Your Thoughts: Sesame Street at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

[YellowYahooey]

I found a possible parade from back in the day in which Sesame Street was not involved. I believe the one in 1983 was a rare occurrence of Sesame Street being absent. I believe they were involved in the 1982 parade, as I remember reading that Will Lee (Mr. Hooper) made his last performance in the parade before his death.

The 1983 parade had a lot of characters from many kids' shows (including Pac-Man, the Shirt Tales, Yogi Bear, and Snoopy), but Sesame Street was, oddly enough, not one of them. However, in terms of Muppets, Fraggle Rock and a balloon version of Kermit the Frog were involved.

I did download the full broadcast of the 1983 parade, and after skimming through it I realize it is more like a Broadway show on the streets of Manhattan. I read a comment on YT that in the 1982 parade, Laura Branigan was sitting on a float and sang her biggest hit "Gloria" and not a Christmas song. I would have expected all Christmas songs to be performed by the recording acts, given the occasion. But nope.

Sesame Street returned for the 1984 parade along with the Countmobile and the Sloppy Jalopy. I really would like to know why Sesame Street was absent from the 1983 parade.

According to a Wiki site, the only years that Sesame Street were absent from the parade were 1977, 1983, 1985 through 1987, 1989, 1991 through 1993, and 2020 (the latter most likely due to COVID-19). Except for 2020, they were in attendance every year since 1994.

 

[Mo Frackle]

I really would like to know why Sesame Street was absent from the 1983 parade.

The infamous "Farewell, Mr. Hooper" episode was also airing that day. There was quite a bit of promotion leading up to it, and CTW undoubtedly wanted kids tuning in rather than waiting to see the Sesame gang in the parade.

 

[YellowYahooey]

Makes me wonder if the 1983 parade suffered low ratings due to the "death revealed" episode of Sesame Street?

I also recall there being a local newspaper article about Sesame Street dealing with topic of death published the following Saturday, November 26 that same year. The really strange thing is, I don't recall ever seeing it on Detroit Public Television on the originally intended airdate - it may have aired the following Sunday morning when the station reran Wednesday and Thursday episodes (they always reran Monday and Tuesday episodes on Saturdays then). Digital versions of older newspapers are offered publicly on the site I used (one by a university's digital archives), and the pages are downloadable.