John is the central character in the Disney Parks attraction Carousel of Progress.
Background[]
Development History[]
John's character originated as an "Electro-mechanical" man who would have been named Wilbur K. Watt. He was planned for the Edison Square expansion of Main Street, U.S.A. where he would have hosted an attraction. It would have revolved around following the innovation of electrical technology over the different eras to benefit American life. This idea was scrapped but not forgotten.
The Carousel of Progress (or Progressland as it was originally called) was created for a sponsorship from General Electric to be featured in the 1964 New York World's Fair. The ideas for it were largely recycled from Edison Square with Wilbur K. Watt being transformed into the character of John; no longer explicitly a robot and rather made to be a convincing Audio-Animatronic replica of a human.
The Carousel of Progress would later be integrated into Tomorrowland at Disneyland in the Carousel Theatre for the New Tomorrowland integrations of 1967. In 1975, it was moved to Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World at the behest of ride sponsors, General Electric. Over the years as new scripts, scenes, and integrations have been implemented into it, John has changed voice actors multiple times.
Appearances[]
Carousel of Progress[]
John is the host of the Carousel of Progress and the main singer in its theme song, "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow". The show (literally) revolves around him and his family living in different eras of America and highlighting the progress in technology which came with each one. Throughout the show, he interacts with his family in different settings.
In the original Disneyland version, John and his wife, Sarah, narrated a pre-show that showed a model of Progress City, Walt Disney's Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
Other appearances[]
John his wife Sarah have made rare live appearances as face characters in the parks. In 2010, he and Sarah appeared at Main Street, U.S.A. where the two sang a medley of Sherman Brothers songs consisting of It's a Small World, Miracles From Molecules, Winnie the Pooh, The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers, The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room, One Little Spark, The Spectrum Song, and There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, even though Carousel of Progress no longer performs in Disneyland since 1973.[1]
Trivia[]
- John's face mold was also used in Epcot's Spaceship Earth for a minstrel character.