Sooner or later you were going to find this out about me; I don’t like Christmas. I want no part of it. So it warms the stone-cold cockles of my heart to read a longish piece in the Los Angeles Times this morning about the sad and hilarious decline of the Hollywood Christmas Parade, a manufactured holiday event which has already taken place, last weekend.

As you’d expect from Hollywood, the parade is an event staged entirely for cameras. They hold it every year Thanksgiving weekend, cover it from all angles, then package up a special which is sold to local stations to air a little closer to, you know, Christmas. In the past the parade has hosted such waving and smiling luminaries as Bob Hope, Natalie Wood and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Says the Times:

For many, the most recognizable names at this year’s parade — billed as its 75th Diamond Anniversary — were Regis Philbin, Hulk Hogan, George Lopez and Michael Bolton.

Also, apparently, several of the stars of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. Attendance at the event was estimated at “several hundred thousand spectators” which is vague but clearly down from the 750,000 of 15 years ago.

An attempt to drum up viral support by giving the Parade its own MySpace page failed.

The website identified the Hollywood Christmas Parade as a “male, 75 years old, Los Angeles, California, USA.” Some posted comments fondly reminiscing about the parade. Still, planners probably winced at the last entry on the mock page’s “friends’ comments” section.

“You’re old,” wrote somebody named Jessica.

Ultimately, why have a parade?

“You need their licensing fees or there would be no parade,” said (Hollywood Mayor) Johnny Grant of the 25 stations across the country who paid to broadcast the parade on tape delay. “And you have to go with the demographics that the television stations want. They want to attract a younger audience.”

So you won’t be seeing Doug McClure as Grand Master next year. Or if you’re like an increasing number of spectators, you’ll be seeing anything else BUT the Hollywood Christmas Parade.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 4:09 am and is filed under General, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.