Overall, the parade was great, as usual. But the young people in the brightly colored sweatsuits who were tapdancing their way across the screen were the absolute stars of the whole thing and need to get an agent and get signed up TODAY! What energy, freshness, joy and talent! I had goose bumps! I had the same exact feeling the first time I saw Heroes, Star Wars and Gone with the Wind.

Am I getting old and is my memory failing me...or was there really a time, not so long ago, when the celebrity hosts of parades on TV just gave us running commentary and maybe some pre-commercial schtick? Yesterday's coverage on NBC was enough to try my patience; I can only imagine what it was doing to kids who were sent to the tube under orders to stay put, out of Mommy's hair while she fixes the feast.

I watch parades to see the floats, performers, etc. with occasional cutaways to the audience. I am not interested in what the TV hostess will be serving to her relatives, the romantic adventures of a soap-opera star (whose appearance ate up WAY too much valuable air time), or promos for other network shows. It's a HOLIDAY, darn it, time for CELEBRATION not COMMERCIALISM. (There'll be plenty of time for that the next day!)

Please clue me in as to what, if any, streaming Internet sites carried unadorned and uniterrupted parade coverage, so I can make a note in time for the New Year's extravaganzas.

I've watched the Macy's parade since I was a child and was even in it one year. But I am afraid that it is no longer the parade that inspired Miracle on 34th Street. It's become another issue of Entertainment Weekly. Now it is all about the TV personalities who host it and the performers who lip synch to their own songs.

I still "watch" it, but with lessened expectations - that way, I'm never disappointed. It's on in the background as I prepare for the real Thanksgiving - the one that's all about sharing dinner with family and friends and being thankful for our many, many blessings.

The Macy's Day Parade always seemed like a slow, lumbering, stilted affair (and not just because that's the way the balloon figures move) but because the presenters as well as the on-air announcers always painfully skirt around the whole obvious commericalism of it all.

Before developing my objective critical faculties I remember being mostly preoccupied by the surreality and the sheer spectacle, but then I began to notice how the whole thing was mainly designed to whip up buyer frenzy, preparing "consumers" (that would be real flesh-and-blood people like you and me) for "Black Friday - the Biggest Shopping Day of the Year".

Still, I always thought it curious that thousands of people, young and old, would rather march down (or stand on the cold sidewalks of) the wintery streets of Manhattan than snuggle up at home with their loved ones. It just seems odd. Maybe if they could do that, the subconscious programming calculates, then perhaps I should do my "civic duty" and show up at a national retail chain at 4:AM the following day just to find that "special something" for a loved one AND myself at the same time...

We are to give thanks, supposedly, but to what, exactly?

Can they stop interviewing "fake" stars from daytime TV and just show the parade? I prefer the Rose Parade on HGTV.

As a European writing you from Paris and used to

the choice and variety of the French television landscape one is appalled at what is offered in your list for Friday/Weekend. Mon Dieu like being flogged with a warm lettuce!

There is not one single program recommended because it promises a good debate on important issues with exciting brains.

I find there is no program suggesting there will be

amusing and clever comments on books music dance painting you name it because of exquisitely picked guests. And why no

single documentary? Nonexistent goodie?

Above all no program on television itself. Surely a critical eye is rather necessary.

Indeed can watching television be recommended anyone when the

menu offered by Salon and H.H. is utter drear monotony.

A mere triumph of the embalmer´s art.

Didn't watch it! Was too busy with the fun of setting up my new and second monitor. Probably the same as all the other times. Besides, had our Thanksgiving party the weekend before. So with the ham baking in the over for the "pig-out-for-just-us-two" was not in the mood. Went to this site to find out what I had missed.

I was appalled at the terrible coverage by CBS of the parade. However, once I tuned in to NBC and saw their coverage, it was much more enjoyable.

CBS blocked the parade with blabbering host and their own parade of CBS stars full of self promotion and more blabbering. When CBS finally would break away from their close ups of thier host (mostly the parade ran in their background) to go down to a marching band...they allowed their host to talk full volume all the way through the 6 second)shots and actually muted the marching band. Unbelievable! And, I've never seen so many commercial breaks during a special. Basically, CBS was milking this parade, whereas NBC got you upfront, close and gave veiwers a good over all look at it. I enjoyed it, once I discovered the NBC was covering it. I don't watch a lot of TV so it was news to me that NBC was the main station to watch.

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

breathe

heheheheheheeheheheheheheeh

here it is:

2 shot: head 1 says something snappy to head 2

head 2 admits he/she is deeply worried and/or in love with someone/something

head 1 laughs and says don't worry.

overhead shot of a group of people.

cue ominous music

lather rinse repeat/

BSG is the biggest load of badly written sci-fi trying to be a chick movie I have ever seen.

Was a JFK tribute part of the before-game or half-time presentation at the Dallas football game on Thanksgiving? For those of us who were alive in '63, T-day on Nov. 22 always has a certain "bittersweet" tone to it.