This may make me a total dork, but my favorite part about New Year’s Day is getting up and watching the Rose Parade in my pajamas. I’m really not interested in the Rose Bowl itself at all – in fact, I think I’m swearing off football in 2010 following my painful Fantasy Football loss to Jason Plautz this week. If you’ll be getting up to watch the Petal Parade, here are a few fun facts you can use to impress whomever you’re watching it with.
1. If you’ve ever wondered how many flowers it takes to decorate one float, the simple answer is: a lot. Exactly how many depends on the size of the float, but to give you an idea, it takes about 20 daisies, 30 roses or 36 marigolds to cover just one square foot. All of the floats together take approximately 18 million flowers.
2. You’ve probably noticed that buds and flowers don’t cover the entire float. That’s because certain other organic materials such as bark, seeds, spices, pods and leaves are perfectly acceptable. Living or dead material is also fine – if a decorator sees fit to use dead roses, that’s totally within the limits of the rules.
3. Live near the parade route but didn’t make it down there? Don’t worry – you still have a chance to see the floral beauties up close. For three days, people can pay admission to check out the floats at rest. But since they are made of flowers, it’s probably best to not wait until the third day – you won’t get the full experience due to wilting.
4. The floats can get quite complicated. Past engineering feats have included small working roller coasters, a car transforming into a spaceship, and a working water slide.
5. The Grand Marshal this year is Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. He’s joining a very elite group – past Marshals have included Mr. Rogers, George Lucas, Jimmy Stewart, Pele, Bob Hope, Charles M. Schulz, Shirley Temple Black, Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse, both Roy and Walt Disney, Mark Pickford, Carol Burnett, and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Mr. Schulz drew a Peanuts cartoon to commemorate his turn as the Marshal, in fact:
6. Choosing a Rose Queen and her court has been a tradition for more than 90 years. With more than 90 Queens, you can bet that a few of them have gone on to bigger and better things. To date, Fay Lanphier (Rose Queen 1925) is the only person to be Miss America and the Rose Queen at the same time. The year before that she was Miss California. In 2000, One Tree Hill actress Sophia Bush held the Rose Queen title – that’s Sophia in the picture with her court. By the way, if you have time, I highly recommend perusing the gallery of past queens – some of the fashions are amazing (amazingly gorgeous AND amazingly awful. The ‘80s were not kind to most of us).
7. Speaking of Queens, today’s reigning royalty have it a lot easier than gals did back in the day – the first couple of girls elected Queen not only had to sew their own dresses for the big event, they also had to make their own floats!
8. When New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday, you’re going to have to wait until January 2nd to see the parade. Why? Well, back when the “floats” were really carriages festooned with flowers, officials refused to hold the parade on Sundays because the noise spooked the horses people used to get to church. Not many people are tethering horses outside of church these days, but it’s tradition.
9. The Tournament of Roses Parade was originally named The Battle of the Flowers. It changed early on when the founder of the event decided he liked the ring of “Tournament” more.
10. Marching bands are chosen two years in advance – so although it’s the 2010 Rose Parade in a couple of days, the groups that will be going in 2011 are already looking forward to it. The selection process is done that early so bands have time to raise funds to get themselves to California.
Has anyone ever been to the Rose Parade, either as a spectator or a participant? Share your experience in the comments, and I’ll think of you Friday morning while I’m drinking my latte on the couch.
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I was there the year Disney was about to add the Tower of Terror to its California Adventure park in Anaheim. Their float was a 100-foot tall floral replica with a sparking elevator that “worked” by breaking and dropping the float riders: http://frysingerreunion.org/1/us/rose120.jpg
I feel so sorry for the floats/bands that had to march in front of Disney–we were all so impressed by the mammoth Tower that we just ignored them!
posted by ESJ on 12-30-2009 at 5:23 pm
I worked on floats for about two years. It was a super cool experience. The only downside was working with glue and seeds left a gross mixture on my hands.
posted by Lindsey E. on 12-30-2009 at 6:03 pm
I lived in a little community called El Sereno right by Pasadena growing up and my dad used to take me to a Thrifty’s (its called Rite-Aid now) that was right by where some of the floats were built. It was awesome seeing the floats being constructed especially since we kinda had to sneak around to do it! :) I loved getting Thrifty’s sherbert ice cream and then walking over to see the floats. We also went once to see them after the parade but traffic was absolutely ridiculous so we couldn’t. I love the parade and now that we live in Arizona its family tradition to get up and watch it no matter how tired (or hung over!) you are. Happy 2010!!!!
Speaking of being hungover-ReCaptcha: about vermouth… well? What about it? ;)
posted by KillerQueen11 on 12-30-2009 at 7:14 pm
I grew up near Pasadena too, and spent about 10 yrs. of my youth decorating floats. It was a blast going to the parade and telling everyone which part of the float you decorated. I also spent the night with college friends on Colorado Blvd. and watched the parade from the front row. Those were wonderful memories.
posted by Steve D. on 12-30-2009 at 8:09 pm
I marched in the parade with my high school marching band in 2003. It was a long parade and you couldn’t dodge around the horse poop because we had to maintain ranks. My high school is actually marching in it again this year.
posted by Nancy on 12-30-2009 at 9:11 pm
Why does it take less daisies than roses to cover a sq foot?
posted by Bakedpotatoes on 12-31-2009 at 12:12 am
I was a participant in the 110th (1999) Rose Parade as a member of the Alexis I. duPont High School Tiger Marching Band, which, at five appearances, has been in the parade the most times for any high school band outside of California.
