“I think it’s unique,” Sanchez said. “It kind of makes you wish we still had a drive-in. It kind of takes you back.”
The city’s float was designed to look like a drive-in movie theater with a dinosaur jumping out of the screen toward a couple of dogs, who sat in a vehicle.
This year’s float was the first to include pyrotechnics and emit a popcorn scent, but it didn’t take home a trophy.
Last year, Burbank’s “Oktoberfest” float won the Founders’ Trophy for the “most spectacular built and decorated by volunteers from a community or organization.”
The city’s “Free Dog Wash” didn’t win a trophy in 2007, but floats from 2003 to 2006 picked up trophies at the parade.
This year’s float was the city’s 75th entry at the Rose Parade.
Bob Hutt, Burbank Tournament of Roses Assn. vice president, was disappointed the float didn’t win because he said they tried to create a float that was different from other floats. Their use of rose stems in their design and their specifically composed music was unique, he said.
Next year’s float design will weigh some of this year’s judges’ evaluations, Hutt said.
Hutt is already looking for design entries, which will be accepted until Jan. 28, for next year’s float.
Association treasurer Robin Hanna has worked on 23 floats and plans to work on next year’s float.
This year’s float, she said, mostly remained intact, with only a few flowers drying or falling off.
“It has held up pretty good,” Hanna said.
Resident Kathy Nealis and her children got to see the float Wednesday in Burbank, before it was taken to Pasadena.
“It was pretty awesome,” she said.
But she came back Sunday to see the float again and buy commemorative T-shirts for her children.
Float organizers conducted animation demonstrations for visitors so they could see how the float performed on the parade route.
“We are going to bring the kids back,” Nealis said.
The float will be taken apart Jan. 10 at the float barn, at 123 W. Olive Ave.
