underdogwood

A family errand kept me from napping yesterday. I was very tired and almost didn't bother going to see the Dogwood Arts Festival Parade. Besides, the parade is usually televised, right? Well, not this year but more on that later. My trip downtown was made completely worthwhile when I saw a certain gigantic nose rounding the corner onto Gay Street (not a euphemism).



Right there, behind The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club was a copy of my favorite parade balloon ever. What a surprise! Not plane nor bird nor even frog. It was none other than Underdog!



When the a bad weather forecast caused the rescheduling of the parade to last night, it pushed the event into the May television sweeps period. WVLT couldn't clear the inventory to broadcast the parade. They aired their regularly scheduled programming instead. Only Dino Cartwright, the station's promotion director, was there to announce the parade entries as they passed the reviewing stand. The April 11th parade was supposed to last an hour. Tonight's event was over in half that time. I suspect that several groups couldn't make it on the new date. The News Sentinel says that only four of the ten originally scheduled bands showed up.

Across the street from where I was, Brittany Bailey from WBIR was operating her own small camera. I guess her report on the parade is an example of the "one-man band" or "backpack journalism" we've been hearing about.

By definition a parade means road closures. My wife needed to get to the Tennessee Theatre for the second performance of the Berlioz Requiem. My son and I rode with her, which got us downtown early for the parade and the concert. Shortly after we found our spot along the parade route, a guy with a protest sign sat down next to us. He was protesting some judge over some issue related to somebody's divorce. He tried telling me about it but I couldn't make out most of what he was saying. It was like listening to Boomhauer. A festival official came over and told him that he couldn't be there. He replied "free speech." Unable to dispute that fundamental right, the parade marshal changed her tack. In rapid succession she told him that the parade wouldn't be televised, that the specific judge wouldn't be there, that it was an event for children and that this wasn't the appropriate place for his protest sign. He correctly replied that it was a public space. They left him alone after that.

Underdog wasn't the only balloon in the parade. Like last year, there was a big pink dogwood blossom. Curious George got a hole in his hand from dragging his knuckles on the street. A wind gust blew him very close to my camera which left me with a weird shot of his mouth.

sure as heckfire

This is an actual conversation that took place while waiting for the light to change at the intersection of Walnut Street and Summit Hill Drive tonight. My son and I were driving home from the Dogwood Arts Festival Parade. I looked out the window at the driver in the next lane and said:

"Phil! Phil Williams..."

"Yeah?"

"It's Frank... Frank Murphy."

"I didn't even remember recognize you! Who's driving your car?"

"That's my son."

"He's not supposed to be that old."

I'll admit I was a little surprised, even if there is a logical explanation. By the way, my parade coverage is postponed until tomorrow. I need to sleep.

little lambs eat ivy

Thursday nights mean big crowds downtown. My wife sings with the Knoxville Choral Society and didn't want to be late for their performance with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra tonight. The show didn't start until 8:00 but we pulled into the State Street garage at 6:00. There was still plenty of time to walk to Market Square and get a big salad at Trio. Meanwhile, outside the restaurant, people were arriving for Smokedown Sundown in the City. Because Sundown is an open air event, the smokers come out in droves.

While we got to the Tennessee Theatre with plenty of time to spare, several audience members and two violinists took their seats well after the concert started. Tonight and tomorrow night the Symphony is presenting the "Requiem" by Berlioz. It basically follows the format of a Catholic funeral Mass. In fact, the piece was commissioned for a state funeral in Paris in 1837.

I was impressed that there was too much music for the stage to contain. The KSO brought in musicians from surrounding areas on a "per-service" basis. In addition to several extra tympani players, there were about 140 members of the Knoxville Choral Society (including my lovely wife) packed onto six rows of risers. A soloist named Andrew Skoog had a chair near Maestro Lucas Richman. Best of all, there were four brass choirs surrounding the audience, two on either side of the stage and two more in the back of the auditorium. Horns, trombones and tubas in the four corners of the theatre created a great surround sound effect.

