Since 1927, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has been an American tradition as beloved as watching football and drunkenly fighting with your racist uncle. (Or, reading tips for dealing with fake 'racist uncle' think pieces this Thanksgiving.) But, yes, those parade floats are wonderful! And as harmless as their six-foot-wide grins and bulging eyes the size of car windshields might seem, there's an element of danger in 70 people marching a Spongebob that contains 16,200 cubic feet of helium through Manhattan once a year.

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Go ahead, Google "Macy's Day Parade," and you'll find an entire Wikipedia section dedicated to "Incidents and Injuries." There are entries every few years with phrases like "head ripped off" and "impaled." But there was one year in particular, 1997, that was a total goddamn disaster. High winds caused chaos and destruction on the New York streets and one woman ended up in a month-long coma.

On Thanksgiving morning 1997, an estimated two million people gathered along the parade route to catch The Pink Panther, Barney, Cat in the Hat, and others happily float between the Manhattan skyline. But, as The New York Times reported the next day:

"At times, the balloons were not gliding but instead were careering as their handlers on the ground struggled to keep control in winds that reached as high as 43 miles an hour. For a while, the balloons seemed to be falling like flies. Barney suffered extensive damage and had to be removed at 51st Street. The Pink Panther succumbed at 42d Street. Quik Bunny and the Cat in the Hat limped away at 36th Street."

A video from that day (see above) captures Barney's particularly violent death.

Notice the drama of the handlers trying to keep control.

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And the surges of cheers/yells as the balloon rips apart. There's wind ripping at the camera, and the kid's cryptic commentary as Barney goes down.

Meanwhile, "As the Pink Panther lurched about, while simultaneously imploding, a police inspector shouted, 'Somebody give me a knife, quick!' An officer quickly handed him a 5-inch-long knife and he punched a hole through the feline's tail, a move that almost immediately stabilized the balloon."

But the worst problem that year occurred at 72nd Street and Central Park West, when a six-story-tall Cat in the Hat struck a lamppost. As Pat Klem, who videotaped the incident, told the Times:

"You thought it was going to bounce off," he said. "But the second time it snapped -- it was suspended for an instant, then it spiraled way down ... The parade just stopped. There was a prolonged silence. Your thoughts go from happy, joyous Thanksgiving to prayers."

Maria Clohessy and Kathy Caronna both suffered head injuries during the incident. And, a year later, CNN reported that Caronna "Suffered a skull fracture from falling debris and was in a coma for nearly a month. Caronna, who is still recovering and says the accident caused permanent brain damage, filed a $395 million lawsuit against the city, Macy's and the lamppost manufacturer."

In response to what happened at the Macy's Day Parade in 1997, organizers implemented new size rules, that "balloons can be no larger than 70 feet high, 78 feet long and 40 feet wide. That meant bidding farewell to a few lumbering creatures: the Pink Panther, Woody Woodpecker and the Cat in the Hat."

But remember: the parade used to be way, way stranger.