John Crudele

John Crudele

Business

A day full of hot air: My wild adventures in the Macy’s Parade

The other day someone who apparently likes President Obama called me a clown because I was investigating the Census Bureau’s falsification of unemployment data.

So today I decided to prove to you that I really was a clown — for one day, although not on the day the president’s supporter claimed. As the photo accompanying this column shows, I was officially one for a huge audience — the nationally televised Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I’m supposed to mention stuff like quantitative easing, Ben Bernanke, the unemployment rate and corporate earnings in a column like this. I just did. Now I’m going to talk about the parade.

By my kids’ count, I’ve been in four Thanksgiving parades, helping to hold down Kermit the Frog in 2003, SpongeBob SquarePants during his inaugural appearance in 2004 and Charlie Brown the following year.

I became a clown on Thanksgiving Day 2006, although by the time I got my costume they had run out of rubber noses. So my everyday nose and some hastily applied lipstick had to do.

Maybe it’s old age — or, I hope, the fact that I had to get up so early in the morning — but except for a few incidents, all the parades seem like a blur to me.

Thankfully, my kids have better memories.

John Crudele, second from right.John Crudele

I didn’t recall, for instance, that the wife of the late Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schultz and their son helped us hold the strings for Charlie Brown.

I did remember that Jerry Seinfeld and the Mrs. showed up to see us off before Kermit was let out from under his protective netting. (He — Seinfeld, not Kermit — knew someone on our team but didn’t want to join us.)

There was the incident when one of SpongeBob’s lines got caught on a light pole on Broadway, the old parade route. It was the line I was assigned to, but in a stroke of good luck I was off-duty at the time, and my replacement was snagged. (Yes, that’s an intentional pun. Lighten up, it’s a holiday.)

Nobody really knew if SpongeBob was parade-worthy. He was huge and square — as your kids could tell you — and flew like a kite. We were told that SpongeBob could be scrapped at any moment during the parade and deflated on a side street.

A cop with a knife came to our rescue. He cut the tangled line, and the whole parade was able to proceed without anyone except the thousands of people on that street knowing what had happened.

There was also the time that I got into trouble because of Charlie Brown, although I think Lucy would have been proud.

You have to understand that the parade moves very slowly along its route, and there is more waiting than marching. So during the breaks I was allowing kids along the sidewalk to take hold of the slack in my line.

Their parents would take a picture of them holding a balloon in the Macy’s parade and everyone was happy — until I got caught.

I figured the only thing I did wrong was not charging them for the photo op. But the boss man saw things differently, so I vowed never to do it again.

And I kept that promise by becoming a clown the next year.

That job, of course, came with no strings attached. (You should have seen that one coming.)

You are probably wondering how someone gets into the parade. Well, I guess you could become famous like all the singers and actors who are featured on TV. Or a better way, if you are untalented like me, is to work for Macy’s.

Most of the people who work the parade are store employees and relatives who come from around the country.

So how did I get in, since I have neither talent nor a job at Macy’s?

My big break came during a cab ride from the Bronx back to the office in the spring of 2003. I was traveling with one of The Post’s corporate lawyers when she happened to mention that she was in charge of the crew for one of the floats.

“Nice,” I said, because to say otherwise would have been rude, since she was picking up the fare.

“Would you like to be in the parade?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said (before I had fully considered the fact that the parade is in November, which means it’s cold, and you have to get up very early to come into a crazy, crowded city). “But only if my kids can also be in the parade.”

Volunteering my kids, I figured, was a great way out. She could probably get me in, but not all of us.

But my kids got the OK before I could even ask them if they wanted to do it. The way I figured it, if I had to be in the parade, so did they. (My youngest, Kim, clearly not swayed by parental pressure, never took part.)

So here’s my advice: If you are ever asked to participate in something as cool as the Thanksgiving Parade, just say yes. You can always try to wriggle out of it later. (“Damn, I forgot that I have to watch the turkey defrost.”)

My second piece of advice: Be careful if you call someone a clown, because they just might be one — at least for a day.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!