Floats, Firefighters Top ‘Fantastic Adventure’ : Rose Parade: Floral creations delight crowds. Crews that saved homes from fall wildfires get biggest reaction.

There were hoots for the horses, jeers for the Wisconsin cheerleaders and cries of “Beam Me Up Scotty!” to the man who has boldly gone where no one has gone before. It was the firefighters, though, who brought the crowd along Colorado Boulevard to its feet Saturday.

It was the 105th time that the rollicking Rose Parade has turned Pasadena into a flurry of flowery floats. Covered with 19 million carnations, 11 million roses, 56,000 orchids, nine tons of onion seeds and 500 pounds of glue, the 56 floats included a space station hovering above, a dinosaur hauled by humans and a sky diver plummeting from a plane with a broken chute.

In a day of fantasy, cows, a goat and a rooster swooped through the air above a farmer in an imaginary barn. A genie rose magically from a sculptured lamp with a bird in one hand and a jeweled scepter in the other. A grove of towering bonsai trees rolled by, with purple butterflies flapping their wings on the branches.

Taking in the spectacle were hundreds of thousands of onlookers, treated to a picture-perfect first day of 1994.

Tournament of Roses Grand Marshal William Shatner, who played Capt. James T. Kirk on the “Star Trek” series, left his Starship parked in another galaxy. This day, he wore a Stetson hat and buckskin coat and sat atop a prize-winning saddle horse whose tail was so long it dragged along the 5.5-mile route.

The parade’s “Fantastic Adventure” theme spilled over onto the sidelines as well, where a stretch of grandstand buckled but did not fall, and nearly 200 people were arrested--more than twice last year’s total--in a police crackdown on marshmallow-throwing, Silly String-spraying and other revelry.

The glitches, however, were few. No floats toppled. Batons landed safely in their throwers’ hands.

“It was the quietest, smoothest parade I’ve seen,” said parade spokesman Ken Veronda, who has seen more than 40 of them. “Everything went almost as planned.”

A bagpiper from the Canadian Massed Pipes and Drums Band got lost at the chaotic finishing area and missed her bus. She was later reunited with the bagpipers at an Orange County hotel.

A horse carrying a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy slipped on horse droppings along the parade route and threw the unidentified deputy to the ground. The horse was unhurt and the deputy--who was patrolling the area, not participating in the parade--was treated for “a superficial scalp wound,” said a department spokeswoman.

Nestle’s “Thrills, Chills and Spills” float overheated but was quickly repaired. It featured a pilot plummeting 40 feet from the wing of an airplane into a cloud of chrysanthemums.

The city of Los Angeles, which has been entering floats in the parade longer than anyone else, saw its “Planting for the Future” harvest scene run out of steam in the final stretch and become the only float that had to be towed to the end. Luckily for the city’s image, the engine trouble happened away from the television cameras.

Los Angeles had more glorious moments earlier in the parade. City firefighters who marched alongside the float became crowd favorites as they revived memories of the heroic battle by emergency personnel during the recent Southern California fires. As they filed by the judge’s grandstand in uniform, the firefighters received a roaring tribute.

“Thanks for saving my house!” one woman yelled from the sidelines.

Hours before dawn, the all-nighters chugged champagne from the bottle and bundled up next to bonfires to endure temperatures in the 40s.

But by the time the Willowridge High School Mighty Eagle Band of Houston opened the parade at precisely 8:05 a.m., the weather had warmed up and would eventually reach parade standards--sunny skies, light winds, highs in the 70s.

“We were freezing but the parade makes it all worth it,” said Jeanette McDonald, 15, of Mission Viejo, who spent New Year’s Eve sleeping next to a freeway off-ramp to get a prime viewing spot. “This is for the memories, and they will last my whole life.”

There were bitter memories for the 194 people cited by police for public drunkenness, assault and, mostly, violating a new city regulation that prohibits throwing items such as marshmallows or using aerosol string spray. Another 48 people had their cars towed.

