1993 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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.