On View : Memories on Parade

Television’ coverage of the Rose Parade makes shivering Easterners and Midwesterners both envy and dislike Southern California, which traditionally basks in warm sunshine on New Year’s Day.

Radio and newsreels in the 1920s, and later television, turned a regional event first seen by less than 4,000 in 1890 into an extravaganza watched around the world. It is estimated that 125 million people in the United States and another 300 million in 90 nations will watch the 104th edition of the parade go down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena on Friday.

TV Times asked some television personalities to share their memories of the Rose Parade.

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Carl Bell

The KCAL weatherman helped decorate a Rose Parade float during a senior class project at Hoover High School in Glendale.

“It was raining, cold and damp,” Bell said. “We could see our breaths. We would be drinking cups of soup and hot cocoa.

“We spent more time gluing one another and trashing our clothes by getting flowers on people’s backs and heads. We were just getting nasty. We had a free reign of the place. They didn’t mind if we messed around if we got the float done, and we had it done with hours to go.

The experience gave Bell a better appreciation of the parade.

“You see the parade on TV and hear about the 5,000 mums and the poppy seeds, but to see it go from papier-mache or chicken wire and you start filling it and see it come to life is such a thrill.”

Bell recalled that the job did have its fringe benefits.

“The Baskin Robbins (ice cream) float was being built in the same building,” Bell said. “They served ice cream. Then we starting wondering where the Taco Bell float was so we could get free meals.”

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Stan Chambers

The veteran reporter, who celebrated his 45th anniversary at KTLA Dec. 1, has been a part of the pioneering station’s Rose Parade coverage since 1949.

Glitches could easily creep into the broadcasts during television’s early days.

“Years ago, we would do live interviews from the VIP section,” Chambers said. “Usually, your stage manager would take somebody over to you ahead of time and tell you who it was while you were talking to someone else.

“This time he brought this gentleman over, but he got into a conversation on his earphones and kind of forgot what he was doing with me and didn’t tell me who the man was. The man walked over. He was short and had a hat on. I had no idea in the world who he was. Just before he came on camera, he took his hat off and luckily I recognized him.

“It was the five-star general of the Army, Omar Bradley. (If I didn’t recognize him) I would have had to go on the air and say, ‘Sir, who are you?’ ”

A new role has been found for Chambers for this year’s parade. In addition to hosting KTLA’s pre-parade show, he’ll be riding on the Bank of America float, the first time he has ridden on a Rose Parade float.

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Todd Donoho

The KABC-TV and KLOS-FM sportscaster recalls taking his wife and two sons to the parade in 1986, his first New Year’s Day after moving to Southern California from Cincinnati.

“All through my life growing up in the Midwest while on New Year’s morning with a couple feet of snow it was always refreshing to turn on the TV set to see bright, sunshiney Pasadena, Calif.,” Donoho said. “So the first year I was out there, it was something we had to do. It met all my expectations and exceeded them.

“When you live in the Midwest, there are two things you love (to watch on TV)--the Bob Hope Desert Classic (golf tournament) and the Rose Parade. When it’s snowing, cold, dark and dreary outside, on the TV set comes these wonderful pictures of sunshine from Southern California. It was like escaping to summer in the coldest part of the year.”

This year, Donoho will be riding on the City of St. Louis float.

“I’ve seen the Rose Parade on TV every year of my life as I long as I can remember,” Donoho said. “To be in it is beyond my wildest dreams.”

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Pat Harvey

Another Midwestern native is the KCAL anchorwoman, who grew up in Michigan.

“The Rose Parade is looked upon with envy (there),” Harvey said. “On New Year’s Day, the temperature generally was zero and below, and there you see sunny California.

“To us, there was always a difference. We wondered about a parade without snow, because that was what we were used to at home. We matched New Year’s Day with snow and winter.”

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Kelly Lange

The KNBC anchorwoman served as an NBC parade commentator for 10 years. Her best parade memories come from the eight years the late Michael Landon was her broadcast partner.

“For two weeks we romped all over the floats, spent a lot of time together at his house, my house and the station,” Lange said. “He was just a joy. He was so bright, funny, spontaneous and full of life. He always saw the humor and twist in any situation. Wherever he was, he just charged the room with an enormous amount of energy. He was a fabulous guy with an enormous amount of fun, wit, charm and grace.