The Berlioz Requiem will be performed again on Friday night. My wife will have to get there early because of the rescheduled Dogwood Arts Parade that runs right past the Tennessee Theatre starting at 7:00 p.m.

in this world the headlines read

The Giants were trailing 7-3 in the Super Bowl last night. Their defense was playing well but the offense had only managed one field goal. As I said I would the other day, I got into a New York state of mind by enjoying a Mallomar during the game. Shortly thereafter the Giants scored a touchdown. New England came back to take the lead again and it looked like they might actually achieve the 19-0 record we've heard so much about. When Eli Manning avoided that sack and threw the ball to David Tyree, it occurred to me to have a second Mallomar. Sure enough, the Giants responded with the game winning touchdown.

My mother and her siblings all grew up in the Bronx. They were exchanging emails all weekend as they make plans for Grandma's birthday party this Spring. All of their messages ended with the words "Go Giants!" The biggest Giants fan in our family was my dad. He even sent me to the same Catholic school as some of the Mara kids. Wellington Mara is buried in the same cemetery as several of my relatives. Within minutes of the game's end, people had posted congratulatory notes on Mara's page at FindAGrave.com.

Meanwhile my wife and the rest of the Redskins fans in our family happily recall that both previous Super Bowl wins by the Giants were followed by Redskins wins.

My favorite Super Bowl commercial has been getting favorable reviews. It featured computer generated images of balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The greatest balloon of all time, Underdog fought for a Coca-Cola bottle with Stewie from "Family Guy." To my knowledge, there has never been a Stewie balloon in the parade. Do you think there will be one in the future? I'm not sure that I want to see him there. Although Underdog clearly deserved the soda, Charlie Brown rises up over Central Park and gets the bottle instead. Good grief!

big rose, small thorn

Four networks offered high definition broadcasts of the Rose Parade this morning. Two of those were commercial free. In Los Angeles, almost everyone watches the parade on KTLA with Bob Eubanks and Michaela Pereira. The rest of us could watch KTLA's coverage on either the HD Theater channel or in SD on the Travel Channel but with commercials.

Last year I wrote that I wouldn't be disappointed if Eubanks retired from covering the parade. He seemed a little better this year than last but I didn't care for the way he used his deep announcer voice to drag out the last syllable of many words. It sounded like "Wells Fargoooo" and "pinata dot commmm." As the Trader Joe's float passed by, Bob said, "I'm always amazed how these designers come up with these new ideas year after year after year." Of course he is. He can barely come up with new sentences year after year. I got a strong feeling of déjà vu while Bob was talking about the equestrian units.

Every time I flipped over to ABC, I heard the announcers remind each other that every part of the floats are covered with organic material. Yeah, we get it. Other than that, their coverage was pretty good. They had a decent camera position and their HD broadcast looked fine. NBC's picture looked nice too. I liked their coverage better last year when Billy Bush filled in for Al Roker.

The best of all the broadcasts turned out to be on HGTV. They had the first camera position along the parade route. Their picture quality was superior. I heard surround sound and stereo separation as the marching bands played. The announcing team of Robb Weller, Paul James and Jann Carl did a good job, without being annoying. My one frustration with HGTV was when they put the marching bands into a small box while most of the screen was filled with a promo for an upcoming show. The band sound was turned down during the promo too, which was a waste of their excellent microphone placement. If they need to run their promos again next year, they should only air them when an equestrian unit passes by.

Did you watch the parade? On which channel? Did you see the City of Burbank float? Isn't Emeril Lagasse starting to look like Jackie Gleason? Aren't you glad the Stanley Cup was exempt from being covered in organic material? Did you see any of that outdoor hockey game in Buffalo today? Oh c'mon. I know you were watching the Vols. I recorded the parade so I could flip over to the game.

will it float?

Maybe it was the amazing HD picture that helped me be less critical of NBC's coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade than in years past. This morning I decided that Meredith Vieira has a warmth and a sincerity in her voice that makes her better at reading the Macy's approved script than Katie Couric. In 2005, I was less than enthusiastic about the Katie and Matt Lauer combination. The cheese factor increased today once Al Roker joined Meredith and Matt at the table. Voiceover announcer Joel Godard's pronunciation of "Menudo" was oddly entertaining every time he attempted it.

In 2006, I focused on CBS's coverage. This year I am too frustrated to deal with them because Hannah Storm still doesn't know the difference between a parade float and a balloon. Hannah might have been a little embarrassed when Hannah Jr. used her whole palm to wipe her nose on live TV. Dave Price was definitely embarrassed when he said that Tom Osborne had coached Oklahoma and when he said "you're watching The Early Show... no you're not, you're watching the Thanksgiving Day parade!"

