Disney's televised christmas parade....ugh!

[kristenabelle]

I totally agree with you.
But!
There reaches a point somewhere down the line where the balance between profit and the quality of the magic…will DIE. We love WDW NOT because those few who own shares reap the rewards…we love WDW because of the feeling we get when we enter those 27,000 acres.
If they continue to plow down tradition and history (look what they have done to the Polynesian), squeeze more and more people in, cut back on quality of staff to shave more and more profit, globalize and WalMartize the brand, over hype mediocre films and absorb any corporate entity they can canablize….THEN…what good are profits.
Yes yes Disney was always a corporation.
Been going there to the swamp for decades. Still love the place. I'm old so I don't matter. BUT..the WDW of yesterday is no where near what it is today in just about every way….
We used to have millions of mom and pop hardware stores, good personalized service, down town center businesses….now we have Home Depot…
There will come a time when the magic will fade away…
That magic is real and it has been for 44 years…
While I agree with the pragmatism of your argument I feel that there is a thin line between profit and a quality product. It isn't ALL about money in life..from the corner store now gone…to global mega corporation.
I'm old. I prefer the simpler times.
they made profits then too. just not 30 % annually. For decades the standard expected return on investment meant you were doing good with 3 to 5 % a year and a ratio of about 25 to 1 from the highest to lowest paid employee from the toilet cleaner to the CEO….Now its 1000 or 2000 to 1…and 35% stock goals…
That is unsustainable and detrimental to our planet and our society.
Just my opinion…but I do agree with your pragmatism.

Very fair. I'll be sad if and when the magic completely disappears, too. I think I was just coming from an extreme based on the previous posts that seemed to let this disappointing 2 hour segment ruin their holiday.

Some parts of WDW planning/Disney in general have lost their luster for me, so I try to find magic in other places in the wide Disney world. More of a, "This show sucks, but at least it'll get people to visit the parks, and maybe (new restaurants/attractions will finally be built AND transportation will be improved AND stocks will go up, etc.)"

Thanks for your wise words- hope you enjoyed the holidays!

 

[revdon64]

I haven't made a point of watching the parade in the past, just would catch a bit here and there. But this year I did want to remember to watch as we have two trips planned for 2015. Parade it was not. There were glimpses of a parade-like event in the background a few times, but it was not a parade. It was also not terribly interesting. I would have enjoyed a two hour commercial. Show me what the parks and the resorts have to offer! Pimp Aulani (which they did A LOT!). Talk about the shows and the attractions. I would rather have watched reruns of the Disney behind the scenes shows on Destination TV again than "artists" I've never heard of singing songs that have nothing to do with Christmas and another cheesy Frozen overlay. If that is what the Christmas morning Disney presentation will continue to be, I'm out.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

Well, I bet next years will be better as it will be one huge advertisment for Star Wars

 

[JimmyV]

They're a business. They've always been a business.

But this sentiment is somewhat contradictory. You are correct that Disney has always been a business, and in the past, the Christmas Parade has been awesome. So that proves that a business (and a successful one at that) can show a Christmas Parade, do a good job of it, and still remain viable as a business.

Owning Disney stock has made me feel a lot better (meaning more neutral) about Disney as a corporation in general. It reminds me that despite my wish that everything is about magic and family and blah blah..they're still a publicly traded corporation with a bottom line.

Not sure how many shares you own, and I won't be so presumptuous as to guess or assume. But most shareholders on the Dis own just enough shares to get benefits or feel good about themselves about "owning Disney". The point being, most people who both own DIS and go to WDW derive far more benefit from their trips than they do from their dividends. If someone owns 50 shares that appreciate 20 points over time, their profit is $1000 pre-tax. And if that person takes a WDW vacation every year (or almost every year), it is probably a pretty good bet that their visits are more important to them than the profit. In other words, my investment isn't as meaningful to me if the company erodes the experience in the name of profit. Unless you are a huge institutional investor, putting profit over fun can be rather shortsighted.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Oh yes it was hideous. The interviews were worse then when they do the athlete backgrounds during the Olympics with the sweeping music where you could at least guess what movie soundtrack they borrowed it from. and I certainly understand the presence of Frozen at this point, but enough about Aulani already.

 

[L&Lfan]

I finished watching the whole thing in about 10 minutes. The thing that bothered me the most, however, was that the show traditionally ends with the Santa Claus float and someone singing a spectacular finale Christmas song (like Joy to the World or O Holy Night) along with a choir in front of Cinderella Castle. This year they performed Let It Go as the finale complete with background singers IN CHOIR ROBES! A little too "not the reason for the season" in my opinion. But for me the parade show has been going downhill for at least 10 years now, and it seems to only be getting worse.

 

[scott1961]

I finished watching the whole thing in about 10 minutes. The thing that bothered me the most, however, was that the show traditionally ends with the Santa Claus float and someone singing a spectacular finale Christmas song (like Joy to the World or O Holy Night) along with a choir in front of Cinderella Castle. This year they performed Let It Go as the finale complete with background singers IN CHOIR ROBES! A little too "not the reason for the season" in my opinion. But for me the parade show has been going downhill for at least 10 years now, and it seems to only be getting worse.

