Flashback: Mickey's 50th Birthday

As long as we're looking back on old parades that once traversed the Disney Parks, let's take a look at the very first Disney parade I ever saw. It was the summer of 1978, my first visit to Walt Disney World, and the whole park was celebrating Mickey Mouse's 50th birthday.

Compared to the spectacles staged today, parades back then were much simpler affairs, amounting to little more than a cavalcade of Disney characters. For the Mickey's 50th Birthday Parade, the characters were featured on and around a series of floats depicting oversize presents, cakes and candles. The stars of Robin Hood (a relatively new film at the time) led the procession, followed by Mickey's "Fab 5" pals and an assortment of other animated personalities from movies as diverse as Peter Pan and Pinocchio.

The Three Little Pigs and Big Bad Wolf also made appearances. In fact, a high point of the parade came when a Pig would wiggle his nose, eliciting giggles from the kids, or when the Big Bad Wolf would suddenly jump to the side, startling Guests along the route.

Winnie the Pooh and the gang from the Hundred Acre Wood are considered big Disney stars today, but in 1978 they were huge. The most recent featurette, "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too," had come out four years earlier, and in 1977 the three Pooh films had been combined into the feature film release The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Of course, back then Pooh was still very much obsessed with honey, so much so that he always carried a potful of it on his head!

The Mickey's 50th Birthday Parade wouldn't have been complete without an appearance by the Big Cheese himself. Mickey brought up the rear atop a giant birthday package pedestal, where he could see and be seen by all his fans.

Aside from the parade, Mickey's big day was celebrated with a television special and the inclusion of his debut film, "Steamboat Willie," in the lineup playing at the Main Street Cinema. It certainly made for a fun time to visit the Magic Kingdom.