The Ooltewah High School Marching Band dressed in clown costumes and played a medley that included a little bit of music from "Big Top Pee-wee." They finished their performance and started playing "Rocky Top" as NBC moved on to the Ronald McDonald balloon. From the aerial view, Ronald's hair looked more like his brain. The Ooltewah band posted their itinerary online. The students had to wake up at 1:30 this morning, get on their bus by 2:30 and line up for rehearsal at 3:00 a.m.

One of the foot-juggling Huesca Brothers almost neutered his sibling on live TV. One brother was on his back, feet in the air. The other brother was supposed to plant his soles on his brother's. He missed.

Matt Lauer said that the girl on the Care Bears float was "one of rock's foremost vocalists, Kay Hanley." That impressive descriptor didn't help me at all. Besides, she looked too young. Matt might have mentioned that Kay was in the band Letters to Cleo and that she's 39.

You can vote for your favorite float or balloon at ivillage.com, assuming you know the difference.

appetizers

It took some searching to find two articles about the test flight of the balloons that will make their debut in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday. WNBC's story includes video. The Herald News wrote about a New Jersey woman becoming a balloon handler.

While looking for news about the new balloons, I found a story about some of my favorite old balloons. The widow of a Goodyear balloon designer loaned photos of his creations for a display at the library in Akron. Naturally I liked the Underdog photo best.

Don't forget that "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is on ABC tomorrow night. I'll probably record it for my wife, just like I did last month with "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" even though she hasn't had time to watch it yet.

In addition to everything else she does, my wife had a Martha Stewart moment today. She made some turkey-shaped place card holders out of pipe cleaners and Ferrero Rondnoir dark chocolates.

banter wait

A couple of my favorite topics turned up in the entertainment news today. Matt Lauer reassured reporters that the writers strike will not affect NBC's coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Every year, he and Meredith Vieira are saddled with a hackneyed script. They say it will be written by non-union writers. They could have just as easily arranged for the script to have been written months ago, well before the strike began.

Jimmy Kimmel ends his show each night with a tongue-in-cheek apology to Matt Damon. Now that Matt has been chosen as the Sexiest Man Alive, People Magazine asked Jimmy what he would have done had he been chosen instead. I'll bet the magazine is second guessing their decision.

I also read that NBC will be auctioning off some props from "The Office" and "30 Rock," both of which were very funny tonight. Let me know if "The Office" was just as funny for those of you who haven't already given several depositions.

methods of inflation

Thanksgiving is only two weeks away! Over the years the things I have loved most about the holiday are: watching the parade, eating and having the next day off. I get two out of three again this year.

Today we received a See's Candies holiday catalog in the mail that barely mentioned Christmas. Instead it was pushing Thanksgiving chocolates. As I ate my salad at dinner, I pored over that catalog like other men look at a Playboy centerfold. I was fascinated by the two page spread with cross sections of the various confections. I saw some old favorites like the Scotchmallow and some that were new to me like the Apple Pie truffle.

It's about the time each year when I start to wonder which new balloons will fly in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The information was a little harder to find than I had anticipated. My friend Bean will be happy to know that Hello Kitty will be taking flight. The other new helium-filled characters are Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street and Shrek. There will also be a balloon version of a modern art sculpture called Rabbit by Jeff Koons. The original sculpture looks like a Mylar balloon. It might be considered a sequel to an earlier metal sculpture called Balloon Dog.

I wonder if either NBC or CBS shows the parade in HD. If so, it gives me yet another reason to love Thanksgiving.

hot air and helium

Attendance was light at today's Dogwood Arts Festival Parade, probably due to threatening weather. Except for a little bit of drizzle, the rain held off until after the parade. After seeing Mayor Haslam and his wife, we walked down Gay Street toward the cameras from WVLT's secondary channel, myVLT2.



The crowd's enthusiasm grew when the National Champion Lady Vols rode past. My enthusiasm grew when the Tennessee Traveler SUV rode past. Gordon Boyd was at the wheel with Chef Walter riding shotgun. My camera was pointed at Stacy McCloud.



The backs of Alan Williams and Kelli Parker can be seen across the street behind the Knoxville Zoo float. Seeing local TV news people and giant balloons made the trip downtown worth my while.



