The Joker’s Surprise Appearance At The 1989 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Is A True Act Of Supervillainy [Video]
It's Thanksgiving here in America, which means that the streets of New York City are being overtaken by the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! It's a pretty big deal for those of us who enjoy ushering in the holiday season with Pikachu, Spider-Man and, of course, Santa Claus himself. In 1989, however, there was another guest who appeared to kick off Christmas: Batman's arch-nemesis, The Joker.
It is... not the best public appearance a supervillain has ever made. It is, in fact, so terrible that it might actually be a supervillain plot.
One one level, this makes perfect sense. Thanks to the Tim Burton film, Batman was huge in 1989, and one of the most iconic and enjoyable moments of the movie was Jack Nicholson's Joker cruising through the streets of Gotham City on a parade float. You'd be silly to not try to incorporate into the world's most famous parade, but the way they went about it is... well, it leaves a lot to be desired.
Look, we all know that Jack Nicholson isn't going to get up at 3 a.m. to put on makeup and then ride through the cold-ass streets of Manhattan, so it's understandable that they'd get a stand-in. Having him lip-sync a song that incorporated impressions of Jim Nabors and Dudley Moore rather than Prince's "Trust," however, is a bad move.
I do wish they'd done this for The Dark Knight, though. Imagine how great a song about being an agent of chaos and forcing Gotham Citizens to blow each other up on a ferry would've been sandwiched between two high school bands.