Walt Disney's Disneyland Candlelight Processional with Howard Keel (1987)

The Disneyland Candlelight Processional began when Walt Disney looked upon the park from his apartment above the Firehouse on Main Street USA and decided that Disneyland needed to have Christmas Carolers. He asked Dr. Charles Hirt, a local college professor, to lead these carolers as they performed both throughout the park and at the Disneyland Bandstand. That Christmas several neighborhood choirs were invited to perform in the park at an event called the Disneyland Christmas Bowl that was held for many years -- each year bigger than the last.

By 1957 the Candlelight Processional had taken shape and while it had been held in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle that year, Walt decreed that it would always be held on Main Street USA from that point forward.

After being in charge of the pageantry of the 1960 Winter Olympics with which Walt had collaborated with Dr Hirt, the pair began planning on how to expand the Candlelight Processional event into an even larger affair. A living Christmas tree became part of the show and, in 1961, Disneyland began the tradition of asking celebrities to host the event. The first of these was actor Dennis Morgan who was honored with these duties for many years. Other celebrity hosts included Dick van Dyke, Gale Storm, John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, and others. Many of these people were Walt’s personal friends and when he or his family informally asked them to perform in this service, they always agreed. John Wayne even did so while battling a bad cold because he felt it was that important to host. It was understood that Christmas was a time to culturally honor the birth of Jesus Christ with holy reverence regardless of personal issues or political position.

After Walt Disney World opened in 1971, Dr. Hirt set up the Candlelight Processional there where he led it for many years. Rock Hudson was the first celebrity host for the Walt Disney World version of the ceremony and holds the record of hosting this service more than any other celebrity host. The show became so popular that eventually it was moved to EPCOT Center where it had a much larger venue, and more guests could see it. In this version there has usually been a different host each weekend from Thanksgiving through New Year's.

In 1986 the Disneyland Candlelight Processional was filmed and began airing on The Disney Channel in 1987. Actor Howard Keel hosts this event and had been the star of the Biblical film Walt and Roy co-funded and distributed in 1959, The Big Fisherman. In an interview Keel commented, “I’ve never been a very religious person, but when you stand up there for all of those people with that incredible chorus and orchestra beside you, it’s a wonderfully moving experience. In fact, I was so moved I could hardly speak.”

This version had already begun to be watered down from the Eisner era PC policies starting to creep in but is still a very powerful statement that this was once the Walt Disney Company. The broadcast also illustrates the Nativity Story with artwork going back centuries in this celebration of what Christmas is really all about.

This broadcast aired on the Disney Channel annually from 1987 until 1995 and often aired as their Christmas Eve midnight service and/or as their final Christmas special on Christmas day. After 1995 it never aired again.

The poem, One Solitary Life, had always be a part of the Candlelight Processional. It began as a sermon by James Allan Francis that he gave at a Los Angeles Convention to the Baptist’s Young People’s Union on July 11, 1926. The poem proved immensely popular and became a beloved Christmas staple as well-known as any hymn and featured in everything from The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular to Sonny & Cher’s Comedy Hour. President Reagan frequently read the poem to children from the White House as part of the Christmas festivities. This was a VERY well-known piece of American, Christian, and cultural history that’s become obscure in recent years. In 2012 the poem, One Solitary Life, which had always been a part of Walt Disney's Candlelight Processional, was removed along with many of the “more religious” Christian traditional hymns celebrating the birth of Christ. The Walt Disney Company claimed they were removed for “time,” but these had always been at the heart of the presentation, so we know what that really meant.

In the years afterward, references to the deity of Jesus Christ were also removed, emphasis placed on Jesus only being a mortal man of peace were substituted, and eventually Woke Disney inserted 1 Corinthians 15 known as the "Love Chapter" twisting it to be about affirming the rainbow jihad. The Candlelight Processional also often became a platform for the celebrity host to push their leftist agenda or rail about social justice and other typical leftwing nonsense instead of honoring the birth of Christ. Every time a change has been made, Woke Disney always claims these changes are only minor and troll those who object for "overreacting." Eventually the center was gutted out from the ceremony. This is clearly not the same service Walt Disney created.

