Hooray for Hollywood; holiday parade is back

Escorted by TV icon Bob Barker and the youthful cast of “High School Musical,” Santa Claus is coming to town after all this year, Hollywood leaders said Friday.

A hastily organized Hollywood Santa Parade will replace the 79-year-old Hollywood Christmas Parade, which was canceled seven months ago for financial reasons by its former sponsor, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

This year’s parade will begin at 5 p.m. Nov. 25. It will follow the same route as in recent years -- east on Hollywood Boulevard between La Brea and Highland avenues and then west along Sunset Boulevard between Highland and La Brea.

Thirty-five bands, floats and equestrian units have been booked so far by a private producer hired by Los Angeles officials, who last month authorized the expenditure of $175,000 for the event.

In ending their involvement last March, Chamber of Commerce leaders blamed the high cost of producing the parade, which in 2006 cost $1 million. The Hollywood business group was left with a $100,000 deficit.

“This was something I couldn’t in good conscience let die,” said City Council President Eric Garcetti, who represents the Hollywood area surrounding the parade route. “This parade is one of the last free things families can do.”

Garcetti said the aim in hastily organizing this year’s scaled-down parade was to keep it alive long enough to regain some of its past momentum. That could take years, he said.

In the past, broadcast fees from televising the parade helped defray its cost. But broadcasters started losing interest when A-list actors began deserting the event and the shows’ ratings began to wither.

This year’s parade will be videotaped by cable TV staff from CityView Channel 35. The tape will be aired at noon, Dec. 16, by KTLA-TV Channel 5 and possibly later on WGN-TV in Chicago, Garcetti said. Both stations are owned by Tribune Co., as is The Times.

The city’s decision to save the parade followed a months-long lobbying effort by a private group that sprang up days after the event’s demise was announced. Organizer Greg Durfee, a production-company operator who lives in Hollywood, wore a Santa suit and led an impromptu protest parade down Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame.

“When we took the rally to City Hall, both Eric Garcetti and Tom LaBonge stepped up to the plate,” Durfee said Friday. LaBonge is the councilman whose district includes the east side of Hollywood.

Chamber of Commerce President Leron Gubler said his organization is encouraging its members to support and participate in the 2007 parade.

He said the chamber has offered the use of leftover parade signs and parade workers’ vests if needed by Pageantry Productions.

The Lynwood-based company, which assisted the chamber with past years’ parades, is also staging Christmas parades this year in Huntington Park, East Los Angeles, Rolling Hills Estates, Downey, Bell, South Gate, San Fernando and Lynwood.

Along with the 83-year-old Barker -- who stepped down this year as host of daytime TV’s top-rated and longest-running game show, “The Price Is Right,” and the teenage stars from Disney’s “High School Musical” -- the parade will feature a salute to firefighters from San Diego, Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles, Garcetti said.

Gubler said chamber directors would consider signing over the rights to the name “Hollywood Christmas Parade” to the city if this year’s parade is of high quality.

For much of its existence since its start in 1928, the parade was called the “Santa Claus Lane Parade,” prompting the popular “Here Comes Santa Claus” holiday tune by cowboy crooner Gene Autry. The name was changed to Hollywood Christmas Parade in the late 1970s.

The new name is already provoking controversy among those who favor use of the word Christmas and those who prefer something more secular. One Internet commentator has offered a compromise: “Hollywood Holiday Hoopla.”

It could be called “ ‘Ho Ho Ho’ for short,” he suggested.

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bob.pool@latimes.com