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Two Pardoned Turkeys Relocate To The Magic Kingdom
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Pardoning the presidential turkey is a storied White House tradition dating back to 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln granted the first turkey’s clemency. According to tradition, Lincoln’s son Tad begged for his dad to spare the big bird. The doting dad couldn’t resist. Noah Brooks, a White House reporter, recorded the story of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving mercy in an 1865 dispatch. Sadly, pardoning a turkey didn’t get recognized as a presidential tradition until much later.
In fact, it wouldn’t happen again until the close of the 20th century. While some White House mythmakers claim the turkey ceremony’s traditional pardoning began with President Harry Truman, there’s no proof he pardoned any birds received as gifts. Lincoln’s mercy wouldn’t be repeated until 1989 when President George H.W. Bush provided his feathered acquaintance a formal “reprieve.”
But few turkeys have enjoyed the same stroke of luck afforded to two gobblers in 2007. Not only did President George W. Bush pardon both birds during the annual tradition, but he sent them packing to a place most of us dream about: Disney World.
From Dinner Table to Disney
President Bush held the annual ceremony started by his father in the Rose Garden. During the event, he announced the name for both birds, May and Flower, chosen in a White House poll. During the clemency celebration, Bush noted that the monikers were “certainly better than the names suggested by the Vice President—which is ‘Lunch’ and ‘Dinner.’”
May and Flower each weighed about 45 pounds and hailed from Indiana. Instead of a final Thanksgiving stuffing, they traveled to Disney World in Florida for retirement. Disney employees welcomed them to live in the Magic Kingdom, Mickey Mouse’s backyard. The excitement didn’t stop there. The birds served as honorary grand marshalls at Disney’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade.
A Changing Tradition
Have pardoned presidential turkeys always gone to Disney World? Not necessarily. When President George H.W. Bush started the tradition, each year’s turkey ended up in a local petting zoo. This outcome went on for the first 10 to 20 years of the practice, according to Keith Williams, a spokesperson for the National Turkey Federation.
Each year, the federation collaborates with farmers to send two turkeys to the White House. Typically, one is pardoned while the other represents a Plan B. Neither of these two birds will end up on the First Family’s dinner table, however. Williams notes that while we now call the event the annual turkey pardoning, it began as the presentation of the annual Thanksgiving turkey. This tradition did start with President Truman (without the pardons).
Turkey Retirement
Besides local petting zoos and Disney World, turkeys have also ended up in Disneyland and Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia. Some of the pardoned crew have also made their way to George Washington’s Mount Vernon. No matter where the gobblers spend the rest of their lives, they’re happy to do so dressing-free.
This year’s event took place on November 24th, and the two turkeys for the event received the names Butter and Bread after Americans voted online. They will be joining last year’s pardoned birds, Peas and Carrots. Where will they make their new home? Virginia Tech’s Gobblers Rest exhibit in Blacksburg Virginia.
By Engrid Barnett, contributor for Ripleys.com
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Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade By The Numbers
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
It began in 1924 when Macy’s employees came together to celebrate the Christmas holiday. In recent years, it’s ballooned into something gargantuan. But in 2020, the parade will be televised only, in the first-ever pandemic parade.
That means no live audience. Fewer participants. And a shorter route.
But it doesn’t diminish the pageantry of what many Americans think of as a Thanksgiving Day tradition: watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
“For New Yorkers who typically see it live and in person, the change for them is that they are going to experience it the same way the rest of the country experiences it,” Susan Tercero, executive producer of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, told The Asbury Park Press newspaper. “But I think for the rest of the country, it’s not going to be too different.
“They’re still going to see the balloons,” she continued. “They’re still going to see the floats. They’re still going to see Santa and Broadway and all of these elements that they’re used to seeing every single year. They might have some differences in that we’re going to see some social distancing. We’re going to have masks, things like that. But it’s still going to be the parade they know and love.”
Whether it’s for the floats, the music, or the 1,000 clowns, Americans find the parade truly fascinating. But just what goes into producing the event under normal circumstances?
Some crazy parade numbers to feast on this Thanksgiving Day:
The first parade was held on November 27, 1924, and more than 250,000 people attended!
The current route of the parade, in miles, from 77th Street and Central Park West to the Macy’s Store at 34th Street and Broadway is 2.5 miles!
The parade has only been canceled 3 times, all as a result of World War II in 1942, 1943, and 1944.
Three-and-a-half-million people, attend the parade each year to watch in person.
In 1989, 4.7 inches of rain downpoured on the people and the parade.
To produce the once-a-year Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, it costs an estimated 12 million dollars.
Ronald McDonald has appeared as a float 17 times, sporting size 200 XXXXXXXL-wide shoes!
