The Lion King Celebration
| The Lion King Celebration | |
|---|---|
| Disneyland | |
| Status | Closed |
| Opening date | June 1, 1994 |
| Closing date | June 1, 1997 |
| Replaced | Aladdin's Royal Caravan |
| Replaced by | Hercules' Victory Parade |
| General statistics | |
| Attraction type | Parade |
| Theme | The Lion King |
| Floats | Six |
The Lion King Celebration was a parade based on the animated film The Lion King. It was designed to tell story of Simba, the protagonist of The Lion King, as if it were a tale passed down in Africa for generations. Its parade featured six floats designed around different aspects of Africa, dancers dressed in animal costumes and a Pride Rock float featuring Simba and Nala. The parade ran at Disneyland from June 1, 1994 to June 1, 1997, after which four of the floats were moved to Disney's Animal Kingdom for the Festival of the Lion King show.
Subsequent parades featuring The Lion King floats at Disney parks, including Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams, have re-used assets and concepts from The Lion King Celebration.
During a typical show, a total of 89 cast members performed in The Lion King Celebration. This included 56 dancers, 12 puppeteers, 10 acrobatic pole dancers, 6 musicians and 5 remote control operators.
The Lion King Celebration featured the first use of Audio-Animatronics in a Disneyland parade. It also featured the first use of "Puppetronics", a technique used to create the large, lifelike animal puppets featured on the floats.
The design of the parade had strong roots in traditional African artwork, featuring vibrant colors, tribal designs and dance routines based on traditional African dances.
African artist Betty LaDuke designed and painted a sculpture of three monkeys that sat behind Nala on the Pride Rock float.
Set to a mostly instrumental version of the song "I Just Can't Wait to Be King", the first characters to appear are two rhinoceroses, followed by tribal dancers and drummers and a float featuring Zazu and Rafiki with two giraffes. Zazu and Rafiki introduce the parade as it continues down Main Street, U.S.A..
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