Created by Walt Disney and WED Enterprises as the prime feature of the General Electric (GE) Pavilion for the 1964 New York World's Fair, the attraction was moved to Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, California as Carousel of Progress, and remained there from 1967 until 1973.

Steeped in both nostalgia and futurism, the attraction's premise is an exploration of the joys of living through the advent of electricity and other technological advances during the 20th century via a "typical" American family.

The father of the family, John, is sitting on a wooden rocking chair in his home, his dog, Rover, lying on the floor.

The two discuss how Thomas Edison is working on an idea for "snap-on electric lights", to which Sarah comments "no more kerosene, no more gas" will be needed to illuminate rooms.

John's attention is then drawn to a room on the right, where his daughter, Patricia, is getting ready to go to a Valentine’s Day dance on the other side of town.

He proceeds to tell guests the new accomplishments of the era, such as Charles Lindbergh about to fly over the Atlantic Ocean, sports stadiums being built all over the United States, regarding Babe Ruth as the country's best baseball player, advertisements for a film, where Al Jolson will talk and sing, electric starters replacing cranks in automobiles, and travel time from New York to California in three days.

Jimmy then appears with his grandfather in the left room, dressed in a colonial outfit and standing next to a radio, which is playing patriotic music.

John then mentions the house now has indoor plumbing which is great for cold days, especially for Uncle Orville, who is shown sitting in a bathtub on the left side of the stage.

John informs guests that he has set up an air cooling system next to the bathtub, with a fan sitting in front of a block of ice, blowing on him.

A now-young-adult Jim and his grandmother are playing a virtual reality game while a 20-something Trish and her grandfather sit around the Christmas tree.

John comments that all of the household items are now voice-automated, and Sarah demonstrates this by requesting that the Christmas tree lights be brightened.

Between Trish and her grandfather, new technologies have arisen such as car phones, laser discs, high-def TVs, and automated plumbing.

When the grandmother gets a high score of 975, John repeats the number out loud in front of the oven, unintentionally causing it to overheat and begin to smoke and blare warning noises before opening the door to show a severely burned and blackened turkey.

General Electric approached Walt Disney to develop a show for the company's pavilion at the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair.

Reaching back to the Edison Square concept, he again pitched the idea of an electrical progress show to GE executives, who loved it.

Singing cowboy Rex Allen[4] was tapped to voice Father, the host and narrator that replaced the original "Wilbur K. Watt" character.

When he explained what the show was about, they decided to write a song based on Disney's enthusiasm, titled "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow".

For the Fair's 1965 season, a massive covered queue was constructed next to the pavilion on an empty lot to protect visitors from New York's hot summer sun.

[5] At the end of the Carousel show, fairgoers were invited to walk up to the second floor of the pavilion and see the General Electric "Skydome Spectacular".

The "Skydome Spectacular" projected images of nature and energy into the domed roof of the GE pavilion, similar to a planetarium.

At the end of the Spectacular, in the first demonstration of controlled thermonuclear fusion to be witnessed by a large general audience, a magnetic field squeezed a plasma of deuterium gas for a few millionths of a second at a temperature of 20 million degrees Fahrenheit.

Due to the success of the attractions Disney created for the Fair, General Electric agreed to sponsor the Carousel of Progress at Disneyland as well.

After the show, guests boarded an inclined moving walkway to the building's second level, where a 4-minute post-show, narrated by Mother and Father (with a few barks and growls from their dog) coincided with a view of an enormous animated model of Progress City, based on Walt Disney's original concept for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) and the Walt Disney World property.

Innoventions, a version of the popular Epcot attraction of the same name, opened there with the New Tomorrowland in 1998, using a stylized rendition of "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" as its theme song.

[6] Carousel of Progress opened in the Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland on January 15, 1975, alongside Space Mountain, under a 10-year sponsorship contract with General Electric.

The old screens had stretched from one wall to the other, with the giant GE logo in the center, and lit up in various colors and patterns like a kaleidoscope as the orchestral version of "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" played.

Various problems plagued the screens after 1973, so a set of generic silver curtains with colored lights shining on the GE logo took their place in both the load and unload theaters.

This display is located on the left side of the PeopleMover track inside the north show building which formerly housed Stitch's Great Escape!

A new voice cast was hired, with American writer, raconteur and radio personality Jean Shepherd as John, the family's father, as well as the ride's narrator.

The soundtrack was also released as part of the 5-disc CD set Walt Disney and the 1964 World's Fair released on March 24, 2009, which includes instrumental versions of "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" representing different eras of progress, and an early "Alternate Universe" version of the complete show.