The Tournament Of Roses Parades Of The 1960s
12.31.07 By Derek DahlsadWhile slides are entertaining — as Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players prove in their fun way — they were once one of the few ways a person could bring home a record of their trip, without having to take and develop dozens of pictures. Roadside attractions and theme parks alike would hire professional photographers to take pictures, give them free reign to get the best angle (and probably when no tourists were around to wander in the shot), so that when tourists visited their attraction, they didn’t have to be distracted by taking photos…the gift shop had plenty to take home, and the tourist can just enjoy themselves. I buy lots slides whenever I find them, mostly for the personal photos of slight historical value, and I have yet to find a slide collection that doesn’t have a large stretch of store-bought slides. I’ve got Knott’s Berry Farm, Washington DC, Disneyland from numerous angles, but today I’ll share with you something a bit more timely: The Tournament of Roses Parade.
The Tournament of Roses parade started in 1890, making the 1964 parade the 75th diamond anniversary for the parade. From looking at the content of the pictures, I believe that this collection is also interspersed with photos of the 1960 parade as well, but the slide frames don’t give much info on their origins. The Parade was first 
televised in 1947, and color TV had a pretty good foothold by 1964, but these slides would still be a step above anything a person could get without actually going to the parade themselves. Over the years the slides have gone red, a common problem with color negatives of the time (see example at right), but thanks to the magic of a transparency scanner and Photoshop, I got them pretty close to their original colors. Looking back, compared to the modern day Rose parade, there’s things they had back then that we don’t anymore:
Celebration of Nuclear Weapons: So soon we forget that the West Coast is home to much of our military-industrial complex, but today that phrase has a dark shadow over it. In the 60s, though, it was shining proof of the US’ world superiority, it was a source of jobs, community-building, and the bread-and-butter for many baby-boomer’s households growing up. The float on the left celebrates the Polaris missile, a sea-launched nuclear ICBM — the float’s name is the terrifying “Out Of The Blue.”
Ernest Borgnine: Promoting what appears to be McHale’s Navy, Borgnine was the only person listed on this slide, upstaging his fellow star, um, that whats-his-name guy that was always saying, “McHale!” Anyhow, the world is always better with a little Borgnine in it, and I’m sure any parade organizer would agree that Ernest Borgnine can make even a half-hearted parade a winner. Because there was both a TV series and a film, I’m not sure which one this might be for, but this slide is definitely not from the 1960 set.
Mermaids: Oh, I know there’s usually an Ariel somewhere on something Disneified, but women with full-body mermaid tails were quite common back in the day. They didn’t have to be any particular mermaid; they were just an average, everyday mythical creature participating in our festivities. Those were the days.
This is just my humble opinion, though — the Rose Bowl Parade has been the king of decorated floats for decades, and I can’t be one to complain about how it turned out. If you’d like to see more, click here to go view my collection in the Collector’s Quest Community. I’ll be uploading more as I scan, so check back — there’s a lot of them.
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Article Tags: Ernest Borgnine, mermaids, nuclear, parade, Roses, slides, tournament, Trachtenburg================
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December 31st, 2007 at 10:34 pm
I have’nt looked at my slides in years, but it might be embarassing to see the shots I took of the local 4th of July parade. All the shots were of the garbrage and postal trucks. from the village. Now the movies I took were really great. Would my daughters be upset seeing the antics they preformed for the camera?
The Dean