Learning Day: Macy's Parade Balloons (Patreon)

I've recently become accidentally very involved in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade fandom. You know how sometimes you learn one fact about a Betty Boop balloon and then you blink and it's been six hours and you know pretty much everything about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade except for the great secret of the Macy's parade fandom, which is the exact location of the Sonic The Hedgehog balloon. I cannot express how badly these nerds want to know where the Sonic balloon is stored or how much Macy's will never tell them.

As popular as the Sonic balloon is, there are some balloons that have far less of a fan base, and those are the ones that interest me the most. The parade will reuse the balloons they really like over and over. There have been four Mickey Mouses and two Gokus over the years. Less popular balloons only appear in a single parade before being recycled into a new theme. I love these little freaks, and here is my ranking in Classic Internet Listicle style for the very best of the least popular Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.

1.) Boob McNutt

There's weirdly little documentation about Boob McNutt's involvement in the Macy's parade. I would like to write a full book about it. It only made one appearance in 1930 at the 7th annual Macy's parade. Kids were wild about Boob McNutt at the time, and it was part of a parade themed around the funny pages of the newspaper. Boob Mcnutt was, of course, the comic book character created by Rube Goldberg (of the machines). He was a Mr. Bean archetype with a name that has aged into a hilarious entry in Macy's history. Boob McNutt forever.

2.) Smile

Sorry for the jump scare, everyone. We can all agree that this balloon has some extremely menacing energy, right? A lot of people are weirdly into this guy and don't understand why he was taken out of commission after his one full appearance in the 1972 parade. The proportions are just not quite right. His beady little eyes are looking into my soul and they know exactly how many times I've pooped today.

It's a generic smiley face made by Macy's to sort of fill out the parade. There was no sponsor. I think Macy's executives took one look at this guy and said, "My God, what terrors have we wrought." The name Smile has an implied "or else" after it that I don't think the Macy's corporation intended. They recycled Smile into a slightly less menacing Alvin And The Chipmunks balloon in the '80s.

3.) Blue Cat And Chugs

The first and hopefully last-ever NFT balloon, Blue Cat and Chugs made one appearance in 2023 and is not scheduled to appear again. All of the balloon handlers had to dress as Chugs. A fun fact about the balloon handlers is that they are all volunteers who are somehow related to a Macy's employee or, in rare instances, employees of the balloon's sponsor. They have to go through several days of unpaid balloon training to be able to walk in the parade. Can you imagine doing several days of unpaid labor for the privilege of dressing up as Chugs? He's the sidekick of an NFT.

What I love the most about Blue Cat and Chugs is that they will age as poorly as Boob McNutt. They're a Boob McNutt in the making, if you will. Thirty years from now, someone will see the Blue Cat And Chugs entry in a Macy's Parade coffee table book and say, "Who the hell are Blue Cat And Chugs?" Swiftly followed by, "What the hell was an NFT?"

4.) Bumpé

A lot of one time only Macy's balloons are people attempting to make a trend catch on through the art of ballooning. Sadly, people rarely use giant balloons to decide what they will purchase for Christmas. (My niece loved her Chugs only NFT, but I am an exception to this rule. Inflatable influencers are the only ones I trust).

In 1997, a Swedish publisher wanted to bring their popular character Bumpé to America with a big splashy debut in the Macy's parade. If it hadn't been so windy that day Bumpé might be more popular than that lazy piece of shit mouse who keeps asking for more cookies. However, that was not Bumpé's destiny. High winds tore open poor Bumpé's back legs and ripped his front toenails off during the parade. This was the same year a bunch of children had to watch police officers stab Barney to death after the high winds tore him halfway open.

Everyone was so busy mourning Barney's violent death that Bumpé never really got to live.

5.) Snowbo

The Macy's parade has a real thing for jaunty depictions of homeless people. In 1945, they had a balloon called Bobo the Hobo that was recycled after one year into a Fireman. Bobo, the gainfully employed man, was not as cute apparently, so they recycled him again into a baseball player before retiring him. They also had a Hobo The Clown for several years in the 40's and 50's. Then, in 2005, they decided to take one last run at this concept with Snowbo.

Snowbo confounds me. Snowmen don't have jobs or houses. How can he be a hobo? They had every opportunity to do a regular snowman here. Those aren't copyrighted. Snowbo made a total of three appearances in the parade before someone was like, "Are we married to the concept of a whimsical vintage homeless person walking in the parade every year?" and Snowbo was promptly shelved. He's certainly not the most problematic Macy's balloon to ever exist. That would be the "Terrible Turk," an insanely popular balloon in the late 1920s and early '30s.

6.) Wobbly Head

Speaking of terrible older balloons, let's talk about the myth of Wobbly Head. Live animals from the Central Park Zoo used to walk in the parade but that turned out to be challenging to navigate, and some children found them terrifying. So Macy's decided to replace these terrifying animals with something ten times more terrifying– Wobbly Head.

You know what kids find less terrifying than a live goat? Enormous rubber faces. To be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure if Wobbly Head is real. This is basically a Macy's parade cryptid. All of the pictures of it are small and blurry. Supposedly he had two different faces, one on the front that was smiling and one on the back that was grimacing. I have no idea which face is pictured, but it looks like Wobbly Head is as upset as I am to learn that he exists. Children found both faces terrifying, and this guy was discontinued after his first appearance in 1929, but I love everything about this horrifying monstrosity. He looks like something a muppet would become after eating muppet flesh. He looks like a nightmare lard would have. He looks like if a dick had a butt.

7.) Father Knickerbocker

There are a lot of generic, not copyrightable children's story characters that traditionally appear in the parade. Then there's Father Knickerbocker, a character from Washington Irving's 1908 satirical novel A History Of New York From The Beginning Of The World To The End Of The Dutch Dynasty By Deidrich Knickerbocker. This balloon made its first and last appearance in 1936, and it's just such a weirdly specific deep pull character I feel like someone at Macy's was like, "I'm going to throw one in just for me this year." No, it's not for the audience. It's for me. I love Father Knickerbocker, and he deserves to be a balloon.

People are saying that I only wrote this article because I felt it was my legal obligation to inform you that Macy's once featured a giant missile-shaped balloon with Boob McNutt written on the side of it, and I would like to deny those allegations. However, I cannot because they are entirely true. I laughed every time I typed the phrase Boob McNutt, and I will continue to laugh when I read this article after it's published. Sometimes, we get to do one that's just for us, and that's great!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Neil Bailey, the only person who knows where the Sonic balloon is kept.

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