Yeah, most of the Chirstmas parade is taped in advance so that the performances can be spot on perfect.
Ah - no. That's not the reason.
The holiday parades are a giant commericals for WDW. Naturally, Disney wants to present WDW in the best possible light. And light is exactly it.
Christmas morning you've got a huge audience all throughout the northeast and midwest eagerly ripping open packages containing sweaters and mittens and scarves and coats and long underwear. What a perfect time to beam pictures of sunny, warm and wonderful Central Florida into millions of frost bound homes!
In the early years of the parade - it was broadcast LIVE to highlight that very fact. At every opportunity the MC made sure you knew it was LIVE, the wonderful SUNNY WEATHER was LIVE - AS YOU SEE IT NOW - and shiver in your home. Yes, we in Florida are basking in Ole Sol's warm radiance, LIVE! Disney went so far as to put a little tempeture sign in the bottom right corner of the screen to declare that while Mr. and Mrs. Chicago was freezing - AT THAT VERY MOMENT - it was a brilliant 83 in Orlando.
Cheap, tacky - perhaps. But the parade convinced millions of frozen Americans and Canadians to pick up the phone and make reservations.
Of course, Florida weather has another feature - rain. Umbrellas and waterlogged dancers would very much
not do to sell sunny Florida to housebound people in Boston. As much as LIVE was a selling point, WET would undo all that good work. So Disney got in the habit of filming a "back-up" show just in case the weather didn't cooperate with the Marketing Department. I witnessed one of these myself - on Easter Sunday I sat in the Grand Floridian as the monsoon poured down, but my television showed a bright and glorious day ("recorded from an earlier broadcast").
As with all things at today's Disney, cost cutting hit the show. Why go through the effort of filming both a live and a back-up version of the show? Since showing just the live show was too risky (marketing is the most important thing after all) - the decision was made to only go with pre-recorded events. Cut the costs by almost 40%.
So sorry, it has nothing to do with Disney wanting to make all the gingerbread men are all in perfect step - it's just anothe cost savings measure.
