I only watched part of the Rose Parade, and happened to catch the Badger’s trippy prancing. Next came the LAUSD band, and it looked like they were trying to kill those poor children! How fast is the pace of that parade anyways? The horses are cantering at a healthy speed. The route is 4 1/2 miles, and I’m sure part of the time walking, then doing their routines. It can’t all be prancing. That could break an ankle.
Favorite Floats: Tiki Float by City of Downey, La Canada Flintridge’s piggies in a plane
Most Depressing Float: Organ Donors, with a giant clock to remind us that our lives are ticking away
Most Anticlimactic Moment: Can Dick Van Patton’s Pet Foods 100,000 pounds of float turn the corner?? Will the dogs surf? A bull dog stands awkwardly on a boogie board for a few minutes. That’s all you got for a record length float filled with and all that water? Well, move it along so the school children don’t have to run through the horseshit to catch up.
Most playful yet depressing float: Farmers Insurance won Best Animation for their Rube Goldberg Mousetrap float, but it was to remind us that the smallest mishap can lead to big disasters.
Float that made me go “Hunh?” A tribute to Ronald Reagan with the Jelly Belly logo all over it
Great piece & agreed on the highlights. The UW Badger Band was dang impressive to a former band dude. We could hardly step 1-2-3-4 in any direction but forward.
I happened to spot this in the Times, which explains that high stepping move, and the conditioning needed to do it, in gory detail. It reminds of that PBS movie about the Kodo drummers running ten miles a day so they could play properly. Nevertheless, it sure is a hot band.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0103-band-member-20120103,0,6146571,full.column
My friend was at the event and even videotaped the Badgers turning a corner by “Stair-stacking”. He said you could walk as fast as the floats; they weren’t going that fast.