Page 7 - Pop History: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Happy Thanksgiving! Please enjoy the most chaotic topic we've ever covered. Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7PodcastKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The turkey's on parade. And the turkeys are on parade. Santa's on parade. Santa's on parade. Oh, Santa's on parade. There's some turkeys in there. Guys, we have such information for you. Oh, my God.

Welcome to the pop history episode on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It's bonkers. This is such a ridiculous. I feel I feel kind of drunk because of how weird I feel about this episode. I really thought this was going to be just sort of a cute, dry, little, like, clean-cut episode. And this is one of the most chaotic things we've ever covered. Yeah, we did the new, and one would have thought we did rock in New Year's Eve. I thought for sure that would just be like people, pissing on people and all these crazy stories of like clowns getting set on fire.

But no, that was relatively tame compared to the early history of the Mason's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And we were just, I was just saying, but I do just love how irresponsible black and white times were, how gleefully just dangerous they treated everything. I love hearing, like, from my sister's generation, she's 13 years older than me, how we are so soft because of how she was raised. We say the same thing to the zoomers. You know, every generation thinks that they are tougher than the generation after them. in reading about the kids and how they lived any time before 19, I'm going to say 82, was just such a nightmare.

Everything that had kids were just like, eh, well, I don't know, make them work harder for it. Oh, what do they want to smile? Makes you think of Scrooge. Oh, you want a penny? You better work your 12-hour shift after school. Figure out how to make extra hours in the day. Figure it out.

I really, you know, we've really normalized parades in our society. They've become sort of corporate. But parades are anarchy. Yeah. They are insane. They don't make any sense. They are dangerous. They are reckless.

Bad stuff happens all the time in them, but we just kind of have made it. And I love them. I love everything about them. I love the Mayesies Day parade. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, this year will probably be the tamest of all of the parades for various, well, not for various reasons, because of the fucking pandemic. If you're listening to this at the time of its, around the time of its recording, we are still

in that whole business. If you're listening to this in the future, oh, man, you're so lucky. I'm so jealous. Yeah, are you smiling? Are you out of the future? Did you go to Disney World this year? Don't bring up. Do you have plans to go to a concert later?

What? Did you go to a concert? Did you go to an outdoor summer concert? Not this year, everyone. Close your eyes because we're at the Macy's fucking Thanksgiving Day parade. Absolutely. And things were harder back in the day. This is, I guess, the gush portion.

I'll just say, definitely a Thanksgiving staple. Always, I think that initial sign, you know, walking in, smelling all the delicious food, going to my Gamma's house, where the whole family congregated. The parade would always be on when we walked in. and it was such a part of the atmosphere that just screamed Thanksgiving. I associate, when I hear those announcers, it's always like an in the background thing, too, that I love so much. You hear those announcers in the background.

You look over every down again, but it's literally just there to as a part of the setting that is Thanksgiving and always will be. And then football afterwards, of course, but it just is as much comfort food as the whole actual food itself. Jackie, you never, had you ever gone to it in person? being a New Yorker? I have never, but I did go to see the balloons being blown up the night before, which was awesome as shit. But as someone, and you, y'all know, Empress of Thanksgiving here, to come in to talk about my favorite day of the year.

Self-proclaimed. Well, ouch. And yes, I am the Empress of Thanksgiving. Yes, Thanksgiving is my favorite. And I love the parade. I saw the balloons, but everybody knows. If you're a real New Yorker, you don't go to the parade. You try and stay as far away from the parade as humanly possible just like New Year's Rock and Eve.

In the same way that Holden used to live in New York, you don't go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. You stay away from it. But you still watch it on television. I was there once. Oh, really? Oh, did you? I was working. Yeah.

I was, uh... You're talking about it. Like, the way you're talking right now, it sounds like you were in Vietnam. Continue? I'm flashing back to all the street performing. I used to do. Oh, no. I mean, it was, it's not that far off.

I feel like it was Vietnam for me. It's probably similar. Yeah, I bet it's just like it. I've seen Jacob's Ladder. When is Natalie's stepstool going to be a movie? And I want to see it. I mean, technically, maybe I'm inside of it right now. I won't know.

I won't know. Natalie's stepstool. Yeah. So my personal Vietnam was I used to do a lot of, performing in New York to like advertise for shows. And I was hired out as a performer for Cirque to Soleil for a couple months where one of their shows called Windtuck, which was a winter themed show. There's like a group of us who would have to go around like the tri-state area into different events and perform on the street. So one of the times we had to go do that at

Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, which, you know, is what people want to see when there's a big parade happening. They want to see people behind them. Yes. Also performing at the same time. Do your flippies. Doing your flip flops. I do have to ask, did you get paid to do it though? Oh yeah. I was a performer. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was a hired performer. It seems like a lot of the people involved in the Macy's Day parade don't get paid. Seems like a lot of work for a lot of volunteer time. In fact, people love to volunteer to be a part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. That's one of their That's a scam of a parade.

I mean, it's a beautiful scam. And then they think it's like, oh, you can get close to the C-list celebrities. And actually, I never really thought about this before that there is a reason why they don't bring in A-list celebrities. I always kind of just assumed, I mean, of course, they pepper them in every once in a while, but I always just assumed, oh, no one would want to give up their Thanksgiving morning. But in reality, it makes sense. They're trying not to overshadow the Broadway.

performances, the, you know, all of the high school marching bands that come in. The street performers that are standing in the crowd who are dancing even though they're not dancing and no one looks at them. Everyone is there for that, Natalie, because it's magical. And I had to miss the parade many, many years because I worked as a baker for a pie shop, which means you work on Thanksgiving. And then before then I was a nanny. So I hadn't

really been able to, and then I would come home and try and find someone that had recorded it on YouTube because usually they didn't save it anywhere. And I would watch parts of it sad and alone. And I would get, in fact, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade made me really sad because it missed, I missed being home. I missed. My mom still for some reason, she's the person that gets up on Thanksgiving and is cooking at 6 a.m. I don't, like, as now as someone that has hosted my own Thanksgiving, you don't have to get up at

6 a.m. In fact, you could just push the dinner a little bit later, which is what I do, so I don't have to, because now every year I get drunk with my friend Holden at 6 o'clock in the morning for the Maysys Thanksgiving game. Your mom's not a drinker, so she's just getting up with excitement and freshness and feeling great, and we get up feeling bad about ourselves. I mean, I completely understand. Why do you think I have a thawed turkey on my counter that after this, I'm going to get in the oven because that's how excited I am to make turkeys. I love a turkey. And if you know how to do it right, you get that juicy meat.

Ooh, you make that bird so juicy. Did I buy a 19 pound turkey for Jeff and I? Yes, I did. And that's, of course, why you are the imprints of Thanksgiving. And by the way, since we can self-proclaim things, I am the creature of Christmas. Of course you are. Maddie, still stuck in nom? Yeah, no, I'm a nom for sure.

