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Editorials

Sonic BOOM! It’s The 1993 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade

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As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. KIDDING, but hey, I couldn’t help myself. But seriously, as far back as I can recall, many Turkey Day moons ago, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was always a tradition in our house on Turkey Day. Waking up every year as a kid to my grandmother already roasting the turkey and my dad shucking clams in the kitchen for Clams Oreganata as the Macy’s parade began on the television, is one of my favorite pieces of memory nostalgia. I’m forever a Halloween girl, but Thanksgiving is really not far behind as the day was a huge event for our large New York, bred-mouthy Italian family. And it was never complete without, of course, said parade here at least serving as background noise.

Also, my brother and I could never watch the parade without this Charlie Brown junk food feast being served promptly at 10 AM; as per tradition and to this very day, I still put together this monstrosity for nostalgia’s sake and per the request of my own brilliant children from their blockhead of a mother.

For the past few years, I’ve selectively talked about a couple of Macy’s parades here on the blog for November, and this year ain’t no different folks. Today, we’re rewinding 30 years back to 1993 and the 67th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade held on November 25th, 1993 on a very windy Turkey Day morning that ended up causing a bit of chaos on the parade balloon front that would make this one of the more memorable parades of the past few decades for those that witnessed it.

Joining the alumni balloons of Ronald McDonald, Garfield, and Bart Simpson were parade first-timers Rex (We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story), that loveable Saint Bernard Beethoven, and of course, the newly crowned console king-Sonic the Hedgehog as SEGA was massively outperforming Nintendo in 1993. However, the hedgehog’s huge head over the console war domination would be deflated courtesy of strong winds blowing over 6th Avenue, leaving spectators scrambling out of fear and injuring two people in the process.

Of course, this was never shown on live TV, but most people knew about the incident and saw pictures via the news of the deflated balloon on the ground. However, footage of the big pop itself went mysteriously missing for years up until 2019 when ABC7NY released archival footage showing the pop that really did sound like a sonic boom, ironically.

Another fatality of the weather that day was ol’ boy Rex. Fate would have it that Rex’s inclusion in the parade would be a perfect example of irony because the movie’s main set piece is a musical number set during the Macy’s Parade where Rex pops a dinosaur balloon. Hilariously enough, the Macy’s Rex head popped at pretty much the beginning of the parade route and instead of removing the balloon entirely, those determined bastards at Macy’s let a headless Rex roam down 6th Avenue and beyond, not giving any fucks about it. The live program swapped in footage from the test flight prior to the parade (notice the complete lack of buildings and different color sky?) and towards the end, cut to a live shot carefully framed to try and hide the deflated noggin of the cartoon dinosaur.

Fantastic.

I mean, the whole parade wasn’t a complete nightmare. We had world-renowned singing artists Shari Lewis with Lambchop and Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas singing Christmas songs!?

Umm, Ok. Maybe it was pretty bad. But hey, let’s watch the shit show together, shall we? At least Bart Simpson rode those winds like the pro he was, even though the winds carved through his ribs like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Grab your plate of popcorn, toast, and jellybeans for this one!

Editorials

Ivan Drago: The Horror Icon of the Rocky Franchise

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As a youngling, and to this very day, Stallone’s Rocky character was and is my goddamn hero. The message of the Rocky films, and the character itself is so powerful-which is why it remains such a time-honored classic. Never give up, chase your dreams, and be the best you, you can be. A solid lesson in life that any adult or child should take and run with. As a kid, I was obsessed with these movies (I still totally am) because of the exuberant heart this franchise lies on the line.

OK, the sweet-ass montages might play a part in this as well. Warning: Watching this video may cause a sudden sprout of chest hairs. 

Now, by the time Rocky IV came around in 1985, our Italian Stallion seemed to be on top of the world. He’s the undisputed champion, gained a best friend in his two-time opponent Apollo Creed, and has more money than I think he knows how to spend- I mean, the guy is buying robot slaves for people’s birthdays. Must be nice, eh? Things seem exactly where they should be in Roc’s life, and seriously, nobody deserves it more than him.

But that’s how most horror movies start out, isn’t it?

An up-and-coming Russian boxer, Ivan Drago, invades into the US with his Olympic Gold-medalist wife, and his evil as Hell political posse looking to pick a fight with Balboa. They figure he’s the best, so why not go straight for it. However, Creed who is a bit past his prime opts to fight in an exhibition match with the silent blonde giant in what seems like the result of both a little jealousy, and the fact he needs to prove he’s still got it as a fighter.

BIG MISTAKE THERE BUDDY- IT AIN’T ALL IN THE HIPS.

The sequence we see before the actual match between Drago and Creed, scared the literal crap out of me as a kid. I mean, his silent stance and glaring eyes are intimidating enough. His character really doesn’t need any extra help to look like a goddamn murderer waiting to snap. But hey, enter composing score genius Vince DiCola, and everyone is about to shit their pants.

