X-Entertainment.com X-Entertainment.com A Proud UGO Affiliate
X-Entertainment loves Christmas and will not stop talking about it, ever.
« [Main Index] »

The 1993 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!


Happy Thanksgiving, folks! This year has really flown by -- tough to imagine that come tomorrow, we're officially in the Christmas season and totally allowed to cover everything we own in blinking lights and baubles. I'm excited, but I'm also very busy today, so let's make this quick. Yes, there's a new Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade review. It's true, I didn't let you down. It's also true that approximately six people read the site on Thanksgiving, but whatever. Finished writing this baby at like 5 in the freakin' morning, and didn't have enough gas to copyedit until just a few minutes ago.

It's the 1993 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! And what a disaster it was! See the drama unfold as criminally powerful winds rip balloons to shreds! There are a lot of words, pictures and videos in this two page feature, which I hope you'll enjoy, because the fact that I stayed up so late to write it spells a very cranky Matt for the remainder of the holiday. Hey, Aunt Mary? I am going to punch you in the tits and stab you if you take just one more slice of turkey with your god damned fingers.

Use the comments space to talk about your Thanksgiving adventures, thoughts on this year's parade, Black Friday bullshit and/or what have you. Have a good one!

Posted by Matt on 11/23/2006. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 112 comments

Matt, I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your staying up until the crack of dawn to finish your review…you’ve brought this reader a lot of joy over the past few years…I can’t wait for the Christmas countdown to begin!

Am I the only one that LIKES the broadway stuff? Sure, some of them are lame (Chorus Line, I’m looking in your direction), but you can’t deny that this morning’s performance of “Always look on the bright side of life” from Monty Python’s “Spamalot” made you smile…

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron T. @ 11/24/2006 1:06 AM

Thanks guys!

As for the Broadway stuff, speaking specifically about the parades of old and not so much about recent years, part of the problem was that all of the Broadway performances took place in the same, bare spot, and the performances were generally the longest “skits” in the parade. Some years, they’d even do Broadway medleys that lasted a solid 15 minutes. I think Monty Python would get a pass, though. :)

Didn’t get to see the parade today, but I saw some clips on the news — looks like the rain made it another banner year. ;)

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 11/24/2006 1:10 AM

I can’t believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone so quickly (I found a spider ring and some rubber bats lying around today).
For all of you Canadians who are feeling the “No-Thanksgiving Here Blues”, I gave you a tribute towards the bottom of the last thread.

And now, big thanks to Matt for another excellent parade review worthy of PARADE. Loved the “Do the Bartman” reference. Yeah, that girl on the “Baby Beluga” segment was pretty funny but the close-up girl ACTUALLY YAWNS THEN LOOKS AT HER SHOES! Classic. Also, it was interesting to see your fatigue/anger seep through (especially on that one costumed kid. Thanks for toning it down.):)

I know I am fighting last week’s battle but why do they show the PEANUTS specials but no Garfield’s??? Wouldn’t the GARFIELD THANKSGIVING make more sense than Charlie Brown vs. a bully? Especially when one considers the fact that Garfield is a much hotter commodity (with the movies and all) than PEANUTS (no disrespect intended). Your thoughts…

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 11/24/2006 1:19 AM

Manimal: Most won’t notice the edit, but both the original and edited versions of “that line” are just references to the squirrel suit ghost scene from The Shining. In that context, it’s a little less offensive, but I got a couple of e-mails about it and agreed that the original line wasn’t worth pushing on people who didn’t get the reference.

Yeah, I can’t believe Thanksgiving is over, either. This year has flown. I’m tempted to give into Black Friday temptations, but the thought of getting up at 7 AM to do that gives me a backache.

As for the Garfield specials, I’m with you. Garfield is pretty huge again thanks to those movies; at least, he’s huge enough to warrant airing a special that half the potential audience already knows and loves/loved anyway. Maybe they’ll surprise us come Christmas. :)

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 11/24/2006 1:26 AM

Sorry to post again so soon, but I just finished watching the NBC promo and all I can say is that Harry Weston sure delivered a lot of babies for being a PEDIATRICIAN.

