Like most every kid growing up in the United States, each Thanksgiving Day holiday morning I was glued to the television in anticipation of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade broadcast from New York City. It’s been quite a while since I’ve actually seen the parade in person, but I always try and catch a few minutes of this idiosyncratic American spectacle each year.

These vintage photographs from the early 1930s through the late 1970s are just a sample of the wacky, weird and sometimes freaky balloons that glide through Manhattan each Thanksgiving Day.