Amen! They are doing their utmost not to offend non Christians on one of our two most sacred holidays, but instead they offend all their Christian fans. And their are a lot of them including me. It just saddens me really the direction we are headed. Let it Go with Choir robes on Christmas?? Sounds like idol worship to me. Get out of the Christmas business Disney if you aren't going to respect it!

 

[Love Tink]

Amen! They are doing their utmost not to offend non Christians on one of our two most sacred holidays, but instead they offend all their Christian fans. And their are a lot of them including me. It just saddens me really the direction we are headed. Let it Go with Choir robes on Christmas?? Sounds like idol worship to me. Get out of the Christmas business Disney if you aren't going to respect it!

This is a ludicrous statement. There are literally millions of Christians, including myself, who are not offended by the celebration of the secular aspects of Christmas.

If you are so upset by non-religious imagery in a celebration of Christmas, perhaps there might have been something on TV more appropriate for you than a Disney special?

 

[scott1961]

This is a ludicrous statement. There are literally millions of Christians, including myself, who are not offended by the celebration of the secular aspects of Christmas. If you are so upset by non-religious imagery in a celebration of Christmas, perhaps there might have been something on TV more appropriate for you than a Disney special?

Maybe I shouldn't have said "all". Ludicrous is a stretch. I just found it of poor taste, I am tired of too much PC, and I did vote with my clicker and shut it off, and put on real Christmas music.
As other posters have said, it's not the way Disney used to do things. I can say that this trend is disappointing to me.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

This year's show certainly was a snoozefest. We are another family that didn't find much to like in this year's Christmas show/parade. I am not generally a big Neil Patrick Harris fan, but he did a wonderful job hosting last year. Big dropoff this year IMO

 

[morethananyonex]

Amen! They are doing their utmost not to offend non Christians on one of our two most sacred holidays, but instead they offend all their Christian fans. And their are a lot of them including me. It just saddens me really the direction we are headed. Let it Go with Choir robes on Christmas?? Sounds like idol worship to me. Get out of the Christmas business Disney if you aren't going to respect it!

You really think this was about not offending non Christians? Really? A show that has been a Christmas celebration complete with songs for how many years?

The change was very clearly about celebrating Frozen above all, leave us non Christians out of it, thanks. And if you really want the religious aspect of Christmas, I would think a Disney special is the last place you would look for it.

 

[tiggerdad]

There was a parade!?

Where was it? All I saw was a two hour tribute to vacation booking and really bad hosting.

Can't believe I watched the wrong show...

Well, at least I still have my National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on DVD...

 

[Davey Jones II]

I liked some of it, but fast forwarded through a lot of stuff.

Hopefully they'll get back on track next year, when the non-stop milking of Frozen will be over.

It WILL be over...right??

 

[minnie mum]

I liked some of it, but fast forwarded through a lot of stuff.

Hopefully they'll get back on track next year, when the non-stop milking of Frozen will be over.

It WILL be over...right??

We can only hope. And we can also hope that the new producer for next years show/parade (because SURELY whoever was responsible for this year's fiasco was fired) was taking notes during the Rose Bowl Parade. Now that was how a parade telecast SHOULD be done.

 

[PrincessShea]

I would rather watch ads for Frozen and Aulani than the horrible musical acts. I agree though the parade has become unwatchable.

 

[lugnut33]

Maybe I shouldn't have said "all". Ludicrous is a stretch. I just found it of poor taste, I am tired of too much PC, and I did vote with my clicker and shut it off, and put on real Christmas music.
As other posters have said, it's not the way Disney used to do things. I can say that this trend is disappointing to me.

Lol, I'm an atheist and don't care if religious songs are sung, heck I like some of them. Most atheists only care when religion enters politics, otherwise you're free to believe what you want. The whole war on Christmas is made up by conservative media to sell ad space.

 

[World Showcaser]

This is a ludicrous statement. There are literally millions of Christians, including myself, who are not offended by the celebration of the secular aspects of Christmas.

If you are so upset by non-religious imagery in a celebration of Christmas, perhaps there might have been something on TV more appropriate for you than a Disney special?

But it didn't celebrate the secular aspects of Christmas either. I certainly don't need Disney to be religious and am actually surprised at how overtly religious they have been. But if you are going to celebrate Christmas or the Holidays, there should be something Christmasy or Holiday-ish about said celebration.

 

[DisMom1981]

I would have enjoyed a 2-hour commercial for the parks and resorts. I think the best part were the real commercials they were showing for the parks and the cruises and Aulani! They were definitely pushing Aulani but I don't even think they did a good job there. All they showed was the beach and a far-away-shot of the building. It did make me want to go somewhere warm with a beach, but not necessarily Aulani.

I agree. I wasn't tuning in for musical performances. If I wanted music- Id be listening to Christmas music stations. Seeing the parade and park highlights/special features/behind the scenes/new projects are way more appealing to me. I don't mind featuring the Hawaii resort or Castaway Cay, but I want to see what these places have to offer or something special about them. I miss the old specials!

 

[smec73]

Is there a link to watch it online? We missed it.

 

[dwbrewster]

Is there a link to watch it online? We missed it.

You honestly didn't miss much so don't go searching for it online too long. We got home from Disney on Christmas Eve and was super excited to watch the parade with my Frozen obsessed DD, since she would know where they were. Even she was a bit bored asking when the parade would be.