From the Chamber of Commerce point of view, the most essential ingredient was subliminal sex. You cannot sell sun-drenched beaches without showing tanned female cleavage; Middle America hungered for it. Thus the pageant always featured droves of women in brief but not-quite-nasty bathing suits. The favored choice of models was the pneumatic blond teenager, suggestively hugging a neoprene palm tree or riding a stuffed alligator and smiling so fixedly that any idiot could see her makeup had been put on with a trowel.
Every year the Orange Bowl Committee chose a sunny new theme, but seldom did it touch on Florida's rapacious history. Swamp wars and slave raids and massacres of Indian children did not strike the Orange Bowl fathers as suitable topics for a parade; a parade intended purely as a primetime postcard.
As noted, this year's slogan was "Tropical Tranquillity."
At six P.M. the floats and clowns and high-school bands collected in the parking lots across from the Dupont Plaza Hotel. Dusky clouds rolled in from the north, smothering the vermilion sunset and dropping temperatures. The wind came in chilly gusts; some of the girls in bathing suits sneaked back to the dressing rooms to tape Band-Aids over their nipples, so they wouldn't be embarrassed if it got cold.
Before the parade could begin, a huge balloon replica of some comic-strip character with teeth like Erik Estrada's broke from its tether and drifted toward the high-voltage power lines. A policeman with a rifle shot it down, the first casualty of the evening.
Traditionally, the order of march began with a police honor guard and ended, a mile or so later, with the queen's float. This year the regimen would be different. Al Garcia had insisted that a troop of cops be positioned within shouting distance of Kara Lynn Shivers, but the Orange Bowl Committee absolutely refused, fearing Major Image Problems if TV cameras were to show uniformed police in the same frame as the queen. Brian Keyes had suggested a compromise, which was accepted: a colorful contingent of Shriners on motorcycles was inserted between the queen's float and the City of Miami (Marching) SWAT Team.
The Shriners would be led, of course, by Burt and James, packing handguns in their baggy trousers. Of the forty men behind them, only twenty would actually belong to the Evanston Shrine; the rest would be motorcycle cops secretly conscripted by Al Garcia. This part of the plan had never been revealed to the Orange Bowl Committee or to the Chamber of Commerce. However, to anyone paying close attention, it was obvious from the pained expressions on these unusually young and muscular-looking Shriners that something was screwy. The way they wore the fez hats, for one thing: straight up, instead of cocked ten degrees, jocular-Shriner style.
There was even more firepower: thirty undercover officers armed with machine pistols (and a mug shot of Viceroy Wilson burned into their memories) would move through the crowd, flanking Kara Lynn's float. From above, eight police sharpshooters with nightscopes would watch from various downtown buildings along Biscayne Boulevard and Flagler Street, the parade routes.
The queen's float shimmered gold and royal blue, by virtue of seventy-thousand polyethylene flower petals stapled to a bed of plywood, plaster, and chickenwire. The motif was "Mermaid Magic," featuring Kara Lynn in a clinging burnt-orange gown, her hair in tendrils under the Orange Bowl tiara, her cheeks glistening as if kissed by the sea. There had been a brief debate about whether or not she should wear a rubber fish tail, and though her father endorsed the idea ("More camera time, sweetcakes"), she declined firmly.
Kara Lynn's throne was a simulated coral reef built on the front end of the float. From this perch she would smile and wave to the throngs while a hidden stereo broadcasted actual underwater recordings of migrating sperm whales. Meanwhile the four runner-up contestants, dressed in matching tuna-blue mermaid gowns, would pretend to cavort in an imaginary lagoon behind Kara Lynn's reef. In rehearsal, with all the blond beauty queens making swimming motions with their arms, someone remarked that it looked like a Swedish version of the Supremes.
The queen's float had been constructed around a Datsun pickup truck, which would power it along Biscayne Boulevard. The truck's cab had been camouflaged as a friendly octopus in the mermaid lagoon; the driver of the float and Brian Keyes would be sitting inside. The windshield of the pickup had been removed to permit a sudden exit, just in case.
