Santa Ana : Big Balloon Parade to Step Off Saturday

As many as 100,000 people are expected to line downtown streets Saturday to watch Toys on Parade, the only parade on the West Coast that includes giant helium-filled balloons such as those featured in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

Eight of the helium balloons, some of them towering 65 feet and including depictions of the Pillsbury Doughboy, a giant alligator, Popeye and Shari Lewis’ famed puppet character Lamb Chop, will travel the route of the second annual parade. They will be accompanied by eight conventional floats, as well as 16 marching bands, 104 clowns, animals--including two camels and two ostriches--and other entries.

The parade will get under way at Ross and 3rd streets at 10 a.m. and move north to Civic Center Drive, where it will turn east to Broadway. From there, the procession winds north to 17th Street and east to Main Street before turning south to the finish line at Civic Center Drive.

City officials said the best viewing area will be at the beginning of the route; parking areas include public lots at Broadway and 3rd Street, Bush and 5th streets, Bush and Santa Ana Boulevard and the Orange County Transit District lot at Broadway and 5th Street.

Parade sponsors also said that mail carriers and other postal workers will walk the route to collect letters destined for the North Pole. All letters accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope will receive replies.

The parade will be televised live on station KTLA, Channel 5, with puppeteer Lewis and game show host Bob Eubanks anchoring the broadcast.

Kim Fields of the TV show “Facts of Life” will be the parade marshal this year; grand marshals are Soleil Moon Frye of TV’s “Punky Brewster” and actor Michael Winslow, who starred in the “Police Academy” movies.

Last year’s parade drew an estimated 65,000 spectators.