A celebratory parade, largely held in an urban setting, characterized by lots of falling confetti made from shredded office paper and dropped from the city building windows.
The name itself is somewhat of an Artifact Title. In early days, people recycled used ticker tape
as streamers and confetti; however, ticker tape became obsolete with the advent of electronic displays. The term "tickertape parade" is still in common usage, though.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Paprika: The deranged parade feature prominently in the second half of the movie is always accompanied by an endless rain of confetti.
Comic Books
- Tintin in America ends with one, in Tintin's honor, after he cleans up Chicago.
- Spoofed in one issue of The Simpsons. Bart has a newspaper route, and tries to ease his workload by delivering the papers with firework rockets. Naturally, the end result is shredded and burnt paper falling from the sky, making everyone believe that such a parade is going on...for Homer, who was driving home at the time. Mayor Quimby, wondering why everyone is celebrating such a boob but not wanting to be left out, gives Homer a medal and declares it Homer Simpson Day.
- In a Richie Rich comic book gag, there's a ticker tape parade in the center of Richville, but Richie's father doesn't have any ticker tape for the event. So what does Richie use instead? Dollar bills.
- The Americommando gets a ticker tape parade greeting his welcome home as a war hero in JSA: The Golden Age.
- At the end of the first Catstronauts book, the titular characters are given one in their honour for stopping the Earth from going into a blackout.
Films — Live-Action
- The Cameraman: Buster Keaton is watching a ticker-tape parade when he meets his Love Interest, who is at the scene with an MGM newsreel film crew. At the end he's at another ticker-tape parade when Sally finds him and kisses him and tells him he got the newsreel cameraman job.
- The Incredible Mr. Limpet. While he's protecting the convoy heading to Europe, the title character Limpet daydreams about the awards he will receive for his war hero services, including such a parade in his honor.
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has a Chase Scene in the parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts (see below), firmly setting the movie in time.
- Howard Hughes gets a tickertape parade in The Aviator after his around-the-world flight.
- Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace ends with one to celebrate Naboo's victory over the Trade Federation.
- Alvin in Sergeant York gets a proper tickertape parade when returning to New York as a war hero.
- In Privilege, pop star Steven Shorter is given "the first tickertape welcome in the history of Britain" when he returns from his American tour.
Literature
- Mockingly lampshaded in the first Able Team novel. Terrorists seize a skyscraper in New York and demand freedom for Puerto Rico, the release of all 'political prisoners', and a tickertape parade. It's a moot point since they intend to blow up the building anyway.
Live-Action TV
- The Crown (2016). Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip get one while visiting Sydney on a grueling Commonwealth tour. The Queen strains a facial muscle from smiling all the time while Philip complains about how he's waving his hand in his sleep.
- The Outer Limits (1963): In "Cold Hands, Warm Heart", Jeff Barton, the first man to orbit Venus, receives one after he returns to Earth.
Magazines
- In a 1960s issue of [[Mad]], at the end of “A Mad Look at the U.S. Space Effort” (incidentally Sergio Aragones' first work with the magazine), a nameless astronaut is being given a ticker-tape parade upon his return, but sees a street cleaner sticking his tongue out at him for causing the extra workload.
Music
- The Decemberists utilize this term in their song ''The Perfect Crime #2."
"It was like a tickertape parade
When the plastique on the safe was blown away"
Newspaper Comics
- In one Calvin and Hobbes comic, Calvin has an Imagine Spot where he's thrown a tickertape parade for getting his homework done.
- A comic from Bill Mauldin show such a parade in Europe for the American troops liberating the city. However, the commanding officer is being pelted with fruit from his own men on a truck behind him
Video Games
- This is the player's reward for the Level 11 quest in Kingdom of Loathing. It's the longest and most annoying quest in the game.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons:
- At the end of "Deep Space Homer", the carbon rod credited with saving the space shuttle from burning up in Earth's atmosphere gets a ticker tape parade in its honor.
- In "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson", there's a gag where the family hold a fake parade (with Lisa as an astronaut) so they can drop leaflets for Marge's pretzel-selling business. Marge stages a tickertape parade to avoid littering laws when she throws flyers for her pretzel business off the buildings.
Chief Wiggum: Welcome back, space girl. (sniffs)
- In Behind The Laughter", the Simpsons are shown getting a nicer-tape parade at the height of their fame, while a second vehicle contains Santa Claus, the Pope, and an astronaut is ignored.
- The Pink Panther: In the short "Pink of the Litter", Pink was hired to clean all the litter in town. After he does, he is given a tickertape parade... and then has to clean up after it.
- Roger of American Dad! threw himself a ticker tape parade because a deli named a sandwich after him.
- The Autobots and Decepticons both get one in Megatron's Master Plan.
- Hong Kong Phooey: The opening sequence starts with a ticker tape parade for the title character.
- Deconstructed in The Critic, when Jay Sherman leads a city-wide campaign to clean up the city. He does that, literally, and the mayor throws him a tickertape parade in his honor... which promptly undoes all the work he put into cleaning up the place. Jay is not pleased.
- Johnny Bravo: When Johnny becomes the sanitation commissioner, he throws a tickertape parade to celebrate and then has to clean up after it by himself because he spent the sanitation budget on the parade.
- Futurama: Parodied in "I Second That Emotion". After Bender saves the sewer mutants from el Chupanibre, one proposes throwing a "toilet tape parade" in their honor — as the mutants live all their lives in the sewers, they are also established to live in something of a sewage-themed Scavenger World. Bender is not thrilled.
Mutant: Let's have a toilet tape parade!
Bender (offscreen): No thanks! - Danger Mouse and Penfold get a ticker tape parade in New York City for saving the day at the end of "The Statue Of Liberty Caper."
- The end credits of The Real Ghostbusters feature a ticker tape parade for the heroes—which Slimer manages to mess up.
- In Clerks: The Animated Series, when Jay is announced in court as the plaintiff in his lawsuit against the Quick Stop, he has an Imagine Spot in which he gets a tickertape parade in New York City for this "feat".
- Darkwing Duck once visited a planet where everyone was a superhero. The ticker-tape parades were done with Scotch tape.
Real Life
- The Ur-Example and Trope Maker is the 1886 celebration of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in New York City.
- It is at such a Ticker Tape Parade celebrating the end of World War II that The V-J Day Kiss happened.
- Another famous example is the August 1969 parade in New York when the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from their mission to the Moon. This was one of the earlier parades with little if any actual ticker tape, as by that point paper-based tickers were on their way out. Most of the confetti was scrap office paper. (Compare the photo of the event◊ to one just nine years earlier◊.)
- It's become tradition to have a similar parade when a local professional sports team wins a championship. For example: The New Orleans Saints; the 2009-10 Super Bowl champions, had the interesting distinction of being both a typically downtrodden franchise and based in a legendary party town, meaning they had one Hell of a parade.