I photographed the Garfield and Friends balloon at the intersection of Gay and Union. (Knoxville also has an intersection of Church and State.) The parade ended with a green serpent balloon. I'm pretty sure the PA announcer called it Cecil, as in "Beany & Cecil."



Three years ago, I thought being in the Dogwood Parade would be good publicity for Einstein Simplified's tenth anniversary. We paid the entry fee and got permission from the city to ride in their REO truck. We had signs made for the truck and rented two bullhorns so we could yell at the spectators, which turned out to be a lot of fun. My hopes of being on TV were dashed when they had us roll past the cameras during a commercial break.

nice to have you back where you belong

Some out-of-town relatives will be arriving late tonight for a family celebration this weekend. We'll probably spend most of the time at home but if any of our house guests are looking for something to do while in East Tennessee, there are plenty of choices this weekend.

The Mystery Mine officially opens at Dollywood tomorrow, which is Friday the 13th. Dolly Parton herself will be on the premises to do a satellite TV interview with "Fox & Friends." For fans of musical theatre, a touring company of "Hairspray" is at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium. A show Saturday at the World Grotto called "Night of 1,000 Dollies" will combine aspects of the two with a DP drag show assuming it doesn't get shut down by Dollywood's lawyers.

Of all the events this weekend, the one I'm most likely to try to attend is the Dogwood Arts Festival Parade. It's supposed to have a giant helium balloon or two.

what a hamburger's all about

Watching the Rose Parade became a New Year's tradition in our family as soon as we all arrived in Los Angeles. I had been living in L.A. for almost eleven months before the rest of my family could join me. We moved on New Year's Eve into an apartment that was empty except for the TV I had bought for my semi-furnished "bachelor pad." We slept on the floor and spent New Year's Day watching endless reruns of the Rose Parade on KTLA.

Before moving west, we lived in a D.C. suburb. During those years, our New Year's Day tradition was attempting to decipher "The List" in the Washington Post. Like anyone, we hoped that we recognized more things on the "In" list than on the "Out" list. We kept up with it while living in California, but always a day or two later. This was partly because every January 1st, the only in and out in our lives were the Double-Doubles we'd have for lunch at In-N-Out Burger. At least one of those years, I ordered mine "Protein Style."

For a few years, my sister or her husband would fax us "The List" on their first day back to work after the holidays. Eventually the Internet made it ridiculously easy to read "The List" from anywhere and to look up all the obscure names and terms. Some habits die hard though. Now I never remember to look for "The List" until January 2nd. Hey, that's today!

For me, the highlights of this year's "List" include "How I Met Your Mother," Vince Young, the "Young Frankenstein" musical and "Heroes." But I'm bummed about Jamba Juice being on the "Out" list. My family and I have finally started watching the backlog of "Heroes" episodes on my TiVo. Yeah, it's as good as everyone says.

sting like a bee

Choosing which Rose Parade coverage to watch this morning was easy. I went with the high-def, commercial free telecast on Discovery HD Theater. It turned out to be (as I had suspected it might) a simulcast of KTLA's coverage. I would have thrown my support behind Knoxville-based HGTV's coverage if it had been available to me in HD (hint, hint for next year, HGTV). The difference in visual quality was enough to keep me from changing channels even if it meant getting irritated at a couple of things about the way KTLA covered the parade.

My blog got a lot more hits than usual today from about 148 people looking for information about Stephanie Edwards' absence from KTLA. Given all the interest, one of the other networks should have hired her for the day (hint, hint again, HGTV). Many will disagree but I thought that Stephanie's replacement, Michaela Pereira, did a very good job. As I listened to her speak after one of Bob Eubanks' comments, the word that kept coming to mind was "perseverance" because it certainly wasn't "chemistry." At the end of the parade, Eubanks announced that his contract was up and that he didn't know if he would be back next year. Now that Stephanie is gone, they may as well replace Bob too. Didn't Bob and Stephanie used to also host KTLA's telecast of the Hollywood Christmas Parade before being replaced?

It's too bad the floats couldn't have been driven a little more slowly. After the last parade entry rode past, Michaela and Bob still had to fill about 25 minutes of airtime. With a two-and-a-half hour time window and no commercials, we should have had plenty of time to see each of the 45 floats and to hear each of the 21 bands. I felt that KTLA spent way too much time instead on the 23 equestrian units. Make that 22 equestrian units plus one llama unit, which was actually somewhat interesting. During one of his overly verbose descriptions of yet another one of the horse entries, Bob described a rider as one of the most famous charros in America. At this point I was thinking that Bob should have just gone ahead and declared him the most famous charro. I mean, can you think of another, more famous charro?

