Pen-Elayne on the Web

Look, Someone's Having Fun at the Parade - Quick, Stamp it Out!

Mark Evanier talks about wanting to see the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in person. Trust me, Mark, you're missing nothing. All the applause and cheering and other crowd noises you hear? As faked as the lip-synched music. Even the tap shoe sounds are faked. If it's a blustery day, which it usually is, everyone's wearing mittens or gloves so there's no way you'd hear the applause to begin with. You'd think I'd have been wise to it, but it came as a real shock to me when Steve and I decided to attend one year. It certainly didn't have the same sense of spontaneity and wonder that I'd remembered as a child when my dad took me a couple times (but hey, what does?), but we were unprepared for how utterly manufactured it had all become by that point (early '90s). Still, here and there one can find things of interest, like the balloons Mark mentions and, of course, Harvey Fierstein's naughty little column in today's NY Times. Naturally, the Macy's folks were not amused. And yeah, I'll probably wind up watching part of it on TV, with the set muted to, you know, simulate what it really sounds like.