I don't get a I don't have a I guess I could be Halloween I need a if you guys are all going to have holidays Yeah but what if you're easy for Easter You're easy Easter You say I'm a little bunny rabbit I'm Natalie Rabbit

Now I'm easy for Easter Easy for Easter How about erotic for Easter Okay erotic for Easter All right Class it up a little bit As creature of Christmas My whole thing is that in the morning

When the kids run downstairs I arrive before any present is opened. I get to pick out one of the presents of each of the children and take it as my own. Of course, I always try to find the thing they want most. By looking at the look in their eyes as I touch each present and try to smith out the one they most wish for.

See, I think what you should do is you get it there for them. I'm sorry, not to tell you how to creature, but I think you should open up all the presents first and then you get to choose so they don't even get to open the presents. That's what a creature would do. I open them all in front of them

And then I sort of slowly kind of work my way through them. As I pick each one up, I look at them to see if there's a little like, like a little hesitation. That might be the very number one thing they wanted that year. Little titillation. And that's your giving them the gift of the lesson of learning disappointment. Yeah. Life isn't fair. Holden brings disappointment to everybody's own.

And I give those gifts, by the way, to old homeless guys to sell for drugs. See, that's nice. It's given back to the community. Exactly. In the way that the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Day parade really, I also realized in all this, I always call it the Macy's Day parade,

even though that is not what, that doesn't make any sense. So if I keep saying that I apologize, I never really thought about it before. It makes a lot more sense. That corporate marketing really paid off. It is for Macy's. It was made for Macy's.

In fact, to the point that, like, even reading through this, like, I've read multiple articles that were like, you do know. No, there are other parades and other cities on Thanksgiving. Bullshit. Fuck you. We're all about Macy's, and I guess it all starts with a little man named Hussie Macy.

That's right. By the way, quick synopsis, Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade happens annually in New York City. It is the world's largest parade and is presented by the department store chain, of course, Macy's, starting back in 1924, which ties it for the second oldest Thanksgiving. Day Parade in the U.S. It takes place for three hours starting at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard on Thanksgiving Day and has been televised nationally since 1953. It consists of over 8,000 participants in a crowd of more than 3.5 million turns out to watch it in person with over 50 million watching at home on TV.

I'm manifesting it right now. I will be a host of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade someday. Please. I'm manifesting it right now as. we speak. If this episode doesn't lock it in, I don't know what will. I don't know. Wait, what's the other, what's the other old parade? I'm not sure. I didn't get that. I was just like, what are the, give me the numbers. But I will say I did happen upon Jackie's, uh, file, secret file that she has with plans to kidnap Al Roker. Oh my God.

Yeah. I'm going to replace him in the parade. I'm going to fatten him up again. I want to be, I was like, bring old Al back. And then we're going to come back. I'm going to bring fat Al Roker back with me. And then we're both going to be like, fatties on parade. Fatty's on parade. We're going to be like throwing gravy out into the crowd. Isn't it crazy?

There's a whole generation of kids that have only known skinny El Roker. I know, man. I need more representation, El Roker. And Roland Hussie Macy needed representation for his retail dry goods stores. Is his name actually pronounced Hussie? Hussie, yeah.

I believe so. I think. Unless it's. Hussay? Yes. But also that would be more fun. He originally founded four retail dry goods stores between 1843 and 1855,

which all failed. But he learned from his mistakes, and he moved to New York City in 1958, and there he established a new store called R.H. Macy Dry Goods on the corner of 6th Avenue and 14th Street, making just a big store. Mm-hmm. It's a big store, but he only made $11.8 in sales on the first day,

which is actually equivalent to $326.82 cents today. But either way, the logo actually included the star in some form since day one. And this is actually because he had a red star-shaped tattoo as a teen working on a Nantucket wailing ship. Oh my God, he's emo. It's such an edge lord. We didn't even know. Yeah, I bet it was a poking stick, too, or whatever it is. Probably.

But either way, as his business grew, he was known for using publicity devices such as a store Santa Claus, themed exhibits, and illuminated window displays to bring. bring customers into the store. This is a dude that knew what he was doing. I think that it's fun to see someone that was like, I am an entrepreneur, here to entrepreneur my way through this big city. And in my brain,

they all talk like transcontinental railroad drivers, and I'll kiss him. Yeah. Oh, that's a turn on. Like the, all about a girl, oh, look at this. Oh, fatty little girl. That's pretending like she's a turkey. Doesn't she want to hop on?

Pop, pop on aboard my penis. This next factoid felt like very transcontinental to me as well. The store would later move to 18th Street and Broadway in order to be placed on the

Ladies Mile. What is the Ladies Mile, you ask? An elite shopping district of the time. It was named the Ladies Mile because there was enough security in the area to allow women

to shop without male companions to accompany them. Oh, thank God. There was enough security out to make sure they weren't art in the streets, while trying to just shop in the middle of the day. You know what? It sounds nice, but this is how we got women's lip,

and this is how the decline of our country is, the collapse. When you allow women, women can just walk down the street without assistance. Yeah, you know, that's why Bella needs Edward, but we don't need to talk about Twilight, but I remember when she was walking in the streets. Now, I will say, talk about entrepreneur. I think that these are some fun facts I found out about Macy's. Yeah, whatever.

They are actually very interesting. that when the prohibition ended, the first liquor license in the city was issued to R.H. Macy and Co. So he could sell adult beverages in his stores. And also, Macy's was the first to introduce colored bath towels to America in 1932. Before that, America only had white bath towels. The nation's baths and showers were given a technical makeover, Thanks to the unusual move by Macy's.

Besides bath towels, Macy's also brought tea bags and baked potato to America. Whoa. You forget, it's really, we have so much at our fingertips. You forget how much of a novelty, some things like they didn't have baked potatoes before. Yeah. Like, what? Yeah, dog. And you know what, those colored bath towels, I think they really, they've really brought a lot of joy into our country.

and communism. I won't buy a white bath towel. I understand. I say I want it to always look dirty. And I say that to all my towels as they come out of the dryer. I say, yo, you're going to go and get dirty again. Orange towels.

White towels are a pain because if you get makeup on them, if you get your period blood on it. Oh, moon's blood, please. Hold on this. Cover your ears. You don't understand what we go through. Moon juices. Well, my cums is on it and everything.

Oh, yeah, your cums. Your cubs. But your company, that's what white towels are good for that. Cousin goes, why is it there? And I go, I don't know. I made a mistake. But either way, ownership of the company was passed down through the Macy family until 1895, when it was acquired by two brothers, Isidore and Nathan Strauss. And in 1902, the Flagg's Chip store moved uptown to its final resting place,

Harold Square at 34th Street and Broadway, where it remains today. It slowly expanded to take over almost the entire city block. And that's an avenue block. It is massive. It's big. And, yeah, that is from Broadway to 7th Avenue. And now we can start talking about the history of the parade, unless you want to tell us about more vegetables and items that slowly became available to America through the store.