Editorial credit: Scott Cornell / Shutterstock.com
It takes an 18-month timeframe to plan the event!
The coldest-ever parade was held in 2018 at a frigid 19 degrees Fahrenheit.
Snoopy has made 40 parade appearances—the most of any balloon character!
Editorial credit: NYC Russ / Shutterstock.com
The first Mickey Mouse balloon, which debuted in 1934, was 40 feet tall.
Fifty million people tune in to the televised broadcast of the parade every year.
It takes 90 minutes to inflate just one of the parade balloons.
Olaf the Snowman 2018 Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon inflation. Takes place the day before the parade on 77th and 81st streets on either side of the American Museum of Natural History. || CC: Rhododendrites via Wikimedia Commons
It’s been 96 years since the very first Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.
To volunteer, participants must weigh at least 120 pounds!
Each float uses a whopping 200 pounds of glitter.
There are over 300 wardrobe and make-up artists hired for the event, as well as over 600 performing cheerleaders and dancers!
It takes 750 pounds of gas to inflate just one balloon.
In order to corral the 50+ giant balloons throughout the parade route, 1,600 handlers are needed to walk along with them!
Elf on the Shelf and balloon handlers || CC: Charley Lhasa from New York City via Wikimedia Commons
The first character balloons debuted in 1927 and included a 60-foot-long dinosaur and a 25-foot-long dachshund.
The iconic Rockettes made their first appearance in 1957.
On a typical parade year, 2,800 marching band members from all over the country perform throughout the parade.
The parade is host to over 8,000 participants, including celebrities, Broadway performers, marching band members, dancers, and Macy’s employees.
Macy’s employees estimate that they work a collective 50,000 hours each year to make this historical event come to life!
By Ryan Clark, contributor for Ripleys.com and host of Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast
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November 24, 2020
Making Moves With Mose, The Two-Legged Dog
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In 2019, the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! St. Augustine Odditorium held their annual Halloween costume contest. The wild and weird-themed event typically seeks out the best of the best pet costumes, but that year, the pet who won the contest was truly unique in his own right. His name is Mose, a Miniature Pinscher, born without his two front legs. However, Mose doesn’t let his lack of limbs stop him from strutting his stuff. He’s actually able to walk around upright on his hind legs—one foot in front of another!
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Bo Lechangeur and Carrie Olivera, Mose’s owners, adopted him in November 2017 when he was about three months old. At this point, Mose couldn’t walk, but his tenacity knew no bounds. Lechangeur says he taught himself how to walk through a series of trial and error.
“He would fall on his chest and use the floor and his back legs to drive him forward. Over time, [his legs] got so strong, and now, he walks around like nothing.”
Part of the reason for Mose’s desire to walk seemed to be based in his excitement to play with other dogs. And now that he can move around like a person, Mose gets quite a lot of attention from humans as well.
But even more than that, Mose is an extremely nurturing animal. Lechangeur and Olivera also have two other dogs, one of which is Mose’s brother, Bandit, who was adopted after Mose. Bandit has a similar condition except he’s unable to walk like his brother. This is due in part to the fact that he does have one of his front legs, but it didn’t form properly. When Bandit came to Mose’s household, he was overweight and ill from not being able to move around. Though they’d been apart for almost a year, Mose recognized him immediately and helped him get healthy.
“Mose was always involved in helping him. He was cleaning up after him and got him in shape. In just a few months, Bandit was “hopping around,” and the two dogs were playing with each other regularly.
This is just one reason why Mose’s owners believe it is so special—and rewarding—to adopt a rescue dog. The couple was living in Texas in 2017 when a particularly devastating hurricane hit their area. They saw how many dogs had been left stranded without a home and decided to adopt.
“For anyone looking to get a dog, I’ve always found rescues to be the best place. If you think about where they came from to landing in a loving home…it’s much more rewarding in the long-term.”
It’s hard not to see this intrepid Min Pin as a breed unto himself. In so many ways, though, Mose is just like other dogs. He loves playing with pups, wrestling with his brother, and slurping down Starbucks Puppucinos. He also loves his plush lion toy, which his owners believe reminds him of their other dog, an eleven-year-old chihuahua.
“He’s an amazing dog. Every day, we wake up to him and see him walk. We’ve had him for three years now, and every day, it’s amazing to see him walking around.”
Mose truly is an amazing dog inside and out, which is why his costume in the 2019 Halloween contest was so fitting. He was dressed as Superman!
Can’t get enough of this adorable two-legged pup? Find Mose and other outstanding animal feats inside the pages of Ripley’s latest annual, Mind Blown! on sale now.
By Julia Tilford, contributor for Ripleys.com
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON!
Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!
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