Richmond's Thanksgiving Day Parade Pizza Dreams

THANKSGIVING thanks*giv*ing /THaNGks’giviNG/ Noun 1.       The expression of giving thanks. 2.       Sitting on the couch Thursday morning watching inflatable characters and floats in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. 3.       A time of year where many Americans are diagnosed with the medical anomalies known as “Food Comas” or “Food Babies” _______________________________________________________________________________ On Saturday night, I was up late at the restaurant next to my house, that serves $5 pizzas after 10 PM, watching the football game.  I walked back to my house after downing the entire pizza in an exercise I like to call, “Thanksgiving Prep.”  Something must not have settled right with the pizza, as I had a late night “pizza dream.”  I don’t know why, but I always have the strangest dreams after a lot of late night pizza, and Saturday night’s dream was no different.  I dreamt that I had a front row seat at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  All of the performances, floats and balloons were some of the things I'm most thankful for in pop culture.  Let me give you an overview of how it all went down. Al Roker and Savannah Guthrie took care of the hosting duties, as Al “Vined” the entire parade in six second increments.  Matt Lauer was nowhere to be found, as I assumed either Ryan Seacrest or Willie Geist had him tied up in a closet somewhere, telling Lauer, “Retire already.” Off in the distance, I see the first floats coming my way.  The marching band leading the way is holding a banner that says, “TV Pickups.”  The first float to hit the showcase area is the @Midnight float, with Chris Hardwick showing a GIF of a dog wearing socks to Patton Oswalt, Kurt Braunohler and Doug Benson.  The float started to trail away quickly as Hardwick jumped off the vehicle to run to the next one, with “Points!” being all that spectators could hear.  Hardwick jumped on the next float, which was long and skinny and quite noisy.  He picked up a bowling ball and chucked to the other end of the trailer.  “This must be the Celebrity All-Star Bowling float,” I thought, as I saw the cast of Doctor Who awkwardly heaved their bowling balls down the lanes. (Celebrity All-Star Bowling was picked up by AMC).  Adam McKay, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis come down the street, dragging a float on their backs with a skinny redheaded comedian and a “human fish,” in the “The Chris Gethard Show” float.  The float stops in the middle of the showcase area as Gethard gets kicked in the leg by a Mixed Martial Artist for answering some question wrong we couldn't hear, as an unknown punk band was playing.  He then attempted to take a live phone call, but the parade marshal hurried the float along. After the “TV Pickups” floats drifted off, we were treated to a few musical performances.  HAIM started things off, having stuck around from their evening on Saturday Night Live.  They were followed by Jonathan Coulton, who performed classics like, “Code Monkey” and “Kenesaw Mountain Landis.”  Mal Blum and Mikey Erg come through together, singing “Baltimore” and “Pray for Rain,” respectively.  To cap off the performances, I was delightfully treated to a beach music montage, led by The Embers playing "I Love Beach Music," Balloons start racing by at a pace that I could barely keep up with.  There was a balloon of Don Draper chasing after other balloons of cigarettes, a Hershey bar, and whiskey glasses, seemingly never able to obtain the one thing he truly wants.  The Draper balloon did awkwardly turn around to catch a glimpse of  a talking Padma Lakshmi balloon, that was saying “please pack your knives and leave,” which I think it was saying at the potential advances from the Draper ballon . Either that or she was talking to the Cake Boss balloon coming through, followed by other balloons of Paul F. Tompkins, Werner Herzog, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Garry Marshall and Ice-T.  Off in the distance, race volunteers can be seen scurrying out of the way as Jesse Pinkman races through the parade, apparently still driving all the way from New Mexico. After the volunteers get settled again, floats come through once more.  The Wil Wheaton “Tabletop” float comes through as Wheaton is playing “King of Tokyo” with Grant Imahara, Allison Haslip and Paul and Storm.  Wheaton was knocked out of the game in mere moments, as that’s usually what happens on Tabletop.  The next float strolled by with Colt Cabana sitting in the middle of a wrestling ring, recording an “Art of Wrestling” podcast with Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and Antonio Cesaro.  They were discussing the Royal Rumble coming up in January (which next to Christmas, the Royal Rumble is my favorite holiday).  The final float of the morning was the USA float.  As it drifted by you could see the cast of Suits, White Collar and Psych showing off their normal routines.  Faint sounds of "C'mon Son's" were audible from Psych's Shawn and Gus as the float turned the corner to the next street. The parade was closed by, of course, Santa Claus who wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas.  As people started to file out of the bleacher seats at “Parade Central,” someone yells, “Wait, there’s one more float coming!”  The float makes its way down the street, it's Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman on the Sherlock float, talking something about how the raft had to appear in England first, and we had to wait a few weeks before the raft could appear in America.  I'm not really sure, but that's around the point in which I woke up, went downstairs and checked to see what time Wasena Tap Room opened so I could get another pizza. _______________________________________________________________________________ I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving.  Please enjoy your weekend and enjoy your time with your family.  If you can't go home, be sure to call and at least say, "Hey." @rbramblet