You're a vegetable. Well, is it interesting? Well, Macy's actually was, you go into your stores out and you're like, oh, there's an escalator. Who gives a bull? But I'll give you what? Lacey's. Macy's had the first escalators in their store and they were made out of wood.

My goodness. What? How? Click clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, like that. Macy's also was the first to introduce the fuckable mannequin back in 1968. Oh. Jokes on them. You could always fuck a mannequin if you try it already.

True. Oh, see. I'm still, I'm... Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur. I am so locked into the, how did the, how did the wood escalator? You have to explain this to me. Pullies.

Mechanical, yeah. Did they have little tiny people inside pulling them? Probably. Yeah, they were, right. You already said they were made of wood. They were, I bet people were convinced there were people down there. But yeah, I think it would be, was it a hand crank or either way? It was definitely like very.

Whatever it was, it was in Macy's and everyone. They were covered in baked potatoes. They were covered in their colored towels, and they were just, man, clack, clack, clack, clack, clacking up all the floors of the Macy's. I mean, as we'll get into, there were no child labor laws, so very could easily have been some children underneath there, like in Snowpiercer. So once they expanded this huge, they wanted to celebrate the opening of the, quote, world's largest store, and it's one million square feet of retail space. And they decided to throw a little parade on Thanksgiving morning in 1924, calling it a Christmas. parade as they set their sights on early Christmas shoppers on the day. And there were full-page ads that were put out in newspapers promising a quote, Marathon of Mirth. Store employees marched to

the flagship store at Harold Square dressed in vibrant costumes for six miles from Harlem, a procession that stretched for just two city blocks. And the employees were said to be mostly immigrants, but long to put on a celebration similar to those festivals and things in their home countries. It's so smart. This is such a smart thing to do to drum up business. Like, oh, let's just make everybody come out here. And then at this point, the parade, I believe that it was also in the very beginning that was six miles long. Yeah, it said six miles. Six miles long. So they couldn't walk all of it. So all of the floats were pulled by horses. And they were actually pulled by horses until 1939 because the parade route was so long that no one really could want on to walk.

I mean, you know, they didn't have the new balances on. I tell you what, you know, they had to work for those shoes that they had on the bottoms of the feet. I mean, there were horses dying left and right on that parade. They were just bring another horse out and strap it in. Get another horse for it. Then they throw the horses out to the poor people so they could have meat for dinner. To feast. Oh, I apologize.

I do have an answer. My facts, my facttoids are all jumbled. For your question earlier, Natalie, Philadelphia has the oldest Thanksgiving Day parade. It's Giggles Thanksgiving Day Parade that debuted in 1920. Wow, I didn't know that. I lived in Philly and I had no idea that happened. I don't think you're, I guess you're not the Empress of Thanksgiving. No wonder.

You're the erotic Easter bunny. That's going to be such a bad look. I hate it. I hate it. Just in like stripper heels, but like the full bunny costume. Yeah, you're gnarly rabbit. Yeah. I'm just like a girl's next door.

Yeah, it's awesome. So for the original parade, there were floats, professional bands, and live animals that they borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. Sure. Including bears, elephants, camels, and monkeys. And of course, you had Santa Claus at the end to welcome everybody into Harold Square with the whole blowing of a trumpet. to reveal the fair frolics of Wondertown Christmas time window display which was actually...

The fair frolics of Wondertown! That sounds like a... That sounds like a van you don't want to go into. This is just all like an opium dream. All of this. Yes. Also, by the way, he was crowned the king of the kitties as well. They put a crown upon stym.

And not the animal. In front of an audience of over 10,000 people. The theme of the window displays was nursery rhymes. Therefore, the floats were mother. goose favorites such as Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood, which largely consisted of marionettes,

marionettes created by puppeteer Tony Sarge. Back to you, Jackie. We should do this like a host of Oh my God, we're just like we're hosting it right now. Oh, thanks, Holden. Yeah, it is pretty cold out here. Oh, yeah, we don't know if the wind's going to take away the balloons today,

but what I do know is that there is whiskey in my coffee, Holden. Oh, my God. This is around the same time period that it was well believed that with children that the less you touch them and the less you talk to them, the better. That actually it was believed around this time period that if you touched or coddled your child too much, that they would turn into a socialist. And we don't want that. Not for the holidays. This is also around the time in the 1930s that if you look up baby cages.

That is when they are told that kids need to be outside a little bit more. Oh, the baby cages. So they constructed cages out of the window so that if you're an apartment, you could just leave the baby in the cage that hangs out the window and then it's got fresh air and you don't got to watch it because it can't go anywhere. If you out there listening have not seen pictures of this, you have to Google it because they look so sad at the baby cages. It's so terrified.

Imagine this is a New York. where a lot of these buildings are very high up in the air. I mean, these babies are just levitating. Terrified. I do want to say quick about Tony Sarg, who is the person that Holden just mentioned. So this dude was a known, he was known for being a puppeteer and a marionette artist. He even had his own marionette business. So Sarg was actually the artistic director and the mastermind of the parade, starting in 1927.

is when he introduced the inflatable cartoons and caricatures that would become synonymous with the holiday tradition. So it's because of Tony Sarg of why we have the balloons in the first place and why it makes sense that they are all designed like marionettes. Because it was all his vision of how they could be controlled by people on the ground rather than from the air. And I just never, is it sad that I was like, oh my God. God, they are all marionettes. And I never thought about it like that before. And I was, I said this aloud to Jeff. And Jeff was like, wow.

No, is that cool? Fun. Hey, just remind him of the Steel Magnolia's week. Okay. Oh, God. At least I'm not crying. It is for him. Yeah.

Lucky Stars that you're just going, oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, they're just sitting here. Yeah. So the marionettes, too, were they, but that guy designed part of the window displays as well. Yeah, he did the whole window display thing as well.

That's something that I think they really attributed to a lot of the success early on in Macy's was their window displays, which they continue to do to this day. And they really are fucking magical. Like if you go down that street around Christmas time, I do think that's like when Manhattan is the prettiest. It's so cool. It really is so cool and worth your time if you're around there. But I think that this is also, again, this goes back to the idea of like this was all, Again, Macy's idea to bring Sargon to make this better, it's so business, brilliant. Well, and this is the thing too, as we said, this was just to celebrate the opening of their, quote,

world's largest store, but the parade is so successful that they declare it to be an annual event after that. And now I would like to talk about Ragamuffin Day. My favorite thing I learned about probably this whole time is that there was a day. Thanksgiving used to be haunted. by a thing called Ragamuffin Day. From 1870 until the 1920s. That is 50 years of Ragamuffin Day, by the way. So before I get into specifically Ragamuffin Day,

which seems to be specifically a New York City thing, apparently Thanksgiving was a lot more of a masquerade, masked event where people were like throwing pennies at each other and all this sort of thing around the country. But Ragamuff Day seems to be. specific to New York City, where they weren't just dressing up as all different types of things, including racial stereotypes, but they were actually specifically dressing up as like Charlie Chaplin tramp-style hobo people and going around. And what would they say, Jackie?

