Sad to see no outrage here about the dissing of the Star Wars fans (personified in the parade by the 501st) by Bob Eubanks. A lot of us had our special day wrecked by that dick. You can hate on the new flicks, but don't hate on us. :mad: I'll never be able to erase the sight of my son's sad and confused face when Mr. Eubanks made his STUPID remarks about SW geeks. GRRRRRRR!

Ya know, we were talking and gawking so much during that part that I didn't hear any of Bob's lame commentary.

The Star Wars section was majorly disappointing to me. I thought the two floats SUCKED, and the Stormtroopers, though I know they were drilled, couldn't march worth a damn ... even for the cameras. The contingent with the international flags was cool, though.

But one cool thing of five Star Wars elements was not good enough. And anytime I see George Lucas, I want to puke.


Otherwise, my assessment is exactly that of the O.P.'s. Yay, firebreathing dragons and jetpacks. Very good vegetation detail beauty work on the turtle float and the reptile float. The end. Meh.


No Stephanie? BAH!!!

He lost me when he was naming the planets and called Jupiter "Juniper". As if there's a big evergreen planet out there! :eek:

Then the woman that was with him pointed out that Anaheim had all these atraction. Disneyland, Anaheim Stadium, and of course, Knott's Berry Farm!

Not that I expect everyone to be perfect and not make any mistakes. God knows I'd make plenty.

And the marching band from Louisiana was cool! Jazzy, animated, and spelled out 2007 in formation!

Stop show stops! (dot com)

But seriously, I can understand a show stop to kick off the parade, though I would have preferred to actually HEAR Kristin Chenowith (stupid sound people), but beyond that, the show stops really need to, um, stop. This isn't the damn Macy's parade, whose floats have nothing more interesting about them so they have to do all the show stops to make it interesting. We've got our own thing going here with the flowers, why screw that up?

I knew Stephanie was in trouble when they had her on the street level last year, but I had no idea they'd get rid of her entirely this year! That totally blows, especially since Bob is such a dick.

I hope some other station picks Stephanie up. I'll watch them.

There was some debate at our viewing as to whether marching band formations constitute show stops.

Technically, I suppose the answer is Yes ... but seeing that formations are what bands do best (with pure marching their most boring function), I rather like seeing a few cool formations in the parade. To me, it's not the same as some float stopping while someone sings a song.

My peeve with stops is that there are people who do not get a good view of it. Formations do not look good to people sitting on the street. It's annoying enough when a band finishes a song just before they get to you and then just marches cadence past you.

This used to be a parade, and now it's a television show.

The first section of the parade is a huge set of bleachers, offering an aereal view of sorts, which perhaps can be seen to act as a sort of reviewing stand where certain things are done that are never again seen as part of the parade further along the route. I believe this is legitimate parade performance.

Certainly the vast majority of people who enjoy the parade do so via a television set, so yes there are some elements of a TV show present. However I can't agree that the entire parade is a TV show. When they change the name to the Viagra Tournament of Roses parade or reroute the parade to exclude that pesky bridge (which limits float size) then I'll be on board with you.

Which is ironic since parades make for awful television.

I wonder if they're doing these stops along the route. I had assumed as much but could be wrong.

Good point, though I'm worried those advances are not too far away now.

In your humble opinion. I have been watching the parade since I was very young and have always loved it, "boring" or not. I'm not going to chime in with all those above that say that most of the parade is boring. I love every bit of it, including the equestrian units. It may be that it's a comfort thing for me but I still say that the parade was entertaining in the early 80's and there's no reason it should have these lame changes.

Speaking of comfort - it's going to be hard to not watch KTLA next year, but I think I'll have to push through it. NA & € get HGTV, right?