Below are some further resources on the history of this event.

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List of Disneyland Hosts

Dennis Morgan (1961-1964)
Dick Van Dyke(1965) (Walt’s last Candlelight ceremony)
Dennis Morgan (1966)
Gregory Peck (1967 Saturday)
Dean Jones (Sunday)
Henry Fonda (1968, Saturday)
Rock Hudson (Sunday)
Gary Grant (1969)
Charlton Heston (1970 Saturday)
Dean Jones (Sunday)
John Wayne (1971)
Rock Hudson (1972)
Cary Grant (1973-1974)
Jimmy Stewart (1975)
Rock Hudson (1976)
Buddy Ebsen (1977 Saturday)
Ed Asner (Sunday)
Cary Grant (1978)
Elliot Gould (1979 Saturday)
Joseph Cotton (Sunday)
Michael Landon (1980)
Ed Asner (1981 Saturday)
Jason Robards (Sunday)
Pat and Shirley Boone (1982)
Darren McGavin (1983)
Joseph Campanella (1984)
Kevin Dobson (1985)
Craig T. Nelson (1986 Saturday)
Elliot Gould (Sunday)
Howard Keel (1986-1987)
Joseph Campanella (1988)
John Forsythe (1989)
James Earl Jones (1990)
Robert Urich (1991)
George Kennedy (1992)
Michael York (1993)
Peter Graves (1994)
David Ogden Stiers (1995)
Mary Hart (1996)
Joseph Campanella (1997)
Richard Crenna & Edward James Olmos (1998)
Olympia Dukakis (1999)

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List of Walt Disney World Hosts

Rock Hudson (1971)
Carey Grant (1972)
Rock Hudson (1973-1974)
Dean Jones (1975)
Joseph Campanella (1976)
Rock Hudson (1977)
Ross Martin (1978)
Perry Como (1979)
Rock Hudson (1980)
James Hampton & Darren McGavin (1981)
Pat & Shirley Boone (1982)
Joseph Campanella (1983)
Rock Hudson (1984)
Howard Keel (1985-1986)
Dean Jones (1987)
Walter Cronkite (1988)
McLean Stevenson (1989)
Joseph Campanella (1990)
George Kennedy (1991)
Paula Zahn (1992)
James Earl Jones (1993)

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List of EPCOT Center Hosts

1994 – Robert Guillaume, Robert Urich, Phylicia Rashad

1995 – Erik Estrada, Louis Gossett Jr., Peter Graves, Phylicia Rashad, Billy Dee Williams

1996 – Buzz Aldrin, Barbara Eden, Edward Asner, Louis Gossett Jr., Sandi Patty, Joseph Marcell, Tara Halland, David Ogden Stiers

1997 – Paula Zahn, George Kennedy, Mary Hart, Angie Dickenson, Louis Gossett Jr., Pat Morita, Robert Urich, Sandi Patty, Dr. Bobby Jones

1998 – Louis Gossett Jr., Art Garfunkel, Phylicia Rashad, Charles Kimbrough, Brian Dennehy, George Hamilton, James McDaniel, Joseph Marcel, Deidre Hall, George Kennedy, Nicole Johnson, David Ogden Stiers

1999 – Alfre Woodard, Charles Kimbrough, Angela Bassett, Brian Dennehy, Maria Conchita Alonso, James Avery, Edward James Olmos, James McDaniel, Andy Garcia, Sandi Patty, David Ogden Stiers, LeVar Burton

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One Solitary Life by James Allan Francis

He was born in an obscure village as the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.
Then for three years was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never owned a home.
He never had a family.
He never went to college.
He never put his foot inside a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but Himself.
He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His Divine Manhood.
While still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against Him.
His friends ran away.
One of them denied Him.
Another betrayed Him.
He was turned over to his enemies.
He went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed upon the cross between two thieves.
While he was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth and that was His coat.
When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the center of the human race and the leader of the column of progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as powerfully as has this One Solitary Life.

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Original airdate December 20, 1987

Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.