Anything for Thanksgiving? But they were not British because again, this happened in New York City. Although, who knows? They said British in my head as well. Yeah, I mean, I bet you there were. They could. Yeah. Probably a lot of Irish. So, so, and people, apparently hated this. These kids were dressed up like making fun of the homeless and going around and bothering people less than a month after Halloween

where they did pretty much the exact same thing. The LA Times in 1897 said Thanksgiving was the busiest time of the year for the manufacturers of and dealers in masks and false faces. The fantastical costume parades

and the old custom of making and dressing up for amusement on Thanksgiving day, keep up from year to year in many parts of the country so that the quantity of falls faces sold at this season is enormous. But if you look up, again, Ragamuffin Day, look up the pictures of how horrifying these children look on Ragamuffin Day. They're very scary costumes. I mean, honestly, old school Halloween costumes were also very scary.

Oh, yeah. I just think it's so. Look up there is a specific article that I think you should. look at. It's called when Thanksgiving was weird. It's an NPR article and that's where a lot of the pictures come from and it, ugh, horrifying. I mean, but

the upside is that you get to throw pennies at kids. At kids. Anything for Thanksgiving. I think it was a lot of that too. And so we bring this up because the Macy's Day and Civing Day parade helped to end Ragamuffin Day. So instead it was like, look at the zoo animals. Look at the blue, you know,

everything like that or whatever, right? Look at all the tortured animals we have. Yes, and in that article, they did also go into the fact that it also ended around the time of the beginning of the Great Depression when no one had anything. So actually making notice of how little everybody had was just more of a downer than anything. So they're like, what do we put on a parade instead? So then in 1927, the zoo animals were replaced by helium-filled balloons because, of course, the roars and growls of the tired, exhausted, animals. Oh, my God.

Scared the children so much that they were like. They ripped these animals out of a zoo and they are, they are born and raised in the zoo. They put them in the streets of New York. There's kids running around dressed like homeless people. And the kids are terrified. It's just the zoo, their lives in the zoo aren't bad enough. You're going to make them a walk down a street while people are throwing stuff at them and screaming. What?

This is a fucking nightmare. I just love that the growls and the snarls of the tired animals scared the children too much. They should be scared. That is a smart reaction to that. So the first balloons were mostly cartoon characters, most notably with Felix the Cat. And they were designed again by Tony Sarge and produced by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, up through 1980. and at the end of the parade, the balloons, this is, okay, this is the next, like, what the fuck is happening in the 30s? We're they thinking about.

Or the late 20s. So back in the day, they didn't have a plan for deflating these balloons. So they just released these massive balloons into the air. There was, this is in 1928, or a year after, actually, 1928, Macy's then decides, hey, how about we stop wasting our money releasing these balloons there? will offer a $100 reward to any returned balloons to the store, which, by the way, would be $1,500 in today's money. So definitely people were. And that's what, so also, so they're releasing these balloons.

The entire city is desperate to go get these balloons. Because also it would be like a fun, great honor. And inside of the balloon, they have to get the actual balloon because the certificates were also placed inside of the balloons. for them to get to spend the money at Macy's. This is, this is in 1920, $100 is a ridiculous amount of money back then. Yeah. There's, okay.

It's so funny. Me reading about this really just exemplified how chaotic the world truly is, and society is an illusion. Because the idea that they would make all of these things, but put no plan into play. about what they would do at the end of the parade with the balloons. And so they go, let's just let them go in the air and see what happens. And then when that was kind of fine, they were like, okay, now we're going to,

why don't you guys all, all you starving masses, why don't you guys fight over the balloons? Fight up, fight, and how much do you want it? The person who survives at the end will win money. So we were already doing like running man style events back then. Oh, for forever. And this is also a parade that had, You know, some of the balloons were cartoon characters, but there was also a human behemoth that was 21 feet tall,

just random behemoth, there was a 25-foot doxen. There were flocks of gigantic turkeys and chickens and ducks of heroic size, interspersed with occasional cannibals, and also a 60-foot-long dinosaur pulled by cavemen. I just, also, also, when those balloons released, a guy got in a plane

and just decided he would catch a balloon. Actually, it was a woman that did. Clarence? Colonel Clarence? I have Colonel Clarence E. Chamberlain managed to have a balloon with the wing of his airplane. So they had to put a ban on retrieval via airplanes the next year.

However, in 1932, another pilot attempted the same thing. This may have been the woman pilot. That's the woman. Oh, great. So they, of course, right. Oh, great. So the one who almost crashed. This description of what happened is great. So in 1932, a 60-foot Tomcat balloon was released after the parade. And 22-year-old aviation student spotted it floating at 5,000 feet over Jamaica Queens,

like a sea serpent out of its native element, the Times reported. She sent the ship hurtling at the goggle-eyed creature. The left wing of the plane smacked against the balloon fabric that was Tom's hide. The plane went into a deep tailspin. Robert Cripow, author of the book Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade said, she turned the engine off so it wouldn't catch on fire. The plane plummeted. The woman nearly fell out, but catastrophe was avoided when the instructor took control

and pieces of the balloon fluttered away from the wing. The balloon disabled the wing, and both of them ended up being fine, and that is what made them stop. Are you telling me that you can't use airplane wings like hands? Because why have I been working towards this pilot's license if not to grab things with my plane? Yes, like the grabber game. Like that claw grab game. Jesus Christ.

How else you're supposed to get them? See, this is why we get overregulated by the government because people are so fucking stupid. I love it though. I just love how zany the things were back in the day. And I mean, honestly, it's so top-loaded with the country. craziness. The ragum of the day. The zoo animals. The balloon race, which is what Macy's referred to it, by the way, the big balloon race that would happen after each parade, which honestly is quite a whimsical until lives are at stake. Then the balloon death match for who wins the money.

Yeah, this is, but again, considering that this is around the time that you could, instead of having to pay for a, you know, if you're bringing your baby on a flight, keep them with your luggage. That's what the Skycott was for. The Skycock was for. The Sky God, it was where you could keep your babies where the luggage goes on the plane. Oh, I thought you're doing a bit. The babies don't need the experience. Oh, God. Also around the time that they said that all expected mothers could safely smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.

And it does make you kind of understand why boomers are so furious all the time. Yeah. Yes. They were kept with the luggage and they weren't allowed to be touched in cages outside of the window. so they could get fresh air. Oh my God, the babies were kept with the luggage. I definitely thought you were making a joke. I wasn't.

