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Things I Hate About TV: Dumb-ass parade patter
I love a parade as much as the next guy. I especially love a parade that celebrates a championship for a team that I've been following since 1980. So, I was ready and eager to watch my beloved New York Giants float down New York's "Canyon of Heroes" for the first time ever, a just reward for beating the "perfect" Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
But, of course I couldn't completely enjoy it. Why? because, no matter what channel I tuned in to (and, here in the New York area, the parade was on every channel), I heard something that made my head rattle and my ear hair stand on end.
It was people. Talking.
Every station employed some combination of sportscaster and news reader to anchor the festivities at City Hall, then sent the same combination into the parade route to talk to the crowd and maybe catch a player or two getting onto a float.
You'd think this combination would be harmless. But then you realize that local news anchors and sportscasters aren't exactly good at impromptu patter when they only have ten seconds to riff in between reading things off the teleprompter. The problem with a parade like this is that the broadcast is all patter; there's no goofy script to read from like Matt, Al and Meredith get at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.
So we get insight like Len Berman of WNBC, wondering if their crowd reporter, Tracie Strahan, is any relation to Giants defensive end Michael Strahan. We get Russ Salzberg of WWOR, usually good at riffing, talking confusedly about the team's playoff run through Tampa, Dallas, and frigid Green Bay. And we had some random deep-voiced ex-athlete on WCBS yammering on about how much quarterback Eli Manning was maligned during the season.
Yikes. And that was the sports guys.
The anchors had even less of a clue. "Here comes a float!" one might say. Because no one had a written itinerary of who would be on each float -- and the players were wearing gray sweatshirts instead of their jerseys -- the anchors were lost. I think one of them actually said "here comes a side of beef!" when a float with the Giants' defensive line came into view.
Is there any reason why we need commentary during a parade? I mean, it's pretty much all visual, anyway. Just show the floats, and if you can identify a player (Strahan's been on TV so much, even my mother recognizes him, along with the Opie-looking Manning), flash up an identifying graphic. Otherwise, just let us enjoy the noise and scenery, and do the interviews during the six o'clock news. Please.
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