Magical Life will debut at Disneyland's Main Street Opera House. It will feature Disney's first audio-animatronic of Walt Disney.
Other Main Street U.S.A. experiences and a new "it's a small world verse" will also premiere July 17.
Story continues below.
'We've got the big spectaculars, we've got the parades, but we've also got those moments that you can experience and have just a little bit of magic every night,' said Jennifer McGill, executive producer for Disney Live Entertainment.
The latter is the name of a short projection show at Disney California Adventure (DCA). Multiple times each night, Tinker Bell will appear to transform Carthay Circle into Sleeping Beauty Castle during Celebrate Happy: A Little Bit of Magic Every Night.
DCA's big new nighttime spectacular is called World of Color Happiness! It's the seventh full-length iteration of World of Color and anchored by characters from the 'Inside Out' franchise.
"If you don't leave that show humming, dancing, moving feeling all the wonderful emotions, I'll be very surprised,' McGill said.
Guests will want to arrive early for a good viewing spot because the show is preceded by a new pre-show starring the Muppets, who are also celebrating their 70th anniversary.
Don't leave without trying Toy Story Mania, which has a special anniversary overlay. Guests can earn extra points by shooting at '70' targets throughout the attraction.
Throughout the resort, including at Downtown Disney District, guests will also find more than 70 new food and beverage offerings, four different collections of anniversary merchandise and various photo backdrops to mark their visit.
Returning Disneyland favorites
Some of those anniversary food and beverage offerings are inspired by past park menu items.
'We're really excited to have some of these nostalgic classics back in the parks,' said Disneyland Chef Steven Medina, pointing to opening day dishes like banana splits and Apple Pancake Rolls on a display table. 'And can't talk about Disney history with food without talking about chili. You know Walt was very notoriously famous for loving the chili here in the parks, so we brought those in two different ways.'
One is a W.E.D. Chil Cheese Baked Potato, named after Walter Elias Disney. The other is a Chili Cheese Corn Dog coated in corn chips.
Other nostalgic items include a Dancing Shimmering Lights drink, which is a nod to Disneyland's Videopolis area in the 1980s, and a Hook's Galley Tuna Melt, which throws back to the park's early era Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship and Restaurant.
Though not quite as old, Disney California Adventure is welcoming back Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration!, a daytime parade, which debuted last year. It features characters from various Pixar films including 'Turning Red,' 'Toy Story' and 'Monsters, Inc.'
Disneyland is bringing back one its most popular nighttime parades, Paint the Night, which debuted during the park's 60th anniversary celebration. The park is also reviving its beloved nighttime spectacular Wondrous Journeys, which highlights 60 Disney Animation films.
'One of the things that I think is really special about the 70th is that we have a lot of new exciting offerings, but we also have listened to the fans, and we are bringing back those classics that not only our guests but our cast members truly, truly love," McGill said.
Story continues below.
What else is happening across Disneyland
There's lots more happening across the resort that isn't tied to the the 70th celebration.
On Friday, Disney California Adventure debuted a new show called Disney Junior: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! It's primarily geared toward families with young children, but grownups may enjoy it as much as kids.
'I really wanted to make sure that this show was for the entire family,' said show director David Underwood. 'Our show really feels like mini musical.'
The premise is Mickey and Minnie are throwing a party, but their friends don't show up, so they go out to find them. 'And this kind of is where the fun begins,' Underwood said.
There's singing, dancing, bubbles and of course the Hot Dog Dance so synonymous with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Pixar Pals Playtime Party and Stitch's Interplanetary Beach Party Blast will return to Disneyland Park on May 23. Pride Nite returns in June. Disney Jr. Let's Play! Party will arrive at DCA and Downtown Disney this summer. Halloween Time, Plaza de la Familia and Holidays at the Disneyland Resort return later this year.
Through it all, the resort continues to offer the staples that have endeared it with 70 years of guests: an escape from the worries of the world outside, a place to feel like a kid again, and a little bit of magic courtesy of cast members, as Disney fans have shared with USA TODAY.
The reporter on this story received access from Disney. USA TODAY maintains editorial control of content.
(This story has been updated to add a photo.)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Ashley Tisdale says Sharpay Evans is the 'most iconic' High School Musical character
Ashley Tisdale thinks her High School Musical character is the "most iconic" of them all. The 39-year-old actress played wannabe stage star Sharpay Evans in the hit Disney film series and claimed more than 15 years after the final instalment was released that her alter-ego has gone on to become the most memorable amongst fans. She told People: "When I played the character of Sharpay — I think it was probably what made her so funny — was that I truly thought [Sharpay] was the popular girl in school. I thought Sharpay was popular, and I played it like she was popular. "And [director] Kenny Ortega enhanced that. He really made me feel like I was popular. But what's so funny is that she's not the popular girl. She's the drama queen. And my husband's like, 'That's what's so funny about how you played it. You really thought you were popular." "Sharpay is — I swear she's mother to everybody — because it's like she just keeps coming back on these memes and people keep talking and doing the songs. "And I'm just like, I mean, out of everyone in High School Musical, my character is the most iconic. It's so cool." The High School Musical series initially followed Zac Efron as East High's star basketball player and how he broke free of the high school clique system as he and top student Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) sought out leading roles in a school play. Ashley also made her name starring in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody for Disney Channel, and recently reprised her role of Candace in a reboot of Phineas and Ferb, but ultimately "can't believe" that a string of failed auditions led her to a part in a franchise that became such a success. She added: "I mean, it's so cool … It's really awesome to be a part of these projects that have really been so prevalent in pop culture and to play these characters. "It's just, you're like, 'Dang, man.' I can't believe out of everything that I auditioned for [...] I got this animation [series] that has lasted this long. Or I was always trying to get a Disney movie, and never got the movie. And then, I got High School Musical. "Out of all the ones, I get that. This is pretty awesome."