The sky caught. Oh, my God. Did they ever try to make the baby cages on the wings of the airplanes? You know what? Call up Macy himself. Get this man on board. This is the best great invention I've ever heard of my life. Strap the babies to the wing of the plane.

Give them a thrill. And fresh air. So getting back to the evolution of this parade, I will say, in 1934, that is when the first Slab makes an appearance with singer-sactor Eddie Cantor joining the event. Also, this was a notable year because the Mickey Mouse float was introduced as well. But there were some dark times ahead for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade because a mean man named Mr. Hitler fucked up the Macy's parade by Spark in World War II. And since there was a shortage of helium and rubber, because the balloons back in the

they were made of rubber, unlike today. Due to the war effort, the parade was canceled from 1942 to 1944. But you know what was actually really cool is that since the Macy's president at the time, Jack Strauss decided to cancel the parade. But what they did is they took a good amount of the balloons and Macy's donated 650 pounds of balloon rubber to the military since there was such an insane shortage. That's awesome. Like, that's really cool.

That's cool. it's trying to hear you refer to him as Mr. Hitler because I don't think he's referred to that very often. Me, Mr. Hitler put a frown on. He's going to scare all the children. All right, please. In 1945, though, I will say the parade does return, and this was the first time it was broadcast on television.

They went bigger than ever before. They had over 2 million people in attendance, and it reached even further heights when it was featured in the film Miracle on 34th Street in 1947, which showed footage from the parade in 46. So now this is, that's when it really just becomes a household event from there on after. Yeah, now it's on the boob tube, everybody. We can see the floaties on the boob tube.

It's on the boob tube and the balloons need loob. I couldn't figure out how to finish that out. But either way, the balloons go through a definite evolution from their rubber origins. They started mixing low-density helium and air, which allowed for bigger floats, such as a 50-foot hummingbird. Now I've seen every fucking thing. Everything. And they switched eventually to rubber, from rubber, to polyurethane.

We would be remiss if we didn't talk about the balloonatics. And yes, the balloon designers are referred to as the balloonatics. I had so much fun doing the research for that. I was just like, what are you talking about balloonatics? I've seen those, I've seen those documents. or the woman sits on the balloon. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what you're talking about, right?

That's a bit about Denver. Oh, is calling them documentaries on their picture shows? So the name of balloonatics came from the balloon-covered float from 1926, which was referred to as the balloonat-tick float. They like the name so much. They named it themselves. And they love designing the balloons. I read way too many articles about how they designed the balloons. let's just say it's a long process

and they really like doing it. I mean, I've got a couple little tidbits here. They're created in a former Tootsie Roll Factory. How cute is that? In Hoboken, New Jersey, which was re-dubbed the Macy's Parade Studio. They start with a pencil sketch, then they bring an aerodynamic

and engineering consultants to do calculations to make sure they can actually make the damn thing. And then after that, they make a clay, exact scale replica, and a painted model before cutting the balloon out of fabric. They then test that fucker out and make adjustments to the fucking people. of shit and make sure it can fucking fly for the kids so they don't fucking piss their pants.

Wow, so it only took them about 30 years to make a plan beforehand. And also they do something called they, so they after they inflate them, they have to make sure that they're going to not pop. So they undergo a skin stress test that they called thumping and they thump on the balloon to see if it'll pop. Wow. Oh, okay. So it is like those movies I've seen.

size does vary on balloons, but they're generally around 60 feet long and 30 feet wide, with each balloon needing around 90 handlers with around 2 to 3,000 handlers total for the event, and the handlers must weigh at least 120 pounds, or else they float away! They'll float away because the balloons are at least, they said, 400 pounds each.

Well, I could probably hold two balloons then. Either way, for each balloon, there is also, there are team leaders. I really thought this was interesting. There's an overall leader, like a manager of the whole thing, a pilot, a captain, and then two drivers, which all have different, very specific leadership roles. And they all get trained individually as well, which is quite,

like they all undergo, there is a lot of training involved in the Macy's Day parade. Ah, Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It's just too much, you know? It's just too many words. It's a mouthful. Snoopy holds the record for having the most Thanksgiving Day, NYC, parade, floats with six different balloons since 1968. Oh my God.

And also another fun balloon fact. I've lost my mind doing this research. I wrote in huge letter, balloon shenanories. By the way, some of these quote-unquote shenanigans involve serious injuries. I know, but that's like the fun of watching it. I mean, I don't want people, okay, I'm not, I don't want people to die, but it's part of the fun watching, like, an potential accident happening in the high post, hit a police officer. It's always entertaining.

I just, that's what makes it sad about this year's is there won't be any real. No, there's not enough spectators to get hurt. But that apparently, so originally there was a Superman balloon, right? But Superman had to be upright because they hadn't realized how to be able to build a balloon so that it would look like he was flying. which was the first balloon to fly? Underdog! In 1965, the four-legged superhero, who was just an ordinary shoestiner by trade,

was the first character designed to be flying, belly down, and cape flapping. Up until that point, even Superman was depicted standing straight up, Grippo said, who is the man that wrote the nonfiction book on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Of course, his name's Grippo, yeah. That a gripo and Joe Harris, the illustrator behind Underdog, who also drew the trick cereal rabbit, worked with engineers to create the first of its kind ballooned. And to Grippo, he says, to this day, it's my favorite.

There's no need to fear. Underdog is here. Remember, they used to play reruns of that on Nickelodeon. A loved Underdog. He's cute. So let's talk, could we talk about the accidents? Yeah, we can. Just immediately.

because nothing's funnier than watching kids watch something terrifying for, you know, to them as a child. And so what of the first ever... Sorry, I mean to laugh so hard. Right? It's so fun, right? So, one of the first ever crazy balloon incidents that happened was in 1927 with that Felix the Cap balloon. It got tangled in some telephone wires and it caught on fire, which, right, and it got retired for the brand back. So all I can imagine is these children crying, looking at these straining Felix the Capone.

Felix a cat on fire. This is another really hilarious one. In 1957, the Popeye float had a bit of a design flaw. His hat collected rain, which ended up dumping over 50 gallons of water onto the crowd below in freezing cold. Oh, they could have used him when the other one was on fire. Yes, and in 1960s, same thing happened but with a Donald Duck Hat. I like that they didn't even learn from their mistake.

A Kermit the frog balloon got drenched in 1985 and had to be carried. In 1993, a Sonic the Hedgehog balloon. This is a famous assistant, injured an off-duty police captain and a 10-year-old girl. I believe that was the lamp post. It's a lot of lamp post shenanigans is essentially. Well, because that's what they do. So every year, obviously, they work on the Mesa's Thanksgiving Day parade all year. They go through the parade route and try, you know, they chop down as many trees as they can.

