3 Parades From Staid to Charade : Processions Vary in Their Outlooks

Parade-lovers and parade-haters alike found what they were looking for Sunday as three processions--each set to the beat of a slightly different drummer--filled the streets of Hollywood, East Los Angeles and Pasadena.

The 60th annual Hollywood Christmas Parade was the traditional star-studded gala and attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators, the 17th annual East Los Angeles Christmas Parade was a quieter, more cultural affair and the 16th occasional Doo Dah Parade was an irreverent bash that ranged from gross to zany to politically incorrect.

The Doo Dah, an anti-parade that has grown into an almost mainstream event itself, drew an estimated 40,000 spectators to Colorado Boulevard, where the marchers traveled westward--the opposite direction of the staid Tournament of Roses that it was originally designed to mock.

There was an inflatable-doll dance squad, a sewage plant spewing gooey brown sludge, the Barbecue and Hibachi Marching Grill Team and someone dressed as Clarence Thomas’ Coke can--a reference to Prof. Anita Hill’s testimony that the Supreme Court justice had once claimed he found a pubic hair on a soft-drink container.

That theme was repeated a few minutes later with a group calling itself “Women in Support of Sexual Harassment,” which featured business-suited females suggestively groping their male secretaries, each of whom had “Steno Stud” written on the back of his sleeveless shirt.

“I can’t stand regular parades,” said Matthew Cullen, an artist from Glendale, as he rubbed shoulders with a hooting and howling crowd that hurled corn tortillas at the procession.

“The stranger the better,” said onlooker Evelyn Thomason, a writer and actress from Pasadena.

A transvestite in Viking garb flirted with the spectators; a victim of an “umbrella attack” stood with a yellow Christo-esque parasol impaling his abdomen; the Lost Sock Patrol appeared with a bubble-spewing washing machine in tow, and fans of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” as is the custom at screenings of the cult film, chucked handfuls of rice at the onlookers.

The biggest reaction came in response to an irreverent squad of roller-skaters re-enacting the police beating of motorist Rodney G. King. Outfitted in blue uniforms and wearing a black-and-white chassis made from cloth and pipe, six “officers” used plastic batons to club two black men who were skating along in a red Hyundai with a license plate reading RODNY.

“There were big boos when they were beating us, but when we got back up and into the car, it was like, ‘Yeah,’ massive applause,” said Dane Creighton, 34, of Newport Beach, who played a dreadlocked passenger.

The tie-dyed T-shirts, leather jackets and trendy haircuts of the Pasadena spectators gave way to sombreros and families dressed in their Sunday finest in East Los Angeles, where more than 100,000 people turned out for a grass-roots Christmas celebration in the mostly Latino community.

Entries that probably would have been jeered by the Pasadena crowd--a bugle-toting Boy Scout troop, a drill team of freshly scrubbed military cadets, baton-twirling cheerleaders with ribbons in their hair--were greeted by respectful applause as they passed down Whittier and Atlantic boulevards.

“This rhythm is very contagious,” said Jose Luis Barraza Acosta, 34, who was selling bags of crisp chicharron doused in lime juice and chile as a drill team passed.

A team of young folklorico dancers snapped their castanets, a brass marching band played Christmas carols, a float sponsored by a chorizo company depicted a manger scene and notable Latinos--such as Olympic boxer Paul Gonzales, radio personality Humberto Luna and newscasters Carlos Amezcua and Minerva Perez--cruised in the back of antique Thunderbirds.

“It’s very nice, very traditional, very well-prepared,” said Manuel Trujillo, 65, of Maywood.

In Hollywood, the parade route along Sunset and Hollywood boulevards and Highland Avenue was lined with hundreds of thousands of people.

Grand marshal Charlton Heston led the parade, and more than 100 celebrities--including Gregory Peck, Ned Beatty, Donny Osmond, Norm Crosby, Louis Gossett Jr., Ron Masa, Edward James Olmos, Gerald McRaney and Alan Thicke--helped usher in the Yuletide season.

There was no confusing the glamorous Hollywood parade with the irreverent Doo Dah event on Sunday.

In Hollywood, for example, six Clydesdale horses pulled a brewer’s beer wagon along the 3.2-mile route.

But in Pasadena, a team of men in harnesses pulled a Clydesdale.

Times staff writer George Ramos contributed to this story.