“This year we took a lower tolerance to the drunkenness in public,” Pasadena police spokeswoman Janet Pope-Hinton said. “We really cracked down. It may sound silly but some people don’t like marshmallows thrown at them. It can start something more serious--like a fight.”

The usual crush of protesters must have watched this parade at home, along with the estimated 300 million around the world connected by satellite. There was a lone preacher with a megaphone telling onlookers that the devil lurked in their souls. An airplane flew overhead with a message criticizing some Pasadena officials. The most common sign: “I Need Tickets.”

Organizers avoided an embarrassing “counter-parade” that threatened to steal some of their thunder.

The Coalition Against Racism called off its action just a month before the big day when the Tournament of Roses agreed to diversify its executive committee, whose membership has been all white and male for its entire 99-year history.

The demonstrators had blocked traffic and staged a candlelight vigil in front of Tournament House in recent months and leaders had threatened to “bring the Tournament to its knees” if it did not integrate the policy-making body.

As one pressure tactic, the Los Angeles City Council had voted to withdraw the city’s float from the 1995 parade if the tournament failed to include minorities and women in its top ranks.

But the eleventh-hour agreement--which named two African Americans, a Latino and an Asian American to the committee--avoided a New Year’s Day controversy.

“We would have stopped the parade, interrupted it and embarrassed them in the eyes of the world,” said one of the protest leaders, Danny Bakewell, who watched the parade on television Saturday. “Thankfully for all, we worked it out.”

At this parade, the attention was focused on the floats. China Airlines’ “Spectacular Taiwan” featured a dragon that towered above the buildings along the way and spouted steam from its nostrils. It won the Judges Special Trophy and raves from the crowd. The Sweepstakes Trophy for outstanding floral design went to (who else?) FTD Florists. Unocal’s 55-foot-long genie float, titled “Make a Wish,” took the Directors Trophy for outstanding craftsmanship.

Mixed in with the floral displays were roller-skating clowns, miniature horses, hula dancers and 21 marching bands. Jan Fair had her eyes out for one band in particular.

Actually, it was a trombone player she was looking for.

The Santa Maria math textbook writer has been cheering her son’s trombone performances since he was in the elementary school band playing at the Elks Rodeo before a few hundred people. On Saturday, Eric was playing before the largest audience of his life.

As the UCLA marching band approached the corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado just after 9 a.m., his mom shouted “Here he comes. Here he comes,” and the spectators all around her joined in with “Eric! Eric! Eric!”

Looking very spry despite having been camped out all night on a lawn chair, Fair jogged several blocks down Colorado, photographing every member of the band with her camcorder.

“This is a movie Eric will be able to give all his friends,” she said.

Long before the football game even started, the Bruins and Badgers were battling it out on the streets, exchanging insults, gibes and dire end-of-the-game predictions. The Badger cheerleaders were particular targets, prompting a chorus of boos from UCLA fans. The partisanship even extended to the vendors: “Programs, $1! . . . $2 for Badgers!” one yelled.

Their wrists twisting just so, Rose Queen Erica Beth Brynes and her royal court floated along atop a chariot of roses, gladiolus and Cattleya orchids. Their dresses and float came from Nordstrom.

At ground zero, so close they could smell the parade, were Tim Gary and Linda Conti, a brother-and-sister volunteer team charged with cleaning up the horse manure at the parade’s first crucial turn.

Outfitted in white jumpsuits, Gary had a shovel and Conti had a broom. Both wore running shoes. After all, they had a lot of work to do with 30 equestrian units, made up of several hundred horses.

“This is nothing,” Conti said, pointing to the odorous plastic bag at her side. “Last year, they had elephants.”

Times staff writer Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.

On Display

Rose Parade floats will be on display today near Pasadena’s Victory Park from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For the handicapped and senior citizens, a special viewing period is offered from 7 to 9 a.m. The viewing area is near Sierra Madre Boulevard and Paloma Street.