Lost Media Archive

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Lost Media Archive
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1982_Macy's_Thanksgiving_Day_Parade_with_Centerville_High_School_Marching_Band

1982 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with Centerville High School Marching Band

The intro for the 1982 parade, followed by the first marching band performance of the morning.

WILKES_HIGH_SCHOOL_BAND-_THE_LEGACY_YEARS

WILKES HIGH SCHOOL BAND- THE LEGACY YEARS

5:48 for the Wilkes High School Marching band Proformance

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 1982 was the 56th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and was held on November 25, 1982 in New York City, and shown to viewers live on NBC that same day at 9:00 a.m. It was hosted by Bryant Gumbel and Sarah Purcell. Participating celebrities included Milton Berle, Andy Gibb, Sammy Davis Jr., the Oak Ridge Boys, Paul Williams, Laura Branigan, Ricky Schroeder, the Pointer Sisters, and the cast of Sesame Street.

While almost all of NBC's parades since 1980 have been widely bootlegged, the 1982 parade is the only parade since 1980 that has yet to surface in full. This is especially weird since it (like all the parades during this time period) aired during a time when nearly everyone in North America had some form of home recording media, though for some reason no one wants to share the whole thing on the Internet. Only a handful of clips have made their way to YouTube, including the one seen at right. (The other uploaded clips are of two other marching bands and of Andy Gibb's performance of "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.) Some other clips were also shown in the parade's 85th anniversary special, which aired in November 2011 and can be found in its entirety on YouTube.

One of the 1982 clips that can be found online is of the Clinton High School marching band from Clinton, Tennessee, and was uploaded by one Amy Jeffers. She claims to have the entire 1982 parade on VHS, however she hasn't contacted anyone in regards to leaking it. (As an additional note, the clip in question was recorded using a video camera taping the television set, so it's likely that Jeffers did not have a video capture USB device at the time. In a private conversation, she stated she would convert it herself; it remains unlikely that she'll leak it on her own accord.)

This year's parade is especially notable for Sesame Street fans as it was the last public appearance of Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper since the show started in 1969. Though he was ill with cancer, Lee performed the best that he could. He was hospitalized a few days later, and passed away on December 7th. The next Thanksgiving, Sesame Street aired a sobering episode that openly addressed Mr. Hooper's death and helped the cast deal with it. The 1982 parade is also important because it featured the debut of the Olive Oyl balloon, which was the first female giant balloon to appear since Elsie the Cow in 1963. The other balloon to debut that year was Woody Woodpecker, who became a parade mainstay for over a decade until 1996. Another notable incident that year involved the Bullwinkle balloon, which sprang a nose leak shortly before it was to make its appearance in Herald Square and stock footage from the 1981 parade was shown instead on the NBC broadcast.

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