I have forgotten who, but some comedian this week said the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade is where you can see all of the hit singers and TV performers from 2003. That about sums up the talent of those lip-synchers.
Shilling for the Broadway shows is typical, but it just seems so odd for a “parade” to have a scene from a musical. Don’t get me wrong - love the Broadway shows - but they sort of get heavy handed in the performance. Plus, my guess is they don’t exactly sing and tap dance anywhere else along the parade route and just wave, if that, to the people freezing their asses off on the street.
When I lived in NYC, I didn’t know a single person from Manhattan who ever went to the parade or to Times Square for New Years. I only saw a few minutes of the parade one year when a friend and I were trying to meet other friends for brunch, and couldn’t find a place to cross the street. We walked several blocks until we went underground through a subway entrance to get to the other side.
I believe that the Broadway performances are a separate entity from the parade. They do those numbers in front of Macys for the television cameras before the actual parade gets to that point. I’d be surprised to find out that the casts actually march along with the parade after they have finished their bit.
This was over 30 years ago, so I remember very few specifics. The one thing that comes to mind was that the kids were forbidden from renting mopeds, but two boys did and had them stolen at either gun- or knifepoint, and had to pay for them. There were also the expected hijinks WRT drugs and alcohol, most of it supplied by the chaperones. :rolleyes:
My mother went on that trip as a chaperone, and while she didn’t regret going, it wasn’t as fun a week as she thought it would be, and understood why I made the decision I did.
My brother and sister did go in later years, and said they had a good time.
Obviously you’re bringing the withering sarcasm, but just for the record: as far as I can tell, the parade had already used Superman and Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck balloons in the '30s; add Popeye and Mighty Mouse for the '50s before the '60s gave us the Sinclair Oil Dinosaur and Elsie the Cow and Linus the Lionhearted plus everyone from Underdog to Snoopy to Bullwinkle J Moose; by '77, it’s Hello Kitty and Kermit the Frog and a Weeble that wobbles but doesn’t fall down; and by '87, Garfield and Betty Boop were old news because Ronald McDonald and Snuggle Bear were in play.
(And that’s leaving aside how – also well before a quarter-century ago – they’d featured Rainbow Brite and He-Man and even Captain America and the Hulk.)
we had months of practicing complicated moves that we had to do while marching, did lots of fund-raising, got parents involved, even wrote and arranged new music. All for one day of strutting through horse apples (you’ve got a pattern to march-- you can’t step around them).
And… it was a blast! Forty years later we still reminisce about the weird things we did (like adding an impromptu horn section to the hotel’s Bad 70s Lounge Band) and the friendships that still persist.
Heck, the whole damn thing is just one long infomercial. It’s like the Home Shopping Network in parade form.
This year, I did happen to catch a little bit of it. I saw the “Kinky Boots” performance and thought to myself “Conservatives on going to be bitching about that one tomorrow.” And sure enough, the very next day there was an article about it in the Huffpo.
Ah, the mind-numbing parade… The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is one of those “traditions” my mother is the only one who keeps it going. And no one knows why.
But, if people think the MTDP is bad, you need to be in Philadelphia on New Year’s Day, and experience the bizarre tradition of the Mummers Day Parade.
I never knew it existed before I moved to the Philly area, and if you want to see a complete waste of time, energy and money and a complete inability to understand your fellow human beings who are either marching in this parade or watching it, I urge you to find a hotel room in the Philly area and watch it on cable.
You will never be the same.
My father in law and one of his daughters go every year, and pay big bucks to sit near the reviewers table (or whatever they call it). It will baffle me every year until I die (or until I slip into dementia and forget the damn thing,)
I love Love LOVE the Mummers! I grew up in Virginia and every year, my mother would wax rhapsodic about the Mummers. I wondered if anything could be as good as she described. Then, we moved to Philly. The Mummers were everything my mother said.
ETA
I’d throw a link to Youtube here, but I’m on dial up. Just go to Youtube and search for “Mummers Parade”. You may be delighted. You may be baffled. You will not be disappointed.
Well, you aren’t the only one who loves the Mummers. I just don’t get it. AT ALL. These people spend thousands of dollars every year on costumes, and they practice for the entire year on new routines and whatever. Half the people are in the bag (drunk), at least that’s what it seems like when they are interviewed.
I’m truly sorry that you were not only exposed to the Mummers, but it took. That means it will continue for at least one more generation.
I mean no offense, but this is one “parade” that truly escapes me. Both for those that march and for those that watch.
I won’t link to it. I can’t do that to my fellow dopers.
But people in New Orleans do the same thing for the Mardi Gras parades. Members of some of the krewes spend thousands each on those parades. (But then I never understood the appeal of joining a fraternity in college. The frat brothers paid to live in the house, labored hours in maintenance work and also hosted big parties. Meanwhile, independents like me could attend these parties for free and drink as much as we wanted. )
I don’t understand New Orleans parades either, but I cut them some slack because, well… It’s New Orleans! The party town of the USA. they can get drunk and do goofy things but at least they will show you their tits for a string of beads.
Mummers? I don’t know. They have clubs, and I can’t remember what the name is, but the head guy in the club has a title and it’s supposedly a big deal to be that guy. A big honor.
Wait. Are you suggesting that some of the dopers are Mummers? Say it ain’t so!
If there are Mummers out here, please identify yourselves, and start a thread called “Ask the Mummer!” I have a few questions for you, and i’m sure others do as well.
Make sure you tell us where the thread is, and/or post a link to it here…
When I was a kid growing up in New York, we went to the parade every Thanksgiving, and I always loved it. I stopped going in the early Eighties when my youngest brother reached a point where he no longer enjoyed it. I moved to Texas in 1986, and didn’t go to the paradeagain for decades.
I often go back to NY for Thanksgiving, and a few times, we’ve tried taking my son to the parade… but nowadays, it’s WAAAAAY more crowded than I ever remember it being as a kid! Even if you arrive early, it’s impossible to get anywhere near the street, which means my son can’t see anything except a few balloons. He’s generally gotten bored quickly, and we’ve ended up spending a few hours running around and climbing rocks in Central Park.
We DVRed it, which is the only way to make it watchable. Jeezus, how does one watch it in real time? Plug for NBC show, musical number, plug for NBC show, 20 seconds of a float, commercrial, musical number , plug for NBC show… on and on and on…
That is correct. NBC wants to show the actual start of the parade (Al Roker and whoever is actually in charge of the parade are at the start when the ribbon is cut (this year, by a robot - long story)), and they need to fill the time between the start and when the front of the parade reaches Macy’s with something. Usually, the last act before the parade itself is the Rockettes.
Aren’t most of the performers near the front of their floats, so they can be seen from both sides? Also, you don’t see the backs of the balloons, or the marching bands, or the floats (well, except when they move past Macy’s).
When you put it that way, who wants to stand at any other part of the parade route, where the singers aren’t performing?