Then what happens? Drago KILLS Creed. Completely pulverizes this man’s face and bashes his brain in until Apollo is left twitching on the mat. All as his poor wife looks on in horror. As a kid seeing this for the first time, I just sat there and cried my damn eyeballs out. I couldn’t believe this shit. This monster, glaring into Rocky’s eyes, while wife Ludmilla (Brigitte Nielson)  is sitting at her table smoking and smirking like a jerkoff, expresses zero emotion with no fucks given for what he just did. Them’s are the traits of a classic serial killer folks.

“If he dies, he dies..”

What a heartless asshole.

So of course, Rocky needs to seek his vengeance. He heads to Russia (per the terms to fight Drago), grows an epic beard, and trains like a madman to face his most challenging and scariest opponent to date. While an argument can be made that Drago was controlled and treated like a lab rat by his handlers, I like to think he had some sort of control of what he was doing. Towards the end of the fight with Rocky, he clearly lets the higher powers know he IS running the show. So perhaps he’s been influenced a tad, but I really don’t think they were totally to blame here.

In actuality, we really don’t know anything about Drago or his background before his fight with Creed- expect for he was a soldier. The absence of understanding what makes him tick, his tense presence, and that spine-shivering Drago Suite make him a scary character in the world of cinema indeed. I could even go as far to compare him to Michael Myers. Oh yes, we’re going there. Everything I just said about Drago, applies to Haddonfield’s finest maniac as well. Regarding the first Halloween film, Myers was an effective and scary-as-hell villain because he had no rhyme or reason, no background explanation and John Carpenter’s chilling score made him all that much more frightening.

So yeah, as a child fearing for the life of my beloved hero at the hands of a soulless, steroid-infused boxer was quite terrifying by any means. I’m not going to lie, hearing that DiCola theme still gives me a bit of the skeevies. So here’s to you Ivan Drago: the unnamed horror icon hiding in plain sight inside the Rocky franchise.

Worth noting, however, that they missed a glorious opportunity in CREED 2 to bring back the Drago Suite. I would have had a happy heart attack.

Rocky IV

Editorials

‘ANNIHILATING THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR VERY EARS’: THE WAR OF THE WORLDS RADIO BROADCAST AT 85

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“In the thirty-ninth year of the 20th Century came the great disillusionment…”

Tonight, when the clock strikes 8 Eastern Standard Time, it will have been exactly 85 years since The Mercury Theatre on the Air unleashed its version of H.G. Wells’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS over CBS radio airwaves. Though the national panic resulting from the broadcast has been embellished historically, it made Orson Welles a household name and eight-and-a-half decades later, remains the coolest thing I have ever heard.

When reporter Carl Phillips (the brilliant Frank Readick) breathlessly relayed his observations from the Wilmuth farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, it didn’t require much effort to see how channeling Herbert Morrison’s coverage of the Hindenburg disaster the previous year could terrify millions. To my thinking, all it would have required was for someone to tune in a few moments late. Missing the program’s introduction was all it would have taken.

This was 1938. The Golden Age of Radio. It would be a lifetime before 24-hour news networks and social media would conquer our cultural landscape. So, when a reporter on the radio asked for a moment to get a better vantage point during a “news bulletin,” one would have been glued to the radio, nervously awaiting their next communication.

That’s when the magic happened.

After a brief piano interlude, with sirens blaring and the voices of uneasy onlookers murmuring in the background, Phillips re-started his transmission. Only a few words in, Readick–in a stroke of genius–tilted his head away from the microphone asking his broadcast partner, “am I on?” A subtle gesture that added incredible authenticity to the proceedings.

It wasn’t long before Phillips was talking about a small beam of light setting men in the field ablaze, frantically describing the jet of flame as it approached “about twenty yards to my ri…”

Dead air.

Eventually the studio host returned, the show progressed to its next stage, and later it should have been clear THE WAR OF THE WORLDS was all a radio play meant to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve. But the very instant the air went dead is a moment that quickens the beating of the heart to this day. One can only imagine its impact in the fall of 1938. It was Readick, not Welles who sold the program, however. The exquisitely simple act of looking away from his mic, and the mid-sentence cut to dead air was perfection.

When I heard THE WAR OF THE WORLDS for the first time, I was in college. Shortly after, I owned the broadcast on CD and even fashioned an Audio Production group project around those first fifteen delicious minutes.

In fact, during the pandemic I made a return to radio and ordered a face mask featuring Orson Welles, sleeves rolled up and and arm held high as he intensely read the words from Howard Koch’s magnificent adaptation. And whenever anyone glanced at it and asked what it was, I gave them a quick “I can’t work in radio and not hype THE WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast.” None needed further explanation — they just got it.

One could say that THE WAR OF THE WORLDS radio broadcast is 85 years old, but never could one claim that it’s 85 years in the grave.

Take it, Orson:

“This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that THE WAR OF THE WORLDS has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying ‘boo!’ Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night, so we did the next best thing: we annihilated the world before your very ears and utterly destroyed the CBS. You’ll be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye, everybody, and remember please for the next day or so the terrible lesson you learned tonight: that grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian — it’s Halloween.”