John
McPhee was newspaper editor in Mesa, Arizona, in 1932. That year's Xmas parade was important for the small town's businesses as a way
to draw in both residents and out-of-towners for Xmas shopping. But
the populace didn't seem to be all that excited about Xmas
shopping or the parade, either, since the Great Depression was affecting
everyone's ability to celebrate as usual. But McPhee had an idea: a
spectacular entrance for Santa Claus that would grab everyone's
interest. Santa Claus would arrive in an airplane, an unusual site in
1932, and join the parade by parachute! What could possibly go wrong?
Um, the stunt man playing Santa could get killed. But that didn't
happen. The real story was a comedy of errors that's quite funny if you
weren't a young child in Arizona waiting for the arrival of Santa.
The
day of the scheduled take-off, McPhee found the performer at a bar, too
inebriated to participate. Faced with the possibility of storekeepers
and children being crushed with disappointment, McPhee immediately set
another plan into motion. He convinced a clothing store to let him
borrow a mannequin, which he dressed in the Santa suit. He then
instructed the pilot to make his scheduled run. At the climax, a pilot
would push the Santa-dressed dummy out of the plane and into the field.
From a distance, the townspeople would be unable to discern the plastic
body from a real one—they’d simply see a red-and-white payload drift
gently to the ground below. McPhee would be posted to meet the dummy,
disrobe it, don the beard, and drive into town as Santa.
A
large crowd had gathered to watch Santa arrive. But as you might guess,
the scheme cobbled together at the last minute didn't quite go as
McPhee had envisioned it. Let's just say that children were traumatized
for life. You can read
an account of the Christmas parade debacle at Mental Floss.
No comments:
Post a Comment