Hanna-Barbera Thanksgiving Balloons Over the Years

 Wanna know a good sign a character or property has been firmly etched into pop culture history? Them being immortalized in a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Over the years, many famous cartoon characters have roamed the streets of New York, from Spongebob to Snoopy, and so on. That includes the characters of Hanna-Barbera. In the last four decades, four different franchises have been made into parade balloons, and to celebrate the holiday, I'll be looking back at the history of each and every single one.

The very first HB character to get the Macy's Thanksgiving balloon treatment was none other than Yogi Bear, all the way back in 1983. This balloon was designed by the folks at Kemp Balloons, Inc, and was featured at the succeeding two parades as well. Interestingly, the balloon was actually introduced by an animated segment starring both Yogi and Boo Boo, which you can check out down below. After the 1985 parade, the balloon was retired. Below is the balloon as it appeared during the 1984 Thanksgiving parade.

The second character to be turned into a Thanksgiving balloon was, strangely enough, Dexter of Dexter's Laboratory. You'd have thought somebody like Fred Flintstone would've gotten one before him, but nope! Dexter was introduced to the parade in 1998, and saw continued use until the year 2000. This one was manufactured by Raven Aerostar and designed by Chris Battle, who worked on the series. Apparently, this balloon of Dexter sporting a jetpack actually held the title for the most helium used for a Thanksgiving balloon until it was dethroned by a Thomas the Tank Engine one in 2014. Not a bad accomplishment for the boy genius if I do say so myself!

Next up is a character I'm sure you all knew would appear during this retrospective, Scooby-Doo, although it's interesting that it took so long for him to get a balloon. Scooby first appeared during the 2005 parade, in celebration of the release of that year's direct-to-video Scooby movie. He appeared again in both 2006 and 2007, but hasn't been seen since. Kind of strange the studio's most famous character hasn't shined more in these parades, but three years of appearances isn't anything to shrug off either!

While Scooby may not have been around in the parades for long, he was soon replaced by another classic Hanna-Barbera property, The Smurfs! Yes, Smurfs wasn't created by the studio, but I imagine someone would've mentioned them if I left them out, so here they are. 2008 saw the debut of the balloon, capitalizing on the franchise's fiftieth anniversary. Clumsy Smurf was used consistently during the parade until 2011. That following year, he was replaced by Papa Smurf, who was used in 2013 and 2014. The Papa Smurf balloon was later reintroduced for both the 2021 and 2022 parades, both times done to promote a new Smurfs series on Nickelodeon. And yes, in case you forgot, Nickelodeon now owns The Smurfs. Check out both Clumsy and Papa Smurf right below.

That concludes this short little retrospective, but I'm not quite done talking about Hanna-Barbera's association with the Macy's Thanksgiving parades just yet. Come back tomorrow, and I'll look at the various floats involving their characters that have appeared throughout the years. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!