Non-Commercial Season

We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last week and I was annoyed as usual that they didn't show the marching bands more. It's so unfair. The stupid commentators blather on about how this band had to raise so much money to get here and they're from a small town and yadda yadda, then we get to see them for approximately .5 seconds before we cut to some stoopid balloon. J. and I nearly fell off our chairs when the mayor of New York said he loves this parade because it's non-commercial. Exsqueeze me??? It's the MACY'S Thanksgiving Day Parade, and about 95% of the entries in the parade are from commercial ventures--Spongebob and various other cartoon characters from the Cartoon Network, M&M's (which provided the only violence of the parade by crashing into a lightpole and making it fall on a woman in a wheelchair--oopsie, not such good press there for Macy's), Ronald McDonald (who's now supposed to be some big exercise guru for kids--shyeah, right), and on and on. Hell, even Mr. Potato Head was a fracking commercial--the commentators read from their little script that he's now called "Healthy Mr. Potato Head," sponsored by the Potato Growers of America, and he carries a sports water bottle. Oh come on, people, it's Mr. Potato Head! It's supposed to funny, not moralistic! Jeez. The truth is, the marching bands are about the ONLY non-commercial part of the parade, and they don't get coverage for exactly that reason. So just shut it, Mr. Mayor, we're not buying it. And it's not the best parade of the year, either. That would be the Rose Bowl Parade.