Happy Thanksgiving, kids.

Did you guys ever get into watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? I used to watch it religiously, when all the floats and balloons actually held relevance to my short life. I believe it was Thanksgiving of 1988, actually, when Andy's high school band performed in the parade, and I kept my eyes peeled for Andy's friend Andre, who played clarinet, right? And I swear to God I saw him, too. That was pretty exciting, but nothing beat the ole floats and characters from my childhood. Damn, I remember the teasers were the worst. You would start watching the parade at the very beginning, and somewhere in the first hour at every commercial break the announcer would hype the latest, newest cartoon character/Christmas tie-in "special appearance" as if it were going to happen in the next five minutes, therefore preventing me and my siblings from daring to leave the television to eat breakfast or even risk a pee break. Inevitably, after sitting through a bunch of boring bands and dance numbers and (let's admit it) anticlimactic balloons, said appearance would always happen in the last hour, about ten minutes before Santa Claus! The year the Cabbage Patch Kids made their debut I thought my head would explode.

The picture above is from the 1984 Macy's Parade, lovingly captured online by the wizards at X-Entertainment, they of the awesome Halloween countdowns I mentioned in an earlier post. You have got to see these to believe them. Care Bears? Check. Rainbow Brite? Check. John Ratzenberger singing? Check.

http://www.x-entertainment.com/thanksgiving/macyparade/1984/

This site has footage and commentary about the parades from 1985, 1986, and 1987, as well, and even has an archive of the commercials shown during the parades, and let me tell you, this year I am thankful for the magical time machine we call the Internet.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and weekend with your families.