Did you know that the Muppets have played a part in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year since 1974? Between the oversized balloons, floats, and musical numbers, we’ve seen the casts of Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and even Fraggle Rock in 46 consecutive parades.
An unfortunate side effect of the COVID crisis (as if we needed another one) is that this year’s Macy’s Parade will be the first without Muppet representation in almost half a century.
So if Macy’s isn’t able to highlight the Muppets this Thanksgiving, we’ll have to do it ourselves! We put together a brief (or, brief compared to how long the parade usually is) compilation of some notable Muppet moments from Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades of yore. From Sesame Street‘s inaugural appearance to their many balloons as well as some Fraggles and frogs and some guy named Jim.
Does this include everything?? Hardly! You’ll have to do some digging on YouTube if we didn’t cover your favorites. But we hope that if you feel the need to see some Muppets march through Manhattan on Thanksgiving morning, you’ll hit play on this video and relive some memorable moments.
Many thanks to the Muppet Wiki for compiling so much great info on the Macy’s Parade, and thanks to all of the kind souls who uploaded these vintage parades to YouTube.
Thanks, as always, to the Muppet Wiki for all their incredibly useful research! Click here to fill yourself with helium on the ToughPigs forum!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
