Parade Floats

When the 120th Rose Parade rolls onto Colorado Boulevard this morning, the really valuable seating will be the free spots on the sidewalk, as the venerable parade and bowl game take a recessionary hit -- albeit one that New Year's revelers are taking with the day's trademark optimism. The spectacle of flower-festooned floats, marching bands and, of course, the daintily waving Rose Queen and her court is expected to draw tens of thousands of spectators and countless television viewers.

* Sweepstakes Trophy: FTD's "Jewels of Nature," for most beautiful entry * Lathrop K.

Let 2007 go down as the year that the stormtroopers claimed downtown Pasadena for the Galactic Empire and the notaries were on hand to make sure the deal went down smoothly. As hundreds of thousands of Rose Parade spectators cheered wildly, some 200 armor-clad volunteers of the 501st Legion -- a.k.a. Vader's Fist -- marched grimly down Colorado Boulevard, paying tribute to the Tournament of Roses' grand marshal, "Star Wars" creator George Lucas.

For the first time, the People's Republic of China will have a float in the Rose Parade next year, and it is expected to be an eye-catcher The official announcement will be at 10 a.m. Monday at the Tournament House in Pasadena. Commemorating the Olympic Games that will be held in Beijing next summer, the float will be co-sponsored by the Pasadena-based Avery Dennison Corp., which has a major business presence in China, and the Roundtable of Southern California Chinese American Organizations.

Long before Disneyland's nighttime electrical parade, well before the Rose Parade's dazzling flowered creations, even before America itself was established, the good people of a faraway village in Japan first crafted what would become their nation's most famous float. The simple bamboo and paper contraptions created 350 years ago have morphed into colossal visages of fierce samurai illuminated by hundreds of light bulbs.

When the Tournament of Roses announced earlier this year that the Rose Parade would include a float celebrating the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, many hailed it as a historic moment for the 119-year-old parade and a sign of China's rise on the world stage. But with the parade less than three months away, the float has become an increasingly heated political issue in Pasadena and beyond.

Pasadena officials have rejected calls that the city condemn China's human rights record or take any other action regarding a controversial Rose Parade float celebrating the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The decision came despite impassioned protests and is a key victory for the Tournament of Roses as well as prominent Chinese Americans and business interests sponsoring the planned float.

The shell of the Rose Parade float celebrating the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games sits in a sprawling warehouse complex in Azusa. In a matter of hours, it will be adorned with thousands of carnations and roses, outfitted with fireworks and accompanied by 124 costumed Beijing opera singers, acrobats, traditional dancers and plate spinners down Colorado Boulevard.

The "Once Upon a Time" float in the 118th Tournament of Roses Parade will pit good and evil dragons in a fire-breathing battle on the streets of Pasadena on New Year's Day. The step-by-step process of creating an animated dragon head: Stage one: sculpture Artists create the three-dimensional shape of the dragon's head from pencil steel. The sides of the dragon's face are welded together and supported by 3/4-inch steel pipe, forming the basic shape of the head.