My biggest disappointment was the minimal camera time given to the Grambling State University marching band. The band members were dressed as imperial officers from the "Star Wars" films. The KTLA cameras focused on Darth Vader and the marching stormtroopers and mostly missed the fancy moves of the Grambling band.

KTLA dropped the (audio) ball during Katharine McPhee's performance and during the appearance of their very own Stan Chambers. I understand the difficulty of creating live television but if there is one person on a float that the KTLA audience should have been able to hear, it was Stan Chambers. The audio mistake with McPhee was frustrating but perhaps KTLA can take some consolation in the fact that NBC had a similar audio problem with another "Idol" reject, Lisa Tucker.

I recorded NBC's coverage of the parade and listened to it this evening. I say "listened" for two reasons. First, it was a standard def telecast recorded in medium quality on my old Series2 TiVo, so the floats didn't look anywhere near as good as on the live, HD telecast. And second, I only recorded NBC to hear the banter between Nancy O'Dell and Billy Bush, who did a fine job of being both entertaining and informative. They are comfortable enough to ad-lib with each other and smart enough to revert to the script at the appropriate times. I heard them say their telecast was available in HD. I would have watched them live on my plasma screen if they had been commercial free and if they hadn't gone off the air after only 90 minutes. Best of all, they seemed to spend less time on the equestrian units, except for the llamas, which were somewhat interesting.

For a while I thought that Oklahoma had invaded California and taken over control of the parade. All the famous Oklahomans were riding on the state's two floats. Nothing says Oklahoma to me more than Nadia Comaneci. Too many of the floats featured butterflies and hummingbirds. I especially enjoyed the float from the City of Palmdale. It depicted a family of desert tortoises, much like my late great pet Mo. Unfortunately, Burbank's float didn't win anything this year. The best float was the one with the fire-breathing dragons from Honda.

Here's a final suggestion for KTLA. Stan's grandson, Jaime Chambers was really good on the parade pre-show. Maybe you should test his booth chemistry with Michaela. Or with Lu Parker.

come on down

It's the fifth day of Christmas and I'm still catching up on some holiday viewing. I probably would have gotten to this sooner if I had been able to take some vacation time this week like I did at previous jobs. The week after Christmas doesn't quite feel the same to me when I still have to wake up for work in the morning. Anyway, on Christmas Eve, I recorded a show called "Santa Salutes the Stars," without knowing what it was. It turned out to be an incredibly cheesy Christmas parade in Orlando. I knew it would be spectacular as soon as "The Price Is Right's" Rich Fields read the following script to start the show:

From the family entertainment capital of the world, Orlando, Florida, the Real Yellow Pages from BellSouth presents "Santa Salutes the Stars" starring Hollywood entertainer and TV funnyman Alan Thicke; from TV's "Days of Our Lives," Patrika Darbo; with performances by "American Idol" sensation Kevin Covais; country performing artist Brian McComas; TV personality and singer Shawn King; The Gemz; CMA female vocalist of the year Janie Fricke; country great John Conlee; and featuring the one and only Gloria Gaynor; plus a special appearance by radio and TV talk legend Larry King; American Idol's Melissa McGhee; and Santa Claus!

The parade was telecast on Superstation WGN. I doubt it will ever be shown again but a paradegoer did post some home video on YouTube.

Larry King's special appearance consisted of standing next to his wife on a parade float as she sang about something in the oven and the whole "fandamily" comin' and how she's "Gotta Love the Holidays." Covais warbled his way through "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" but the worst thing might have been the stilted, almost remedial way Patrika Darbo read from her script. Or maybe it was the middle school aged dancers lip syncing to TLC's version of "Sleigh Ride." Or the superstar appearance by the guy who played Paulie Gatto in "The Godfather." I can't decide.

aroma therapy

It's Deco Week at the Float Barn. When we lived in California, the week between Christmas and New Year's meant that my family and I would spend some time volunteering to help decorate Burbank's entry in the Tournament of Roses parade. I wrote a little about it almost a year ago.