posted by Curtis on 12-31-2009 at 12:41 am
Regarding #9 above, The Battle of Flowers Parade is a HUGE annual tradition in San Antonio & it’s the basis of our weeklong, city wide Fiesta celebration. From the official Battle of Flowers website linked in my name, “…on April 21 in memory of the fallen heroes at the Alamo and to commemorate the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836, where Texas had gained its independence from Mexico.” From what I can tell, both parades started in the early 1900′s, so it’s hard to say which was the first real Battle of the Flowers Parade.
posted by Christi on 12-31-2009 at 12:54 am
We used to go when I was a kid. We’d get up early, drive to Pasadena, find a parking spot and then sit on the curb waiting for the parade to finally start. I was 9 or 10 the first time I went, and remember running out to pick up flowers that dropped off the floats to put in my scrapbook. It’s truly amazing in person, and hope to take my own children at least once, but this isn’t the year for us (though the weather is going to be great!)
posted by shirleyfeeney on 12-31-2009 at 1:09 am
San Antonio, Texas has a Battle of Flowers Parade during it’s Fiesta Week Celebration.
posted by gus on 12-31-2009 at 6:07 am
I was in the Parade in 2002 as part of the University of Oklahoma marching band, the only year the Sooners played in the Rose Bowl (and won!). As I recall, the parade route was about 7 miles long, and we were completely exhausted by the end. But it was a wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience!
My parents traveled out to CA to sit in the grandstands and watch, and they got the entire section around them to yell out my name as we marched by. It was very sweet.
posted by Erin on 12-31-2009 at 8:10 am
@Erin
BOOMER SOONER!
posted by OkieMelissa on 12-31-2009 at 10:36 am
we went in 83. 10 of us Drove to the Parade route the night before from Fullerton in my grandparents motorhome. We were parked facing the street and sat on top to watch the parade.
posted by Lewen on 12-31-2009 at 10:42 am
It was neglected in the above article that the pictures of the beauty queens include props and poses…Amazing. :)
posted by OkieMelissa on 12-31-2009 at 10:48 am
I went a couple times in the 80′s and the night before is also entertaining with all kinds of characters cruising up and down the parade route. Also it is hard to buy flowers in soutthern California near the end of the year because the parade uses them all up.
posted by Steve M. on 12-31-2009 at 1:38 pm
I was a participant in the 1998 TofR Parade. I was in the TofR Band that follows the queen. The things I remember were that I almost got sick smelling the diesel fumes from all the busses at the staging area. I also nearly threw up into my tuba mouthpiece shortly after we started marching toward Colorado Blvd. There was a lot of horse poop on the ground and the area where we were walking had trees that created a canopy over the road that kept the smell from dissapating. The route was a long way to walk, and it ended up being around 80 degrees that year. It was a fun experience.
posted by Scott on 12-31-2009 at 7:22 pm
I feel sorry for the 1972 court, in those Century 21 suits!
posted by Karen In Japan on 1-1-2010 at 5:09 am
how many horses are in the tournament of roses parade?
posted by MeggieRob on 1-1-2010 at 3:21 pm
Another fun thing about the rose court is that anyone in the pasadena area can try out for it, and when you do you get tickets to the “rose ball” (or maybe it was “royal ball,” I forget). I had many friends who didn’t go to the same high school as I did, so we all tried out for the rose court in order to get those tickets and go to a dance together. It was really fun! This was about a decade ago so I’m not sure whether they still do it or not, but I loved it (aside from the whole beauty pageant-ish-ness of it all…).
posted by Amanda on 1-1-2010 at 8:25 pm
I grew up in Pasadena and have been to at least 15 Rose Parades. When I was younger I would spend the night on Colorado Blvd with friends and family then we would end up sleeping during the parade because we had been up all night. One memory I have is when a high school band came, obviously not knowing what they were getting into. They were all dressed like Dutch Milk Maids, at least the girls were, with pig tail braided hair and all. The way we all knew they weren’t from around was that they were all wearing clogs. Real ones, actually made out of wood. Clearly they had no idea how long that parade is. When they passed me only a mile or two into it they were already having trouble walking. I can only imagine the blisters by the end. You could always tell when bands were form out of state. Sometimes they were dressed in winter cloths, heavy jackets and hats I guess they don’t check the weather report and realize that it’s not uncommon to reach 80 plus in LA that time of year. Then there was the year one of the floats was of the Statue of Liberty. It was mechanized so the arm would lower under the power lines. Someone missed one though and the arm was broken off.
posted by chris on 1-2-2010 at 1:22 am
I marched last year in the Bands Of America Honor Band. It was wonderful. Those who saw the parade last year would remember us because we marched with all of the Sesame Street Floats. We got to pin some flowers onto floats and got to see the floats up close before the parade. It truly was an unforgettable experience, plus In-and-out burger after the parade!
posted by Rob on 1-2-2010 at 2:30 am
Dirty Jobs once went to dismantle the floats. It was a pretty rainy year, 2 or 3 years ago, so you can only imagine whan the floats were like by the time Rowe got to them. Do not watch it you ever want to watch the parade the same again.
posted by Laurel on 1-2-2010 at 8:20 pm
There is an excellent episode of Dirty Jobs in which Mike Rowe joins the crew that takes the floats apart – several days after the parade when some of the plant material has begun to rot and grow mold.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 1-2-2010 at 8:20 pm
During my last year of college I lived in Monrovia, a neighboring city of Pasadena. My husband (then fiance) and I spent New Year Eve on Colorado Blvd. and came back the next morning to watch the parade, and we had a great time! We look forward to watching the parade every year and I am glad that I could find it streaming live on KTLA, since we no longer live in California.
posted by salemthegoddess on 1-3-2010 at 11:49 am