They try and get rid of as much debris as possible to make this not happen, but there's only so much you can do between the wind. And it wasn't until, I believe, what was it, like 98, that they finally decided like, oh, if it's too windy, we probably shouldn't have balloons flying because they hit into the blampos. It took a little bit before that. In 1997, a woman was in a coma for nearly a month after a cat-in-a-hat balloon careened into a lamp post, knocking debris on spectators.

Also that year, by the way, the Barney float, couldn't take the 43-bop-hour winds, and it had to be removed from the parade by way of police officers stabbing holes in it. Take them away, boys. The judges cried, all these cops are just battering a barnet. I remember that happening. Oh, God is so funny. And then in 2005, an M&M float injured two sisters when it also hit a street lamp, which hit them. And then after that, they finally added new protocols,

the biggest one being wind measurement devices installed around the route to alert organizers of unsafe conditions, and then they will pull the balloon if it's too late. And so last year they were almost landed because, remember, Holden? We didn't even know if there was going to be the floats or the balloons in the parade last year because the winds were so bad. I guess we don't have to really worry about that this much this year, but we'll talk about that later on.

Well, yeah, the irony of the most popular famous parade being in New York is those the winds that are on Manhattan because we're being right off the ocean and because the buildings are so high yeah it is like no wind you've ever experienced it is the craziest feeling because it just

bounces off of the buildings huge buildings like fronts and then it just creates these tunnels the grid system is specifically helpful to winds being insane so yeah it's an island so it's surrounded by water so you'll be walking down an avenue and you hit a street, which goes

the opposite way, and then you'll just be like slammed with a huge gust of wind because it was being blocked by, but it goes from water to water, so that's why it zooms through the streets. And then when it's cold, too, in the winter, you actually

like, I have screamed walking through the winds there. And had the wind knocked out of me, too, when like, and you're just like, uh-huh. It's so brutal. And then they put a parade down that at a So crazy.

So, yeah, at least they have some ways to protect. But yeah, it is completely insane. Let's talk about floats. Hey, yeah, yeah. What about the fucking floats? That's what I wrote in huge letters of my notes. Well, they were around since the first parade. They really kicked it up a notch when the company Manfred Bass, Bass, took over and creating them in 1969.

It ain't me. It ain't a fortune here. Oh, I'm just setting the seat. It's 1969. It's the summer of love. Everyone's fucking and sucking or dying in nom or both at the same time. But either way. Don't say it in front of Natalie's step ladder.

Yes. I'm having flashbacks of wearing huge costume and dancing when nobody's looking at me. It's awful. So what they did was, Manfred Bass, that is, they made them so that they could be flattened to get through the Holland Tunnel, then reassembled in the early morning hours the day of the parade. which allowed them to just make crazier floats. Manfred Bass is the hot nuts and bolts,

as one worker put it, of the whole Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade operation. That they said when he joined the parade grew, he had been involved in what he calls the Jules Verne notion of reality as fantasy, and fantasy as reality. This motherfucker took his floats very seriously. And they,

Yes, so like you said, the floats cannot be any larger than 12.5 feet high and 8 feet wide to fit through the tunnels, but most of the floats are 40 feet high. So these floats have to come apart and they have to come back together securely enough so they don't wobble. So they also have to do it very quickly because the floats carry singers, dancers, actors performing, and Manfred Bass calls the floats, theater in the restaurant. And it must not be destroyed by any wobbling. No wobbling on these blots. The wobbling. How would just ruin this art with the wobbles? I love that it's referred to as theater in the round because honestly, it is.

It is. It is really. In thinking about pulling apart what the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is, the fact that it shows like the hit songs on Broadway currently. Like for people that had never been to your or had never seen it, a Broadway show or I've never seen a musical. As a kid, I can't even imagine it because we grew up going to the theater. Like we did go to the theater fairly often.

So I can't even imagine how my brain would have exploded seeing that stuff for the first time. But I also will say there's a lot of old, a lot of vintage Macy's Thanksgiving Day parades on YouTube. Go check them out. There's some very dated stuff. And a lot of the costumes and everything are very scary and very up, even just in the 80s and the 90s, where you just look at it and I'm just like, oh, that's why I was scared of parades when I was a kid. Because you see the, like, the hollow eyes of all of the different, like, characters, everything. You're just like, oh. Yeah, you really don't know how scary a mask is until it gets improved over time.

And you look back and go, ha, oh, like the ones that are in time square, the guys that are. You know, like the Elmo that comes to try, like, give me a hug. And you're like, I don't want a hug from you. You are matted with dirt. Give me a hug, and then you've paid me $5 for it. Pay me $5 for it. There were also balloon float combos, which are referred to as faloons, and balloonicals, which are vehicle balloon combos.

Baloonicals. I love it. An example of a balloonicle is the cruising cupcakes set to appear this year, apparently. Ooh, I'm excited about it. What does that mean? Is that a show? It's a balloonicle, Natalie. But is it based on anything or is it just cupcakes?

Natalie, if you ask me any more questions about balloonicles, I'm going to cut you. I'm going to cut you like a fish. I'm going to slice you open and then it won't matter anymore. You can't slice over balloonicles. But either way, let's talk about performances. I love this. I hope you're enjoying this, guys. I really have not laughed this hard while doing research in a very long time.

So ridiculous. Just ragamuffin day alone is so perfectly titled and just everything about it. It's so funny. But yes, the performances are less funny. They're always college and high school marching bands that do the parade every year, as well as cheerleaders and dancers, which are chosen by the National Cheerleaders Association. And if you want to be a part of the National Churching, the Association, you need to, like, go talk to Lindsay and she doesn't usually let anybody in.

So you better not even worry about it. And lose 10 pounds and stop talking to George because George is my man. And your teeth aren't white enough. Whoa. But either, wow. But either way, there's a classic performance that's happened since 1957, and that performance is the Rock Cats of Radio City Music Hall. Oh, my God. I, man, I'm in love.

I can, I mean, I know that I've told this story many times on page seven. but Henry and I got to meet the Rockets because, yeah, we went. We were at the Radio City Music Hall show when we were kids. And Henry got chosen to go be in Santa's sleigh on this stage because they would always choose one boy and one girl. And he got to go backstage and meet all the Rockets. And I was so good even though I didn't get chosen because I was used to that being Henry's younger sister.

And so I sat there and I was really good about it. And apparently the little girl that they picked, to go up on Santa Slay was such a horrible little bitch and that they thought I was so good that since I didn't get picked and I didn't complain and I didn't even cry. I was only happy for my brother, but they came back and they got me and they put me on Santa Slay too. Whatever, dude.

Like seriously. And the rockets were all really nice and they were all really tall. I think that doesn't this act? steal you as the Empress of Thanksgiving. Yeah, it actually does seal you as the Empress of Thanksgiving. That's a lot coming from the creature of Christmas. Yes, it is.