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Mark McEwen

The weatherman and music and entertainment editor for “CBS This Morning” will call his first parade, joined by Jane Seymour, whose series, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” premieres New Year’s Night on CBS.

“Every New Year’s Day for the parade and the Rose Bowl when they would show people on the parade route and stands, I’d be back in New York or Maryland with snow up to my eyebrows and you’d see people in Hawaiian shirts and shorts on and I’d think, ‘Oooh, I don’t like that. I wish I was there,’ ” McEwen said.

“This year, I’ll be the guy people in Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Syracuse are mad at because I’ll be in the sunshine, and I’m really looking forward to that.”

McEwen lived in Southern California in 1976 and 1977 and viewed the parade from a different perspective then.

“When you’re there on New Year’s Day, you give a Bronx cheer to all the people back east, and say, ‘Hey, you should be living in Southern California,”’ McEwen said.

McEwen enjoys the parade’s high school bands.

“When we get ‘old and jaded,’ the world for them is still young and fresh,” McEwen said. “From them to come out from however many miles they come to perform in the parade, it gives you a jolt as well because they see it all brand new and it makes you see it all brand new. That’s one of the fun things about it.”

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Sarah Purcell

ABC’s “Home” show host will be calling the parade for the seventh time for KTTV. Like Lange, her most memorable parade moment also came when working with Landon on an NBC parade telecast.

“We had a hold-up at the very beginning of the parade,” Purcell said. “It was held up for 20 minutes and we could not find out what was causing the problem. What happened was that a float got caught on a light standard making the turn.

“I’ll never forget sitting there and just vamping about the parade and the people and the weather and the different floats and the this and the that and sweat pouring off our brows.

“Finally a tow truck came and helped to pull the float off the light standard. All we could see was the tow truck and the float. We still did not know what the problem was. We had just assumed that the float had broken down.”

Facetious comments by Landon saved the day, Purcell said.

“Michael said, ‘Oh, I understand what the hold-up was. They have rules around here that nothing can go on the parade route unless its covered, so they had to cover the tow truck with flowers for the last 20 minutes.

But that was far from Purcell’s first experience with the parade.

“I went to the parade for the first time when I was about 4 years old,” Purcell said. “We lived in San Diego and our whole family got in the car at 2 in the morning and drove to Los Angeles. Just making the drive was a big adventure for us.

“My mother would make sandwiches for us and put cocoa in the thermos for us. At the time there was a center island on Colorado Boulevard and we would camp out in sleeping bags there.

“Could you imagine if someone back then had whispered in my ear that someday I’d be in one of those booths up there in one of those booth commentating those parades.

“I’ll never forget the first year I did the parade. I almost cried. It was such a touching moment to be a part of the inside group of the parade.”

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Bill Welsh

The KTTV commentator first called the parade in 1948, and has done so each year since.

“The most frightening memory was in the early 1950s,” Welsh said. “I was announcing standing on the northeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Orange Grove Avenue. They had put a chain link fence of about three feet square where I could stand so the crowd couldn’t bother me.

“The Union Oil Company had a float which was a sailing ship. It was coming around the corner and had a bowsprit sticking out. It wasn’t going to make the turn. The bowsprit was aimed for me.

“I started wonder if I was capable of climbing an eight-foot chain link fence or was I going to become the world’s biggest shish kebab. Finally, the crowd saw what was happening and started yelling to the driver, ‘Stop, stop,’ and obviously he did, because I am still doing the parade.”

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Betty White

The “Golden Palace” star announced the parade for 20 years on NBC.

“I always looked forward to the Kodak floats because they were so intricate,” the five-time Emmy winner said. “Now, they’ve expanded and top themselves each year. Another favorite is the Cal Poly float because the school does the weirdest and wildest things.

“I always loved the horse units because I’m an animal nut. One year they had an elephant walking in the parade and another they had a lion and it spooked the horses something fierce. They knew there was a lion somewhere around there.”

To White, the parade was not just a one-day affair. “I always liked going over the floats when they were building them before the parade,” White said. “You would got out and visit them when they were nothing but rusting iron frames in the fall.

“In the week between Christmas and New Year’s you would see them when the construction and mechanics were there. On the 24 hours before the parade when you were crawling all over the floats when the kids were gluing flowers on. There are certain flowers I smell today and I’m right back in those sheds.”

“The Tournament of Roses Parade” airs Friday at 8 a.m. on CBS, ABC, NBC, KTLA, KTTV and KMEX.