Chestnuts roasted by Lori @ 11/24/2006 1:28 AM

Ahhhh, fair enough.
I’ve only seen THE SHINING once so I didn’t get that one.
As to the Garfield situation, we can dream…

Thanks again for putting in so much effort. We apppreciate it.

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 11/24/2006 1:29 AM

Despite the rain, the balloons all seemed to be intact today. It was nice seeing balloons of pretty much all “A”-list cartoons characters this year, including a new version of the classic “Flying Ace” Snoopy balloon. I do miss the “classic” Garfield balloon, but the new one holding Pooky is pretty cool, at least they didn’t make a balloon of creepy CGI movie Garfield.

Chestnuts roasted by Jon @ 11/24/2006 1:32 AM

Matt thanks for capping off my Thanksgiving on a high note. I swear this place has become a holiday tradition for me. From the Halloween Countdown to the impending arrival of Knacks and Kuse, this site is the perfect compliment to my holidays.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, as stoked as I was to see the lit-up Pikachu, I was not prepared for the Hess Truck float immediately following him. Talk about a one-two combination for fans of this site. Was I the only one who remembered the advert calendar from last year? All we needed was Bart to come down afterwards and it would have been overload. And why was Bart absent this year? Do they not have a movie to promote?

Chestnuts roasted by 9Line @ 11/24/2006 1:51 AM

Uh, am I the only one who thinks to watch the parade on CBS instead of NBC? CBS shows waaaay more footage of the actual parade, and skips most of the Broadway stuff NBC spends so much time on.

Chestnuts roasted by jazzy @ 11/24/2006 2:22 AM

Triples? Are you serious? I hated that stuff. My dad would buy boxes of that shit and we had to EAT ALL OF IT before we could open the new cereal. And this was a household were BooBerry was the only Monster cereal we got- and all the time to boot.

Chestnuts roasted by Spectre! @ 11/24/2006 3:16 AM

Matt,

Never did get that weirdo scene in The Shining. Stanley Kubrick is on f’d up mofo, I know that much.

Chestnuts roasted by Cotter @ 11/24/2006 3:43 AM

Actually, that scene was one of the few preserved from the book. Of all the things to keep…I always thought having Jack N. do the aspirin-chewing would have been a cool effect.
Awesome article! These are always among my favorites. “BAGGIES ON THE FEET!” still gives me a random giggle on occasion. Now I’ll be morphing Raffi to grunge too.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 11/24/2006 4:18 AM

Just got back from the BLACK FRIDAY exploits. I only went to TOYS R US and our favorite magical slice of retail heaven, TARGET.
TARGET was swamped. Two items of interest: No bull, I got that Boba Fett Target Statue for (drumroll) 2.44!! Oh yes oh yes ohhhh yessss.
The other funny thing was that I may have picked up a soon to be collector’s item without even realizing it. I finally bought HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS on DVD. Nothing unusual about that except the packaging says “50th Annivesary Edition” yet my prior knowledge (and the back of the DVD) clearly state that this special was done in 1966. Now, either my math skills are worse than I thought or I pulled a mini-Rip van Winkle and woke up in 2016…

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 11/24/2006 9:17 AM

one word: well.. two: advent calendar

Chestnuts roasted by Photog @ 11/24/2006 9:30 AM

Wow, I actually still have a tape of the 93 parade…I taped it for my neice when her cable had gone out and never taped over it. As the Bethoveen balloon was weaving back and forth Willard comments that “The kids love it as long as they don’t break.” I wonder if an NBC guy ran up to him during the following Native American dance saying “Ixney on the break-ey”

Chestnuts roasted by Garrison @ 11/24/2006 9:40 AM

Matt, how exactly do you acquire tapes of entire Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades from ten to fifteen years ago? There are a few ways that come to mind, but I’m curious to know your way.

