“Parades” that really aren’t…

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Fyrefox

Well-known Member
I love a parade, and as a marching band member in the long ago participated in my fair share of them. To me, parades involve bands marching, floats, and perhaps a few other groups representing this or that which move on the road before a viewing audience. Parades are a kinetic affair.

Trouble is, much of what is now represented on TV over holidays as a “parade” is more of a performance art spectacle where viewers see entertainers performing a show number at a grandstand than they do marching bands and all that should come with them. Good in its place, perhaps, but not to my definition an actual parade. Perhaps it’s just a kind of mislabeling, or an effort to placate an increasingly jaded audience with the singers and associated dancers which perform with them. Often such performances include a hot star of the moment.

A series of grandstand performances is not to me a parade, and shouldn’t be represented as such. Gimme those parades without singing stars where performers actually March!

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I enjoy the small town parades where they bring out the highway equipment, fire trucks, kids on bicycles, riding lawn mowers, the high school marching band, and a late model convertible to carry the local dairy princess.

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The major parades are televised now and apparently the viewing public would rather see some up-and-rising young country star singing or an ensemble from a Broadway play performing a number than THE MARCHING BUSYBEES OF BEEHIVE CONSOLIDATED HIGHSCHOOL ALL THE WAY FROM BEEHIVE, IOWA!!!

I'm with the rest of you. I like homemade floats, cub scout groups, screaming firetruck and the local unicycle stunt team.

By happenstance, we were in Wall, South Dakota (home of the famous Wall Drugs.....don't miss it unless you want to and then you'll still be fine....) and watched the high school homecoming parade. It consisted of the football team and cheerleaders seated on couches in the back of pickup trucks, the 12-piece marching band, the entire grade school marching and doing what they did best, which was apparently synchronized nose-picking, and a couple of tractors. Oh, and the obligatory firetruck, which had to leave halfway through the parade for a brush fire and two police cars in case a flash mob should break out. The entire county showed up.

The other great parade was the Mountain Mermaid Festival Parade in Marshall, NC. The parade proceeded down the 2-block "downtown", turned left and returned via an alley behind the buildings on the main street, where it rejoined itself and went by again. That proved so much fun, they did it a couple of times more.

I DO love a parade!
 
Fyrefox said:
much of what is now represented on TV over holidays as a “parade” is more of a performance art spectacle where viewers see entertainers performing a show number at a grandstand than they do marching bands
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I agree with you but it is the variation that appeals to me. You live in Pennsylvania - by any chance do you live in the Delaware Valley? Then, of course, you know about the annual Mummer's Parade. It is unique to Philadelphia (and environs) and is something I look forward to watching every year. It is more about performance rather than marching bands, beautiful cheerleaders with pennants and twirlers, and politicians plying their VOTE FOR ME banners.

For those who do not know who the Mummers are, please log on to youtube for its many videos on the subject. The Parade usually presented on Phl17 online which is a local news media outlet.


https://parade.com/1308577/jessicasager/mummers-parade/
 
We used to have the Queen Kumquat Sashay here in Orlando.

Anybody who wanted to be in it just showed up at the starting line. The only requirement was that your group had to be non-traditional and, preferably, in somewhat-questionable taste.

Great favorites were "Captain Eola and the Marching Transients" (a shopping cart drill team), the Tora Tora Tora precision lawnmower ensemble group, and the Legal Briefs, attorneys dressed in their finest boxer shorts, twirling briefcases.

Spectators were handed baskets of kumquats and encouraged to pelt the parade participants with them.
 
oldiebutgoody said:
I agree with you but it is the variation that appeals to me. You live in Pennsylvania - by any chance do you live in the Delaware Valley? Then, of course, you know about the annual Mummer's Parade. It is unique to Philadelphia (and environs) and is something I look forward to watching every year. It is more about performance rather than marching bands, beautiful cheerleaders with pennants and twirlers, and politicians plying their VOTE FOR ME banners.

For those who do not know who the Mummers are, please log on to youtube for its many videos on the subject. The Parade usually presented on Phl17 online which is a local news media outlet.


https://parade.com/1308577/jessicasager/mummers-parade/
Click to expand...
Yes, the Mummers Parade is a bit “out there,” but truly unique! I can barely restrain the urge to put on a feathered headdress, sequined suit, and makeup while strutting down Main Street playing a banjo! Of course, in south central Pennsylvania, I’d be shot or committed for doing that, so I refrain… 😸

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Fyrefox said:
Mummers Parade is a bit “out there,”
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A couple of years ago I did a google search on "drunk Mummers". Funniest collection of photos I've ever seen in my life. I won't be more specific as to what appeared as it may be deemed offensive. Just did another such search and the photos that now appear are tame by comparison.
 

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