The 2007 Burbank float is called "Free Dog Wash." Look for it toward the rear of the parade again this year. It's number 76 out of 97 in the line of march. A lot of "Star Wars" fans may tune in this year to see the two themed floats and marching stormtroopers.

One difference this year is that I will be watching the parade on the Discovery HD channel. The only reason for me to tune in to the abbreviated coverage on NBC would be to hear Nancy O'Dell and Billy Bush, both of whom I enjoy watching on "Access Hollywood." I may still set the TiVo to record the old fashioned broadcast on HGTV or the Travel Channel also.

Joseph Mailander of Martini Republic emailed to tell me that Stephanie Edwards will not be part of this year's coverage on KTLA and that the hosts are likely to mention her absence as they read from this year's script. You may recall that Joseph enjoyed the photo of Stephanie from my blog entry about the 2006 parade.

I think that the Travel Channel may once again simulcast KTLA's parade coverage. KTLA will offer a hi-def broadcast to viewers in the Los Angeles area. If the Travel Channel will simulcast KTLA's coverage and if the Travel Channel and the Discovery HD channel are part of the same company, does that mean the Discovery HD channel might simulcast KTLA's HD coverage of the parade? If so, I can watch the HD broadcast live (since I don't have an HD DVR) and record Nancy & Billy on the analog TiVo in my home office.

everyone loves a parade?

What did other bloggers write about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? I checked Google's Blog Search and Technorati to see who else is as interested in the parade as I am.

One of my favorite entertainment blogs disappointed me. TV Squad's reviewer doesn't like parades and therefore didn't watch it. At least the comments from readers are worthwhile. The writer for Gawker was upset that Katie Couric was missing from the broadcast.

The pithy reviews trashing overblown spectacles are the most fun to read. A blog called Hikaruland showed the right amount of pith with paragraphs like:

Cokehead announcer says "this dramatic view of New York is from the top of Rockefeller Center." What the television audience sees: low level clouds and a faint outline of a building. Absolutely stirring, I tell you.

Putting the parade on C-SPAN is suggested by Thought You'd Never Ask. It's not a bad idea. I watched the last Inaugural Parade on C-SPAN. Daggle watched streaming video of the parade on his computer in England. I clicked on the link and watched it for a while too. Except for the water on the camera lens it's probably a lot like what C-SPAN's coverage would have been.

Gothamist linked to articles about the parade in the New York newspapers. Through their links, I found a great picture of Snoopy on the New York Times site.

Average Life Spam points out that the telecast omits most of the stuff that kids enjoy about the parade. The CBS crew got panned by Nihilist In Golf Pants.

A TV anchor named Heather Kovar photographs her dogs in front of landmarks and parade balloons. Somebody posted a photo on The Stranger's site and suggested that and uninflated Scooby-Doo looks like something Heather's dogs might have left behind.

it's a noble gas, gas, gas

Neil Patrick Harris was more entertaining in the first two minutes of this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade coverage than Gary Valentine was in the last two years on CBS. As the telecast went on, NPH did get stuck in the "be thankful you're not out in the rain like me" rut but I can forgive him for that. In fairness to Valentine, I saw him do a short stand-up set in Knoxville earlier this year. He is much better at that than he is at ad-libbing or interviewing kids. I'm not alone in thinking that he struggled during previous parades.

Why does CBS bother? My guess is that they do it for JC Penney. Obviously NBC's coverage is all about the Macy's. There are still more advertising dollars to be had and CBS is able to give JC Penney a place to promote its after-Thanksgiving sale and its tie-in with Josh Groban. I also saw ads for other department stores that may be shut out of the three hour Macy's commercial on NBC. I used to think that CBS wanted to give some additional exposure to balloon characters from their sister network Nickelodeon.

On the whole I liked watching the unofficial CBS broadcast because they covered the parade more like a sporting event while NBC stuck to the Macy's approved script. Last year I wrote about the big difference in the way CBS and NBC respectively acknowledged and ignored the accident with the M&Ms balloon. This year Hannah Storm and Dave Price joked about how long it would take to cook Big Bird and how hard it would be to peel Healthy Mr. Potato Head. I was surprised to see the M&Ms balloon return to the parade this year especially right behind the float from rival chocolate company Hershey's.