The Halloween Hussey. Yeah, the Easter only fans over there. By the way, the Rock Cats were inspired by a British precision dance troupe company called the Tiller Girls, which was sent to the U.S. in 1900 to perform on Broadway. And this caught the eye of a dude

named Russell Market, who thought, and this is a great transatlantic quote, accent quote, if I ever got a chance to get a group of American girls who would be taller and have longer legs and can do really complicated tapertines and high kicks, they'd really knock your socks off. They really knock your socks off. I actually also performed with the Rockets on the streets of Manhattan. Oh, wow. That's awesome. They really give you a boner, boys.

I'm getting a lot. This is really Natalie's step-bladder because I'm at a lot. I'm having flashbacks of every street performance that I had to do for money when I was poor, in the middle of winter, wearing no clothes. Is that why you are silently crying? I can see it. I can feel you're upset. You'll never hear it in my voice. Good for you.

I've trained myself. Stay strong. The Rockettes, by the way, are also the always the last pre-parade act to perform. Most live performances by musicals and individual artists are done, of course. We should all just know this. using lip sync. And this is because, yeah. Yeah, due to technical difficulties,

because even the Rock in New Year's Eve and we talked about how, you know, Mariah Carey had that big flub that she had. I mean, they have a lot of complications with a still standing stage outside in a situation like that. So, like, moving floats is so hard to do, like, wireless microphones.

One of my strongest watching parade on TV memories is Lou Bega. very poorly lip-syncing Mongo No. 5 on a float because it was just, he wasn't even close to hitting the lyrics. Yeah, yeah. And it was really interesting to watch. That's great. And the first featured performer was Milton Burle back in 1949.

And since then, there have been a ton of performers. The list is insane, including, just to name a few, Abbott and Costello in 1954, Shirley Temple in 1959. Herlyne. Herrida. Herrida. Herrida. Yeah.

Herrida. Yeah. Herrida. I remember that one. I actually went back and watched the teenage Rihanna in 2005 doing her first hit. She did Pondi replay. Yes. Pondi replay, which was her first hit.

Yeah, yeah. We talked about that in the Rihanna episode. At least that hit we did. But I mean, the list just goes on and on. And you're right. Like even Rihanna back in 2005 was C-list. And I totally, totally get what you were saying earlier. Or at least B-list, Jackie.

Like, she wasn't like Rihanna. Well, and that's, yeah, I think it's usually that. Outside of Broadway, of course, in 1979, they invited Diana Ross, who was huge at the time. And Grippo was talking about her. Yeah. Oh, Mr. Grippo, how she had real star power. And that essentially it was something that nobody had ever seen before, especially in the parade, that she basically put on a Broadway show during the parade. But you could see the whole street behind her dancing.

That it was apparently such a magical moment. that she really owned it, but then it really does. It overshadows Santa Claus. Why do you want to see Santa coming and why is that the end of the parade? When you can watch Diana fucking Ross performing. Yes, please.

Is Grippo this person's only name? Are they Rippo? Natalie, Grippo is the puppet he talks through. We don't know the guy's actually. Hello, I love Thanksgiving. It's a wooden puppet. No, his name is Robert Grippo. Robert Cripo.

I was going to ask if we had confirmed that he is not himself a float. I don't think he is. Oh, my God. Are the float just telling me what he thinks I want to hear? I think he might. The talking boy float. Yeah, absolutely.

And who likes Dick and Broadway? The first musical was back in 1975. What? I like to talk about. And it is now an annual affair. There's always musical numbers. there was actually some ground broken recently. In 2018, there was a performance from the musical The Prom,

during which actresses Canoonan and Isabel McCalla had the first same-sex kiss in the parade's broadcast history. I'm glad that hopefully people had moved on because in 2013, Kinky Boots performed, huge show, and a lot of critics were appalled. And it even says in the article, critics, many of whom were not New Yorkers, were appalled at the performance featured male actors in drag.

This is 2013. This is famous musical. That's hugely famous. But what I appreciate is that Macy's immediately responded, and so did NBC backing up their choice, that they said, as 2013's Tony Award winning best musical Kinky Boots is not only a hit with Broadway fans, but Black Friday shoppers, Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade has always spotlighted the best of Broadway since. the 60s. And this year is no exception. And you know what? I really fucking appreciate that.

They did not back down. It was like, no, screw you. This is what are you talking about? But also get the fuck over yourself. For sure. There was definitely a bunch of whiny Winona's. I couldn't think of a double you named. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. Winy Winnie Winona's, yeah. The same sex kiss, of course. I mean, if you remember during the Super Bowl last year, too, it was so many, so many people talking about how the children were defiled and how they wanted to bring back ragamuffin day and not these slutty women. And you know where I bet they don't have sticks up their asses? In clown you, yes, we are talking about Macy's clown college for the parade.

Now there are 33. Now, I guess I have to look this year. There are 33 clown groups in the parade. Some of these groups include the arsome pirates. The birthday party clowns, the high roller skating clowns, cornucopia clowns, the nutty-cracker ballet clowns, the ho-down clowns, the turkey check players and sports bands, and keystones, cops and robbers. Maybe they shouldn't have all of these anymore, but they certainly do. Definitely the cops or robbers ones, maybe it's a little bad for the time. Oh, yeah, cops or robbers.

that a little, and so the day begins, so everyone goes, it is a day long training affair. The day begins that they have to, but we can't know what the actual clown oath is, but what I do know is that it ends with, most of all, I promise to have fun and continue to wave and smile, spreading joy and tossing confetti each and every mile. So there is a warm up by the big apple circus clown captains. Everyone gets into their different groups. And they learn, and they act the pot. And they figure out what they're going to be doing. And I guess it's just a bunch of improv.

And people are like, feverish to be the clowns in the Thanksgiving Day parade, which I had no idea. I would be absolutely terrified. And I don't think that I would ever really want to do that. But I'm not a huge clown fan. And I am happy that, you know, physical comedy still exists. I support that part of it. You're being very like bureaucratic about your clear hatred of clowns.

Yeah, yeah. You were like literally just trying to be like, I'm not the friendliest friend of clowns, but I do appreciate how much they scare children and how shitty they are. We should be segregated from the clowns. They're different, you know, the same but equal. Round them up.

They should. No, don't round them up. Maybe if we just create, they get their own society that we... Apart from us. Put a frown on because yours very scary.

Are you done with clown? I was giving you your time to talk about. Are you finished with the cloud? I'm done. I'm done. All right. Let's talk about the history of television coverage here

and now, henceforth, and for the rest of time. The first ever broadcast was on radio in 1932. You just had to hear descriptions of the parade. I'm sure that was fun for fucking Billy. All right.

Do you want to do that this year instead, Holden, instead of... Yeah. We'll just describe what we're looking at. private to everybody. Do a podcast about the parade like as it's happening.

