TV and the Rose Parade

Around 1957 my family was living in South City near San Francisco. My dad's mother was living in Southern California which was about 430 miles away. My dad wanted to get down there and see his mom and do the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.

One year we even traveled to Southern California to be there to see it in person with them. It was considerably a more arduous trip than it is now as the interstate had not been built and the trip through the valley ran you through the main street of every valley town.  We stayed overnight or sort of at the other grandmother's house on my father's side in Sunland, a suburb of LA. We all took a quick nap and headed out to Pasadena at 3:30 in the morning.

We were after the best possible seat on the curb or near the curb that we could find. We joined the thousands upon thousand of spectators nearly frozen to death along the parade route. There were all kinds of vendors selling balloons of all types. People were huddled together around small sterno heaters trying to gather the heat but avoiding the deadly fumes. People were wrapped in sleeping bags and blankets along the curb. It was hard to determine whether they were smoking or just exhaling in the very cold air.

Eventually the sun started to come up and more people piled in on the curbs to the point that no one could move let alone find a porta potty or any beverage. The parade started and there were bands upon bands and the most beautiful floats that truly smelled out of this world. It was tempered somewhat by the accompanied smell of the waste of the equestrian groups. The boy scouts faithfully followed along with scooper but still the number of blonde horses along the route was phenomenal.
My eyes were peeled for just one cowboy on a palomino. He was the only hero cowboy that wore a black hat. He was the hero to the afternoon TV set. Hopalong Cassidy was the hero. He rode proudly with his horse Topper down the parade route. I was thrilled to see him in person with his silver tack. I just checked out some info on Hopalong through Wikipedia and I can see that during that era he was promoting a little land of his own near Venice, California.  It was not successful and even though it had a roller coaster and a picnic area it never took off. The following is the background on Hopalong from that source:

 As portrayed on the screen, the white-haired Bill "Hopalong" Cassidy was usually clad strikingly in black (including his hat, an exception to the longstanding western film stereotype that only villains wore black hats). He was reserved and well spoken, with a fine sense of fair play. He was often called upon to intercede when dishonest characters were taking advantage of honest citizens. "Hoppy" and his white horse, Topper, usually traveled through the west with two companions—one young and trouble prone with a weakness for damsels in distress, the other comically awkward and outspoken.[1]
The juvenile lead was successively played by James Ellison, Russell Hayden, George Reeves, and Rand Brooks. George Hayes (later to become known as "Gabby" Hayes) originally played Cassidy's grizzled sidekick, Windy Halliday. After Hayes left the series because of a salary dispute with producer Harry Sherman, he was replaced by the comedian Britt Wood as Speedy McGinnis and finally by the veteran movie comedian Andy Clyde as California Carlson. Clyde, the most durable of the sidekicks, remained with the series until it ended. A few actors of future prominence appeared in Cassidy films, most notably Robert Mitchum, who appeared in seven of the films at the beginning of his career.
The sixty-six Hopalong Cassidy pictures were filmed by independent producers who released the films through the studios. Most of the "Hoppies," as the films were known, were distributed by Paramount Pictures to highly favorable returns. They were noted for their fast action and excellent outdoor photography (usually by Russell Harlan). Harry Sherman was anxious to make more ambitious movies and tried to cancel the Cassidy series, but popular demand forced Sherman to go back into production, this time for United Artists release. Sherman gave up the series once and for all in 1944, but William Boyd wanted to keep it going. To do this, he gambled his entire future on Hopalong Cassidy, mortgaging virtually everything he owned to buy both the character rights from Mulford and the backlog of movies from Sherman.
In the first film, Hopalong Cassidy (then spelled "Hop-along") got his name after being shot in the leg. Hopalong's "drink of choice" was the nonalcoholic sarsaparilla.
The enormous success of the television series made Boyd a star.[2] The Mutual Broadcasting System began broadcasting a radio version of Hopalong Cassidy, with Andy Clyde (later George MacMichael on Walter Brennan's ABC sitcom The Real McCoys) as the sidekick, in January 1950; at the end of September, the show moved to CBS Radio, where it ran until 1952.[4]
The series and character were so popular that Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the cover of national magazines, such as Look, Life, and Time.[2] Boyd earned millions as Hopalong ($800,000 in 1950 alone)[2], mostly from merchandise licensing and endorsement deals. In 1950, Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the first lunchbox to bear an image, causing sales for Aladdin Industries to jump from 50,000 units to 600,000 units in just one year. In stores, more than 100 companies in 1950 manufactured $70 million of Hopalong Cassidy products,[2] including children's dinnerware, pillows, roller skates, soap, wristwatches, and jackknives.[5]
There was a new demand for Hopalong Cassidy features in movie theaters, and Boyd licensed reissue distributor Film Classics to make new film prints and advertising accessories. Another 1950 enterprise saw the home-movie company Castle Films manufacturing condensed versions of the Paramount films for 16-mm and 8-mm projectors; they were sold through 1966. Also, in January 1950 Dan Spiegel began to draw a syndicated comic strip with scripts by Royal King Cole; the strip lasted until 1955.[6][7]
Boyd began work on a separate series of half-hour westerns made especially for television; Edgar Buchanan was his new sidekick, Red Connors (a character from the original stories and a few of the early films). The theme music for the television show was written by veteran songwriters Nacio Herb Brown (music) and L. Wolfe Gilbert (lyrics). The show ranked number 7 in the 1949 Nielsen ratings. The success of the show and tie-ins inspired several juvenile television westerns, such as The Range Rider, Tales of the Texas Rangers, Annie Oakley, The Gene Autry Show, and The Roy Rogers Show.
Boyd's company devoted to Hopalong Cassidy, U.S. Television Office, is still active and, in addition to holding the copyrights to the Cassidy series, has released many of the features to DVD, many of them in sparkling prints prepared by Film Classics.
[edit]Hoppyland

On May 26, 1951, an amusement park named Hoppyland opened in the Venice section of Los Angeles. This was an expansion and retheming of Venice Lake Park[8] (opened the previous year) as Boyd became an investor. Standing on some 80 acres (320,000 m2) it included a roller coaster, miniature railroads, pony rides, boat ride, Ferris wheel, carousel, and other thrill rides along with picnic grounds and recreational facilities. Despite Boyd's regular appearances as Hoppy at the park, it was not a success and shut down in 1954.[9]

Its probably more than you want to know... but I think it is interesting.  : ) Pat