While I like their freedom to ad-lib, my gripe with Hannah and Dave is that they don't know enough about the parade. They often referred to balloons as floats, just like last year. When the "80th Anniversary Hot Air Balloon" balloon went past, Hannah and Dave seemed genuinely surprised that there were live people riding in the gondola, much less be able to recognize them. NBC's coverage started with a closeup of parade executive producer Robin Hall in the gondola. To me, it looked like a helium filled replica of a hot-air balloon despite what Hannah and Dave said.

I have to watch both channels if I want to see who is on the floats. The marching bands generally stop and play for CBS in Times Square but the floats cruise past and save their lip-synch performances for NBC in Herald Square. The bad weather created some unintentional comedy during the musical numbers at the end of the parade route. Raindrops on the NBC camera lenses made it look as if the skimpy costumes of the Rockettes were pixelized, just like during the unnecessary censorship bit on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." By flipping between the networks, it was apparent that CBS airs the parade out of sequence. They must record whatever happens during commercial breaks and play it back later.

The wind and rain almost kept the big balloons from flying this year. They stayed pretty close to the ground but at least we got to see them. If it were up to me, there would be more balloons. In fact, I would enjoy an all-balloon parade. CBS showed a factoid that said that if put end to end, the balloons from the past 80 years would stretch the length of Manhattan island.

The Macy's balloons are rich in detail. Their faces are usually sculpted rather than painted on. Sometimes less-detailed balloons turn up in other places like the Dogwood Arts Festival Parade in Knoxville. I just learned that there are balloon parades in Springfield, Massachusetts and Stamford, Connecticut.

If I were buying or renting a parade balloon, I would want one that's horizontal, not vertical. On days like today, the vertical ones look ridiculous at low altitude. I still prefer the balloons that look like they should be flying. In the '70s, the Underdog balloon flew while the Superman balloon stood with his hands on his hips. The man of helium filled steel was eventually redesigned in the '80s.

So which was the best balloon in this year's parade? I liked Super Grover and Scooby-Doo. How about you?

circumstances beyond my control

It's been less than a week since Halloween but Christmas is already taking over. Walk into any retail store to see what I mean. If you're not ready for it, you might want to skip the rest of today's blog entry and read about the new balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade instead. After last year's parade accident, some balloons didn't pass the new wind test.

Three Christmas music things happened to me today. The new Christmas CD from Richard Cheese arrived in the mail. I read the fine print inside the CD cover and was delighted to find my name on the list of people he thanked. You should buy a copy and show Richard that he was right to include me. I've been looking forward to the disc for a while.

A caller told me today was the day that EZ88 switched to its annual all Christmas music format. I tuned in for a while and heard my friend Mike Blakemore introducing "O Little Town of Bethlehem."

An email from a friend suggested that I check out Billy Idol's website. Billy has recorded an album of Christmas songs but unfortunately didn't do them in Billy Idol style. Wouldn't it have been great to hear a version of "White Christmas" that sounded more like "White Wedding?" EZ88 probably wouldn't play it though.

buzz off

Today is the final day for Patrick Holland's Buzz List on iwon.com. My blog entry today is a pale homage to the Buzz List. I'll miss it.

"Suddenly Seymour," "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" and "Return to Sender" are three of the song samples you need to hear at Wing's Official Website. Thanks to my sister for the link.

Stephen Colbert was on a rerun of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" on ABC Family tonight. I had forgotten that he guested on that show.

Seeing all seven celebrity contestants sing together on "Celebrity Duets" tonight left me thinking that Lucy Lawless probably deserves to win.

Jimmy Kimmel was interviewed by Joel Keller on one of my favorite sites, TVSquad.com. Thanks to Jessica for the link. By the way, one night last week Jimmy made me laugh even more than usual with his "Celebrity Barbershop Quartet" bit.

I've been meaning to do it for months but I finally added No Silence Here to my blogroll.

Joseph Mailander sent along a link to an update about his Rose Parade coverage that I mentioned in January. He loved the photo I took of Stephanie Edwards on my TV.

A friend pointed out a newspaper column called the Lean Plate Club. A recent article described several websites that help you track your calories including FitDay, Nutridiary and NutritionData.

The Knoxville World's Fair is the subject of the most recent of "Our Stories" on WBIR's website. It's a great history lesson for locals and transplants alike. My parents took me to the New York World's Fair when I was very young.