Bryan Cranston and Jamie Lee Curtis will voice the father and mother in a reimagined version of Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress, Disney announced at its D23 Entertainment Showcase, setting a late spring 2027 reopening for the Magic Kingdom attraction that has run continuously longer than any stage show in American theater.
Host Neil Patrick Harris revealed the casting Saturday night at the Honda Center during the “Horizons: A Carousel of Progress” segment of the showcase. Curtis, whom Disney refers to as one of its official “Disney Legends,” and Cranston, an Emmy winner for “Breaking Bad,” take over roles built around Jean Shepherd’s decades-long run voicing the family patriarch, John. The attraction closed July 5 for what Disney is calling its most significant update in decades.
Carousel of Progress first opened as part of the General Electric Pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, one of four Disney-designed attractions there alongside “it’s a small world,” Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the Ford Magic Skyway. Walt Disney himself oversaw its design, built around a rotating theater that carries guests through scenes showing how technology reshaped an American family’s home across the decades. It moved to Disneyland after the fair closed and has run at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom since 1975, having already been revised five times, most recently in 1993.
The new version keeps the show’s Sherman brothers theme song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” but restructures its timeline, opening in the 1960s and pushing forward into the present day rather than stopping in the mid-1990s.
Disney released concept art of a newly added 1980s scene, showing the family’s living room decorated for Halloween. A new pre-show will feature an animatronic figure of Walt Disney, similar to one that recently debuted in the Disneyland theater housing Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Disney has not released additional casting, a full scene list or specific ticketing details ahead of the reopening.
