So far, I've spent Thanksgiving indulging in two holiday traditions. The first is the annual making of the Southwestern Cornbread Stuffing, which I will take to my in-laws' house so they can again eye it suspiciously. The second is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. I know it's on NBC because they've been hitting us over the head with NBC promo interviews all morning. In fact, I think the producers called Al Roker into the T-Givvy Parade Coverage War Room and said, "Your mission today is to pimp every show in the NBC lineup."
The thing is, though, the Macy's Parade is not really my tradition. I grew up West Coast, and whereas the New Year's Day Rose Parade was mandatory viewing in our house, Macy's didn't really cross my radar until well after I moved to Texas. My wife, on the other hand, watched it religiously with her dad in San Antonio every year, observing the time-honored tradition of What Everyone Else Does While Mom Cooks Everything.
My initial reaction to this year's Macy's Parade, as it is every year, is that it comes from sort of bygone era of variety shows, Bob Hope specials, and wood paneling.
Of course, there is a roster of current stars, Broadway shows and balloons that fixes this year's parade in 2010, and there are some attempts to reach out to new generations. My 8-year-old, for instance, thrilled to the sight of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid balloon, which we learned about at an Austin book event last month so festival-like in its scope that I christened it Wimpykidapalooza. And I'm pretty sure the inclusion of Big Time Rush into the proceedings targeted a specific demographic - namely, the one most likely to be wearing Silly Bandz.
But, considering its feel and the whole wholesome nature of the event, where everyone's lip-synching is punctuated by lots and lots of smiling, the Macy's Parade Broadcast still feels very much like old-school programming, in which the network has you captive, on a day where there's that feeling of nothing else on TV where they're unquestionably in charge, from a time before choices on cable and smartphone-charged interactivity.
If you go over to Twitter, and search the hashtags #Macys and #MacysParade, you'll find the mix of snark and sincere enjoyment you'd expect from this particular cross-section of post-modern America. While the traditional Snoopy's balloon started everything off this morning, my guess is the techno version of "Cotton-Eyed Joe" started a seismic ripple of OMGs in texts and Tweets from sea to shining sea.
I did learn some things about the NBC lineup, furtively glancing from the kitchen while chopping vegetables and trying to remember where we put the sage. Jason Ritter, for example, is still the star of The Event, and based on the conversation he was having with Roker, it's still a show that will be on in the coming months, ratings struggles notwithstanding. (Note: They're also still using the 24 meets Lost tagline that doesn't seem to be particularly resonating. Good tagline, though!) I also learned about a show called The Cape, premiering Jan. 9, in which the show's female lead is going to be playing "an investigative blogger," which is still sort of leaving me a bit agape.
Also got in a little Broadway, as one does in these Macy's affairs. It's perplexing to me that not only is there a Green Day musical on Broadway, but from the selections presented (including Memphis, which included racial togetherness and backflips, and Elf, which looks uncomfortably happy, or, in keeping with the spirit of the season, jolly), American Idiot actually looks the most wholesome. Or maybe it's just because they selected a pack of groomed twentysomethings with ski caps and acoustic guitars to sing "Time of Your Life."
Indeed, the American Idiot cast was so bygone era, cardigan sweaters, all we need now is the Fonz wholesome that I expected them to face off against the cast of The Sing-Off (both a musical AND an NBC promo!) - who sang an a cappella version of U2's "Beautiful Day" - in some grand, who is more wholesome, milk-drinking contest later in the telecast.
By the time the floats rolled out, though, the line-up settled into the sort of post-modern hodge-podge that I find strangely and archly soothing, yet sets me off into a fit of exclamation points. There's Arlo Guthrie singing "My Land Is Your Land" on a float dominated by a giant scary chipmunk! There's a group of Power Ranger Samurai! There's the cast of Sesame Street! Hot damn, there's Mannheim Steamroller randomly on a Mount Rushmore float! (And for that last one, gotta say, "Merry Christmas to you, too, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade!")
Of course, there's a feeling of tradition with institutions like the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade that they'll just sort of go on forever, even into a future where TV's given way to holograms and Al Roker's wearing some sort of futuristic space visor. (I hope to live long enough to see this.) And, as relevant as the organizers try to make the parade with its programming, there's still a sensation of watching it on some '70s wood-box tube TV even though we've all pretty much gone to flat screens now. And yet, even with that knowledge that there's some cable reality TV marathon out there that could suck us in on a lazy Thanksgiving morning, enough of us turn to the patch of Broadway in front of Macy's, and we watch.