Disneyland: Come to the Fair Parade

Debuted: 1987

From its inaugural year in 1955, Disneyland has played host to a veritable smorgasbord of corporate sponsorships in its restaurants, retail outlets, and attractions. During the park’s first year of operation, outside vendors were brought in to fill the storefronts along Main Street, U.S.A., while other partnerships -- such as Dole’s affiliation with Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room -- persist to this day.

Sometimes, however, those relationships manifested in odd ways, maybe never more clearly seen than when John Deere sponsored the park’s Come to the Fair Parade in the autumn of 1987 and 1988. Designed to celebrate the company’s 150th anniversary, the parade evoked the feeling of small-town American fairs to varying degrees of success. It began with a procession of old-fashioned automobiles, a troupe of dancers that might have been pulled from the background of Hello, Dolly!, and a white gazebo, within which Mickey clapped and cheered the bystanders. From there, things got progressively weirder: a John Deere tractor pulled a display of moving sunflowers, fruits, and veggies; human-sized ravens, scarecrows, tomatoes, carrots, corn, pumpkins, and broccoli shimmied their way down the street; another tractor ferried fenced pens of live pigs and chickens, while cast members dressed as farmers followed with horses and cows -- undoubtedly bringing some interesting smells to the whole experience as well. Disney characters made frequent appearances throughout the parade, too, from the rest of the Fab Five to Chip and Dale, Snow White, Alice, Clara Cluck, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, the Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio, Honest John, and Gideon. (Most entertaining: the carnival booth featuring Geppetto and the Evil Queen, who made faces at the parade-watchers under a sign that read “? Guess Your Age ?”.)

While the Come to the Fair Parade definitely adhered to its chosen theme -- replete with a revolving Ferris wheel, carnival tents, produce, livestock, and simulated baking contests -- the execution was so peculiar and over-the-top that it was of little surprise when Disney decided to replace it with the more mainstream Hooray for Disney Stars Parade the following year.

Disneyland: The World According to Goofy Parade

Debuted: 1992

Okay, we can’t pretend this one isn’t at least a little bit awesome, if terrifying in some of its iterations. Like a few of the Fab Five’s birthday celebrations, this commemorative parade was held in honor of Goofy’s 60th birthday and only featured for one tragically brief season at the park. By all accounts, it does not appear to have migrated East to Florida in any shape or form.

The utter weirdness of The World According to Goofy Parade was both its great strength and weakness. Ostensibly, it celebrated Goofy’s many forms, but it also featured a lot of inexplicable costuming and prop choices -- including, but not limited to an ‘Egyptian Daze’ section, with Goofy as the now-infamous ‘Goofball,’ ‘Clarapatra, Cow of the Nile,’ a mummified Goofy partially-encased in a mobile pyramid, and an oversized ‘Pharaoh Goofy’ (eyeliner and headdress on point); a food-themed ‘Renai-sauce’ section, in which Goofy was painted as ‘Marco Pollo’ and other famous pun-ified historical figures; and a ‘Goofy Runs for President’ section, headed by a Goofy Pace Car and brought up by another larger-than-life presidential statue of the dog himself.

In every respect, it was perhaps the strangest fever dream to descend on Walt’s original park in the early 1990s -- or in the 27 years since. While other characters were similarly acclaimed on their birthdays, none did so in quite as bizarre a fashion as the Great Goofini. For that, we should all probably be grateful.

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What parade do you secretly (or not so secretly) hope Disney will keep in locked away in their vault? Alternatively, are there any weird or kitschy parades you hope they revive in future years, however improbable that may be?