John

John, also known as Father is the main character of Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. He was originally voiced by Rex Allen and has also been voiced by Andrew Duggan and Jean Shepherd.

History[]

Background[]

John is the father of the family within Tomorrowland's Carousel Theatre. He is the husband of Sarah, and father to Jimmy and Patricia. John is also the owner of the family-dog, Rover. John has a love for technological progress for each era the family lives in, and is also the host of the, "Carousel of Progress" within the Carousel Theatre.

Development history[]

John's character was originally conceived as a robot, "Electro-Mechanical Man" named Wilbur K. Watt. He was intended for Edison Square, a planned Thomas Edison/electricity inspired expansion of Main Street, U.S.A.. This evolved into the character of John who hosted the Carousel of Progress at General Electric's pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair. This was later moved to Disneyland where in addition to the main show, while he and Sarah also hosted an exhibition of Walt Disney's Progress City model (which later became EPCOT).

Appearances[]

John and Sarah have made rare live-appearances together in the parks, often having robotic body-movements.^[1] In 2010, the two appeared on Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland, singing a medley of Sherman Brothers songs to honour the two, including: It's a Small World, Miracles from Molecules, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger's song, In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room, One Little Spark, the Spectrum Song, and there's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.^[2] John and Sarah appeared live at Disneyland After Dark: Throwback Night.^[3]^[4]

Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress[]

John is the host of this show.

Trivia[]

John will frequently aggrandize historic inventor Thomas Edison, despite Edison not being responsible for the inventions and instead having taken them from workers and rivals to patent under his own name. This is due to the attraction having been sponsored by Edison's company General Electric who profit off of romanticizing and revising Edison's history.
In 2022, the current-day version of John was given an apron which reads, "My Food Rocks". This is a tribute to defunct EPCOT attraction, Food Rocks.
John's face-mould is used in the EPCOT attraction Spaceship Earth to depict a lute-player.
- Incidentally, "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" plays in this attraction.
John mentioned selling the Carousel building to Sam the Eagle and Ollie the Owl at the Sherman Brothers tribute.
John is the only member of the Carousel family who directly acknowledges and interacts with the audience, or fully acknowledging the shifting time periods.
The newspaper which John holds in the turn-of-the-century sequence is dated to July 25, 1863 and is modelled after Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.^[5]