It's a balloon and it's very big. Hope it doesn't kill anybody this year. So either way, but it was initially done as an experimental broadcast for television by an NBC local channel in 1939 and it officially aired

on CBS in 1948. However, I did never think about this but this was kind of interesting to me the delineation. NBC has been the official broadcaster since 1953. But as you can see every year, CBS also does the parade,

but it's an unauthorized coverage under the title, the Thanksgiving Day parade on CBS. This is legal because it is a public event. I'm like a sporting event that you buy tickets for it. It's in that way. This is so public,

the CBS can also be like kind of the bastard child broadcast. I'm here too, they always. You can watch it here too. They even kind of got shitty with it a little bit. In 2012, they changed the route to make it harder for CBS to film, but CBS managed to figure it out somehow. But they had there was like a whole section. They tried to hide from CBS.

Yeah, they're trying to like get away from them. It's pretty great. Jesus Christ. I love the idea of NBC. Every year now for the past two years, it's difficult for us to stream the parade. Why is it so difficult? I think it's because they wore about it. So you can watch the other coverage.

You can watch the CBS coverage. but it's like not the, it's like not the parade. It's not the parade part of the route that you want to see. So you're not seeing the performances. And Jackie, this year I have Hulu TV and I will, and even though it won't, I will be able to, I will just share my screen with you. And we'll actually be able to watch at the same time.

And it won't be such a nightmare as it always is every year for us. At bleary-eyed at the crack of fucking dawn. For least Jackie, for me, it's night in the morning, but I'm still fucking hug over and piss. Stoppy out it goes. But either way, this year's... But also, you should totally join us because we're going to have a lot of fun.

Yeah, you should join us. It will be a great time. And, oh, to continue with the television broadcast, the event was initially a one-hour telecast. It eventually got to three hours long by 1969. And Amy, I ain't no fortunate one. Yeah. Oh, God.

No, no. Come back to us. Natalie. Not, go back to us, Natalie. From 1963 to 1972, the parade. the parade was hosted by Benanza star Lauren Green and Benny White. Oh my God! That's fun.

Later, Ed McMahon was main host in the late 70s and now they generally just get people who host the Today Show on NBC, which definitely, most especially, Al Roker, of course. He's always in the mix, but they always just get hosts from there.

We need Al Roker on Thanksgiving morning. Now, I do want to say that the cleanup of the parade takes some time and a little bit of dough. That the, after the parade floats are immediately disassembled, balloons deflated, and all are returned to their warehouse in Hoboken. And now the sanitation department estimates it costs about $30,000 to clean up after the parade.

Now, that number came from the 1990 parade. So I imagine it probably costs a little bit more now. So mechanical street sweepers are used to clean the mess. But in 2012, one website reported it took 75. sanitation workers and 15 sanitation offers to clean up 40 tons of parade debris. And also kind of fun, it takes, there's about 4,000 individual uniforms that have to be laundered afterwards every year. And it takes an entire month to get all the costumes laundered and another month to

reassemble them and put them back into their packages. Ha! Wow. I'm just letting I'm just sitting with those thoughts. I'm just thinking about it. And lost in your dark past as well. But either way.

It means your fault. If you have a fucking frown on your stupid face about this year, fear not, fuck face, it's gonna happen. It's not the same way. How are they doing it? The 2020 parade is going to happen.

But it is going to, well, I read one place that's going to take place over a two-day period but I don't think that's true, but either way, it'll have 75%. They're recording it over a two-day period. So they're going to record some of the Broadway stuff, like some of the performances that were going to record the day before and then show them even though they had only been,

since it won't be, so it won't be live. So I guess I could go into town and catch some of it technically. Right. Are they still going to be on 34th Street? No. It's all going to take place. Well, yes, but it's all going to take place in Harold Square. Like, it's just going to be in the square. There's not going to be like a March. So they're going to basically close it off.

It's a single city block. So they're just going to go around the city block rather than through the city. Yeah, there will be no marching bands or anything like that. No, all the balloons are going to be done by motor vehicle. Like none of the volunteers. It's going to, it is a bastardized version of it for sure. It's nice they're trying to do something. And there's more Broadway performances it looks like.

We've got A&2 Proud for the Life and Times of the Temptations. There will be a Hamilton performance. Jagged Little Pill, the Alinus Morseh musical will have a performance, mean girls, and of course the Rockettes. There's also going to be performances from a bunch of different groups, including the lesbian and gay Big Apple core band,

the Big Apple Circus, and the West Point Marching Band. Other stars include Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, Patty LaBelle, the cast of Muppets and... I love it when the Muppets come! Dali Parton. Of course, you gotta have fucking Pinetonics and Santa Claus, I do believe it will show up.

To the chagrin of the whiny, Wynonus, there will be a massive non-binary orgy in the middle of it. Can I be a part of it? We go to New York, baby. Balloons will be tethered to a, quote, specially rigged anchor vehicle framework of five specialty vehicles rather than carried by handlers, and the full parade route will not be used with all activity, as I mentioned before, limited to the Herald Square area. And there you have it. There will be no spectators.

No spectators this year, but we will spectate from our homes. But we'll have peritators. Yeah, baby. We have many tachers. We've got to have sweet taters. We have every other kind of tator you could ever imagine. But no spectators.

No. Because we're in the middle of a pandemic. I had so much fun doing this. Thank you guys for letting me be on my little my little Thanksgiving stump over here, because it is my favorite, and now knowing how ridiculous, honestly, it makes me love the parade even more.

And I didn't know that that was possible. Wow. Agreed. I know. Agreed. So there you have it. Thank you so much. Yeah.

This has made my brain into the soup that I needed it to be during this time. Please. That was definitely the goal. And I hope your brains at home are soup as well. If you'd like to follow us further, Patreon.com forward slash page seven podcast. Honestly, though, to Twitch.com slash hold nater so on the morning 9 a.m.

E.T. Check out my Twitch with Jackie and who knows who else might pop in as we cover this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It has been a pleasure to have this factoid follies with you guys. Do you want to dress up like Ragamuffin Day for the Thanksgiving Day parade? I think you might be canceled. Anything for Thanksgiving. Anything for Thanksgiving, Natalie.

But Natalie can come over and you can throw pennies at me. Isn't that what you always wanted to do? I would feel bad. If you were a child, I would do it. Natalie! Natalie! And my name is Jackie Zabrowski. Thank you guys again.

Yes, I'm the Empress of Thanksgiving, and you can follow me on Instagram at Jack That Worm. I am Natalie Jean. You can follow me at the Natty Jean, and you follow us on page 7 LPN. All right. I love you guys. Happy Thanksgiving. Boy, everyone.

Oh, boy. I'm waking up. I'm on my stuff stool. Oh, I'm dead. No, no, no, no. Don't worry. We'll put her back to sleep. Everything will be fine. Oh, my lord. Have a good. Bye, guys.

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