In 1924, the Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade started as a way of responding to the mayhem at midnight from children on the so-called mischief night. The whole concept of Halloween was different around 100 years ago as compared to today. Take the opinion of the co-organizer of the event, Kevin Kidney, for instance. As for Kidney, Halloween was not a holiday where families went trick-or-treating in Anaheim.
Kidney helped to bring the yearly festival back to Anaheim with a group of city volunteers and a woman named Jody Daily. As for Kidney, Halloween was more of a holiday in which children damaged fences and did fun stuff like soaking windows. Kidney said that people no longer do that kind of stuff on Halloween in Anaheim city.
Holding an annual parade with a party to curb Halloween pranks from children was not a one-of-a-kind idea. A city like Huntington Beach also saw similar efforts as it was no stranger to instances of mayhem and melees.
A Santa Ana Register post from October 23, 1924, found Boy Scouts the root cause of the seasonal tomfoolery in Anaheim. As per the article, Boy Scouts in Anaheim would be in no trouble for Halloween pranks, citing the Scout’s honor of scout band leader C. E. Morris. Two of those pranks entailed tearing down Anaheim gate posts and children running away with their wagons. Once, Morris stated that his three troop scout members promised that they would stop the standard kid stunts if they were offered a good Halloween party.
Kidney stated that those pranks on Halloween were a big issue. Therefore, a few of the stores in the neighborhood and the Anaheim City Council decided to transform that childhood energy into a more fun and productive event. Thus, they began the Anaheim Halloween Festival.
As per newspaper stories, the new Anaheim festival started in October 1924 with street dancing, two different parades, and a Halloween costume contest. Baseball stars Walter Johnson and Babe Ruth were part of one of those parades. Ruth and Johnson were in Anaheim for a charity baseball match on Halloween at Brea Bowl with famous pitcher Sam Crawford.
Eventually, the parade turned into the highlight of the yearly festival. Businesses in Anaheim sponsored and built floats that had to be 50% or more Halloween-themed. One of the fan favorites was the so-called Flying Sasser float from neighborhood children, which debuted around 70 years ago. It was an unidentified flying object put over a wagon with the head of a youngster that popped out of the top. The float Rocket Witch featured a witch from the space-age riding a big phallic rocket that pointed skyward.
The parade became a spectacle, so much so that the Los Angeles Times once considered it the nation’s biggest parade on Halloween. An edition of the parade from the 1960’s reportedly had 150,000 viewers, and it was televised on KTLA.
However, when Anaheim started experiencing never-seen-before urban growth, its small-town vibe started to wane. In the 1980’s, it seemed that the parade was likely to be a thing of the bygone times that would evoke nostalgia.
In 2013, Daily and Kidney got inspired to bring back the tradition. For your information, Daily and Kidney were Anaheim residents and Disney artists. They gathered community members and their artist colleagues to start building vintage floats. The float Rocket Witch with rockabilly songster Amber Foxx has been riding again thanks to Daily Kidney as well as a group of Anaheim volunteers.
Their contributions have allowed for the resurrection of the Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade. Kidney described it as a throwback to old-school Halloween, which people would remember from their grade-school days. Kidney described it as an event with a vintage look and feel.
The floats and art of this festival may be vintage-inspired but come with a contemporary twist. A recent edition of the event included Show Pigeon Tattoo artists, a retro slideshow from Charles Phoenix, and a rockabilly barbecue with local rockabilly legend Big Sandy. For your information, Phoenix is an author, chef, humorist and performer. He describes himself as the Ambassador of Americana.
As for co-organizer Kathy Couture, it kind of began as a small neighborhood group of volunteers. Couture stated that she and other volunteers love to spend time together and described it as the greatest thing about this parade. It occurs one day annually, but one can offer to do something freely for it 365 days per year.