Chestnuts roasted by Der Super @ 11/24/2006 10:01 AM

Manimal – The “50th Anniversary” the new Grinch DVD is referring to is the anniversary of the first publication of the original book in 1957. Kind of confusing, I know…
BTW somebody at Warner Bros needs to be fired for thinking covering the outside of the DVD case with sparkley glitter (to look like snow) was a good idea. You can’t even touch the damn DVD case without getting your hands covered with glitter.

Chestnuts roasted by Jon @ 11/24/2006 10:54 AM

Burger King and XBOX?
Review

Chestnuts roasted by Dave @ 11/24/2006 11:07 AM

I was able to flip back and forth between the Macy’s parade and the parade in Philly, in front of the art museum. Both were pretty ho hum in my book, but at least the Philly parade didn’t have broadway numbers every 15-20 seconds. You should’ve seen how shocked and offended my gf and I were when we noticed during the Grinch number that his dog talked! His dog isn’t supposed to TALK! That’s just not right! I do have a question though. Does anyone know when they started having the Garfield balloon with binky as opposed to the old one with him sitting down? Thanks and I hope everyone had a good holiday!

Chestnuts roasted by Lammy742 @ 11/24/2006 11:25 AM

I think the new Garfield started about four years ago. Is there a website anywhere that lists all the balloons, and says how many had different versions (Garfield, Snoopy, Bullwinkle) and how many only ran one year?

Chestnuts roasted by Garrison @ 11/24/2006 12:06 PM

Happy Belated Turkey Lurkey Day, folks!

Being as I’m one of the poor bastids enlisted in sitting in my office until the stock market closes, I should be melancholy. Or pissy, as I’m still really hung over right now — it *IS* eggnogg season afterall.

BUT …

I just heard “Christmas in the Stars” from a certain holiday special featuring a certain set of droids on XM’s Special XMas channel, so it’s really, really hard not to grin like a fool. Especially when it’s followed up by Sesame Street’s Grover and Friends singing “Blue Christmas”.

Chestnuts roasted by LemurCat @ 11/24/2006 12:29 PM

I’ll take Jazzy’s advice and watch it on CBS next year. The NBC version has been sucking for years (although this years was pretty good since I recognized most of the songs). Heck, I think 1993 was the last good one, even as chaotic as it was. I remember all of the balloons in this one. The old Big Bird balloon was better then the new one (since when did BB need a combover?). Kind of sad that three of the people in the review aren’t with us anymore.

I spent yesterday reading a magazine and watching wrestling.

Chestnuts roasted by JLAJRC @ 11/24/2006 12:32 PM

Thanks to Jon for letting me know that the universe is still in balance and I didn’t hit some kind of time warp. :)
Honestly and embarassingly, I didn’t even think about the book.
Yeah, that glitter is nice now but I am thinking about 6 years down the line…
I watched the CBS version of the parade this year and, yes, it was better. Still too much Broadway stuff though. To me the Broadway segments either come off as a needless plug for N.Y. OR the city showing too much self-love.
It would be interesting to see if there is any data showing that viewership going down during those segments.

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 11/24/2006 1:14 PM

Happy Turkey Decimation!

I remember the whole ’93 mess. For some reason, nobody seeme to be in synch with each other. Unfortunately, the Eagle Dancers were one of the worst examples of not being able to hear the music well. Totally changed my mood from “Hey, Native Americans! Cool!” to, “-The hell? That doesn’t look right.” What happened to Sonic was such a ironic stroke that Nintendo brought it up in a print ad a couple months later.

Meanwhile, in the Sooner State, the BC Clark jingle started playing yesterday. Now the season is officially gaining a full head of steam. Are any of your local traditional ads on yet?

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash doesn't have an XBox, but he wants those BK games anyway @ 11/24/2006 2:21 PM

Matt: Answer Der Super’s question, please–I’d like to know that myself. I want a ’93 Thanksgiving Parade tape. Maybe Garrison can donate a copy….

I quit watching the CBS coverage because they kept switching between Macy’s and all these other parades from around the country, and I only came for one. Are they still doing that?

Chestnuts roasted by Mars @ 11/24/2006 3:32 PM

Add A New Comment!


This entry was posted on Thursday, November 23rd, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.