Despite these extraordinary precautions and the preponderance of high-powered guns, the pre-parade atmosphere was anything but tense. Even the Orange Bowl committeemen seemed loose and confident.
The sight of so many policemen, or the knowledge of their presence, was reassurance enough for those to whom the parade meant everything. These, of course, were the same buoyant optimists who believed that the violent events of the weekend had conclusively ended Miami's drama.
The parade was due to begin at seven-thirty P.M. sharp, but it was delayed several minutes because of a problem with one of the floats. Acting on a confidential tip, U.S. customs agents had impounded the colorful entry sponsored by the city of Bogota, Colombia, and were busily hammering sharp steel tubes through the sides of the float in search of a particular white flaky powder. Failing in that, they brought in four excitable police dogs to sniff every crevice for drugs. Though no contraband was found, one of the German shepherds peed all over the Colombian coffee princess and the float immediately was withdrawn. It was the only one in the whole pageant made with real carnations.
At 7:47 P.M., the West Stowe, Ohio, High School Marching Band and Honor Guard stepped onto Biscayne Boulevard, struck up a unique rendition of Jim Morrison's "Light My Fire," and the King Orange Jamboree Parade was under way. The skies were cloudy but the wind had steadied and there was no trace of rain. Standing five-deep along both sides of the boulevard was an enormous crowd of 200,000, most of whom had paid at least twelve bucks to park their expensive late-model cars in one of the most dangerous urban neighborhoods in the western hemisphere.
At precisely 8:01, the kliegs lighted up in the blue NBC booth, washing co-hosts Jane Pauley and Michael Landon in an unremitting white glare.
A teleprompter mounted on brackets above the cameras began to scroll. His cheeks burnished and his New Testament curls showing spangles of sun-induced blondness, Michael Landon spoke first to America, sticking faithfully to the script:
Hello everybody and welcome to Miami, Florida. What a night for a parade! [Cut to three-second shot of majorette with baton.] It's a mild sixty-seven degrees here in South Florida, with a tangy sea breeze reminding us that beautiful Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean are just over my shoulder. Down below, on Biscayne Boulevard, the King Orange Jamboree is in full swing. [Cut for four-second shot of swaying palm trees and Cooley Motors float.] The theme of this year's pageant is Tropical Tranquillity, and for the past week I've been enjoying just that, as you can see from my sunburn [sheepish smile]. Now I'd like to introduce my co-host for tonight's Orange Bowl pageant, the lovely and talented Jane Pauley. [Cut to close-up Pauley, then two-shot.]
Pauley: Thanks, Michael. We have had a great stay down here, though it looks like you spent a bit more time at the beach than I did. [Landon medium smile.] There's a lot of excitement in this town, and not just over the parade. As you know, tomorrow night the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame square off for the national college football championship in the Orange Bowl. NBC will carry that game live, and it looks like the weather's going to be perfect. Michael, who're you rooting for? [Cut to Landon close-up.]
Landon: I like Nebraska, Jane.
Pauley: Well, I think I'm going with Notre Dame.
Landon: Ah, still an Indiana girl.
Pauley [laughing]: You betcha. [Cut from two-camera to close-up.] On a serious note [turning to camera], if you've been following the news recently you probably know that this South Florida community has been struggling with a tragic and frightening crisis for the past month. A terrorist group calling itself the Nights of December has taken credit for a series of bombings, kidnappings, and other crimes in the Miami area. At least ten persons, many of them tourists, are known to have been killed. Now, as you may have heard, several alleged members of this terrorist group are believed to have died in a helicopter accident over the weekend. And last night, the last known member of this extremist cell was shot to death after abducting a Dade County police officer. It has been a trying time for the citizens down here, and in spite of all this difficulty they still managed to make us feel warm and welcome. [Cut to Landon, nodding appreciatively.] And, Michael, I know you'll agree as we watch some of these amazing floats go by: It's shaping up as another spectacular Orange Bowl extravaganza! [Cut to shot over Landon shoulder as he enjoys parade.]