To borrow from Yogi Berra, the Rose Bowl Parade is too big, no one goes there any more. And I’m not saying this just because they turned down our Silliman on Sports float entry three years in a row.

    The Parade is too big. There are too many floats, too many networks broadcasting it, too many bands, too many horses doing their thing in front of the bands. The cost to park is too high, the number of people lining its five-and-a-half mile parade route is too many, and the fun is too much.
    The Parade is also too old. It has been going on since 1890 and every year they try to pick a grand marshal older than the parade and, every year, they fail. This year they thought they had it solved when they chose ancient actress Cloris Leachman but were floored to find out she was only 82. Others say Miss Leachman was chosen to serve as a reminiscence partner for Joe Paterno. Joe may be the only one who remembers Cloris as Miss Chicago in the Miss America Pageant of 1946. 

    When we say there are too many television networks broadcasting the parade, we’re not kidding. Just this year CBS decided they were no longer going to be part of the circus. “What do we have to offer if you can turn on any channel and find the parade?” said Chris Ender of CBS. The Tournament of Roses board counters the variety of networks brings a special expertise and a specific slant to the broadcast. For instance on HGTV, the cameras zoom in closely on the flower pedals so their garden wise audiences know exactly whether it is a perigynous flower or an epigynous flower. On their naughtier sister network, known as Playgarden, they went so far as to show the flowers’ ovaries and pistils. Possibly too titillating for most parade audiences, on the other hand, if a family wants to watch the parade with the kids, this channel will save dad the uncomfortable birds and bees speech.  The Travel Channel brings geography into the telecast. When the Anchorage Convention Bureau’s float: Celebrating Alaska – Spirit of the Wild came by, the Travel Channel announcers went right into the figures on the float: the polar bears, the caribou, the governor hiding behind a rock shooting at the caribou. CNBC and Bloomberg revealed the financial aspects of the Parade. If you watched the parade on CNBC you found out most floats cost between $ 200,000 and $ 500,000 to construct. They even took us through the shops of some of the Pasadena float fabricators. We learned the Jack-in-the-Box float was not only Jack-o-licious but cost a lot of jack. We learned the Bernie Madoff float was made up entirely of lettuce, curiously with Ben Franklin faces on it. We also learned that the Bernie Madoff float goes up in flames very quickly. How soon it ignited after the Hollywood community found out someone was constructing a Bernie Madoff float … is anyone’s guess.

    We told you the Parade board did again turn down our Silliman on Sports float. Our float submittals are always sports related and this year, since one of the teams in the Rose Bowl was USC, we were sure they’d okay our entry. We had OJ looking for the real killers… in a golf bunker, in the rough, next to the tee box. It would have been very tasteful because we were using a mix of carnations and red periwinkles to represent OJ’s bloody gloves.   

    The famous Broken Arrow Marching Band from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma made their first Rose Parade appearance. It cost their 255 members $ 380,000 to make this trip and participate. Participating right in front of the BAMB was an equestrian team of Clydesdales. Did we mention earlier that there might be too many bands and too many horses in front of the bands making it tough for visually impaired tuba players? Need we also mention this article wasn’t written as a form of sour grapes, just because our float submittal was rejected? Need we also mention there is another form of sour grapes, which when digested and processed by a team of Clydesdales in front of a marching tuba player is… when we can all agree the parade is too big.