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Jaws' at 50: How Steven Spielberg's shark movie changed my life and cinema forever
It's been 50 years since American movies, and a boy's life, changed forever. ' Jaws ' was released on June 20, 1975, a seismic event in moviegoing. Few films can be said to have changed cinema, but Steven Spielberg's early masterpiece is one. With an unprecedented marketing campaign, an unusually wide initial release and crowds packing showings from its opening weekend, the shark thriller literally invented the summer blockbuster season. It also happened to be the first 'adult' movie I ever saw in a theater. At age 9 and growing up in Indianapolis, I might have been too young to see it; my sister Kristin, four years younger, certainly was. Before 'Jaws,' the only films we'd seen in theaters were Disney-type fare. Perhaps our parents couldn't get a babysitter, or maybe they didn't care. Like the rest of America, they wanted to be where the action was. I likely would have fallen in love with movies anyway at some point, but you could connect the dots directly from that viewing to this column, the latest in a career spent in the dark. If it hadn't been then, it likely would have been in 1977, when the summer movie season became a full-blown phenomenon. Of course, there was George Lucas' ' Star Wars,' which 11-year-old me saw seven times, but there was also the 'Jaws'-inspired 'The Deep,' the Burt Reynolds car chase action comedy 'Smokey and the Bandit' and the James Bond film 'The Spy Who Loved Me.' I could go on: 'Grease' and 'Revenge of the Pink Panther' in 1978; 'Alien' and 'Moonraker' in 1979; 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'Airplane!' in 1980. You get the idea — I saw them all. In 1981, at age 15, I broadened my horizons. I spent the summer watching the Spielberg-Lucas 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' fantasy films 'Time Bandits' and 'Clash of the Titans' as well as the box office bomb 'Megaforce,' a terrible action movie starring Barry Bostwick that for some reason sticks in my mind to this day. In the fall, I ventured into more sophisticated fare, what we'd call Oscar bait today. 'Chariots of Fire,' the eventual best picture winner; then 'Reds,' 'Ragtime' and many others. By college I was consuming the French New Wave and film noir, and the rest is personal history. However, the summer box office season of big scale adventures, eye-popping special effects, jump scares and belly laughs still holds an allure for me after all these years. I'm obviously not alone; the recent Memorial Day box-office weekend, led by ' Lilo & Stitch ' and ' Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,' was the best ever for that holiday. This summer is shaping up to be the best since at least 2019, the last before the pandemic. Spielberg calls such genre movies 'films of imagination,' although one has to say that character-driven comedies and dramas from 'Casablanca' to ' Anora ' are also imaginative, but I know what he means. Science fiction and action films have a way of transporting the viewer into another realm — alternate universes, if you will — more than conventional comedies or dramas do. Yet, what is the future of the summer movie season? Despite its current viability, home viewing habits in general and higher movie theater ticket prices present obstacles. The legacy of 'Jaws' has lasted 50 years. Will it last 60? I think so, but who knows. ' How to Train Your Dragon ' is going strong, Pixar's ' Elio ' and the zombie sequel ' 28 Years Later ' just opened to high expectations, and 'Jurassic Park Rebirth,' a new 'Superman' and 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' loom. Still, few of these movies reach the sublime level of 'Jaws,' which is quite simply not just the greatest summer movie, but one of the best suspense films ever made, not only in its visual splendor and memorable performances, but also the character-driven script by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley from Benchley's novel, Verna Fields' kinetic editing and John Williams' legendary score. Its troubled production, mainly stemming from the fact that the mechanical shark often didn't work properly, is the stuff of legend. Spielberg, then only 27, had to invent on the fly. With the shark, nicknamed Bruce, unavailable much of the time, scenes with humans became more important. With its brooding battle of wills, Robert Shaw's classic USS Indianapolis monologue and a clash between civilization and the elements, 'Jaws' became the '70s version of 'Moby Dick,' a man vs. nature parable that was almost operatic in its humans' obsession with the destruction of an unstoppable predator.
Gizmodo
3 hours ago
- Gizmodo
‘Tron: Ares' is Disney's Big Hall H Movie for San Diego Comic-Con
Marvel may be skipping San Diego Comic-Con's famous Hall H panel this year, but Disney's reportedly got Tron: Ares showing up in its stead. According to TheWrap, the sci-fi sequel will get a panel during the annual pop culture convention. That would be noteworthy on its own, but it takes on further significance owing to its lead star, Jared Leto, who plays the titular Ares program. In early June, AirMail published a report wherein multiple women accused the Morbius and House of Gucci actor of inappropriate and sexual misconduct, some of which reportedly happened when they were underage. One woman speaking to the outlet claimed his behavior 'has been an open secret for a long time.' Leto subsequently denied the allegations, and there's been equal silence from Disney and Amazon MGM. The latter studio is distributing 2026's Masters of the Universe, where he'll be portraying He-Man's nemesis, Skeletor. TheWrap's report doesn't disclose what Ares stars will show for Hall H, which also stars Greta Lee, Cameron Monaghan, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Jeff Bridges. Marketing for Tron: Ares has been nonexistent since its first trailer, but SDCC often comes with big, attention-grabbing trailers. Disney likely has (or had) one ready for Hall H, but his allegations might throw a wrench in those plans and other parts of its marketing. Tron: Ares releases October 10 in theaters, and San Diego Comic-Con runs July 24-27. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
