A Tale of Two Parades

Kermit the Frog at last year's parade.

Image: Brendan McDermid/Reuters/Landov

As residents of New York and thousands of tourists to the city know, there's a Thanksgiving parade tomorrow. Since the 1920s, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has floated its way down Central Park West and Broadway, and since 1955, it has been officially broadcast on NBC.

But there's another New York City parade that has aired on CBS for 40 years on the same day and at the same time. It's called the Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS, and like NBC's version, it's full of amazing floats, music, and those world-famous balloons. And, hey, it also runs down Central Park West and Broadway. What a coincidence! Holding two parades on the same route on the same day at the same time must present a logistical nightmare, what with the duplicate Snoopy and Pillsbury Doughboy balloons tangling with each over Times Square.

Actually, they're the same parade, but with some clever shooting and adherence to different network identities, CBS and NBC broadcast entirely different versions of the same event simultaneously.

The two networks have been doing this since the late 1940s. An un-bylined article from the New York Times from November 21, 1949 reported, "WNBT and WCBS-TV, local video outlets for the National Broadcasting Company and the Columbia Broadcasting System, respectively, will televise the 23rd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on Thursday, beginning at 10:30 a.m.…WNBT, which will be represented by Milton Berle as grand marshall, and a 13-foot replica of Howdy Doody, will cover the pageant for one hour and 45 minutes… WCBS-TV and the Columbia network will scan the parade for a half-hour period as it goes down Broadway. Two CBS television stars, Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney, will ride on one of the 16 floats."

The arrangement remains largely intact 60 years later. As the official sponsors, NBC gets pride of place with Today show hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira hosting. NBC stars like Heroes' Masi Oka and Ali Larter and Connie Britton from Friday Night Lights will be making appearances. Forty-four million people watched the network's broadcast last year, according to the Orlando Sentinel's Hal Boedeker.

CBS, meanwhile, will have its parade coverage anchored by Early Show hosts Maggie Rodriguez and Dave Price and feature "man on the street" bits from The Ghost Whisperer's Jamie Kennedy. Last year CBS had about 7 million viewers, according AOL Daily Finance's Aimee Picchi.

NBC stepped into a bit of controversy this year with its network-bolstering guest selection by blocking the singing, dancing cast of Fox's Glee from participating, a move that prompted Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke to call NBC executives "morons" and write, "It's bad enough NBC can't get anyone to watch its piss-poor network primetime shows, but now NBC is making sure the American public can't watch other networks' shows as well."

Glee creator Ryan Murphy quipped to Entertainment Weekly, "I completely understand NBC’s position, and look forward to seeing a Jay Leno float."

With his low ratings, Leno would be lucky to be invited to sweep up, but if he does appear—or, heck, if Uncle Miltie, rest his soul, figures out some way to make a cameo for the National Broadcasting Network one last time—you won't catch it on CBS, and not because they'd somehow get Paul Winchell, who passed away in 2005, to appear.

Oh, and forget Jerry Mahoney: He's been eclipsed by Peanut and Walter on Comedy Central's The Jeff Dunham Show. And besides, he hasn't had anything to say in years.