Baby Yoda continues to take over the internet. The beloved Star Wars character has been making its way across social media platforms in various meme forms amid the release of the new Disney+ Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. One viewer of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade employed Baby Yoda amid the chaos that was Al Roker running from a life-size stick of butter ahead of the annual event.
The Roker moment became a viral trend in and of itself Thursday after a man dressed as a stick of butter for the parade interrupted the Today show host at two points along the parade route, with Roker at one point playfully shoving the butter out of frame.
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Amid the flood of Twitter reactions to the instantly iconic moment, one Twitter user shared a popular GIF of Baby Yoda sipping out of a mug. “Me watching Al Roker getting rid of that malarkey, known as butter,” the user wrote.
Me watching Al Roker getting rid of that malarkey, known as butter pic.twitter.com/z8orBanPCZ
— lizard queen (@allanmcatee) December 1, 2019
Plenty of reactions to “Buttergate” went viral Thursday and over the long holiday weekend, and the man dressed as the stick of butter even spoke out. Donny Willis, a pastor from Westchester County, New York, told Variety that he didn’t set out to interrupt Roker’s segments and that his run-ins with the host were merely by happenstance.
“I had no idea that this was going to be a thing,” he said. “At all.”
Willis, who was acting in a volunteer capacity as one of Macy’s “Breakfast Clowns” in the parade, also shared a full explanation of “the #butter story” on Twitter, writing that when he reached Columbus Circle, someone yelled to him, and when he turned around, he saw Roker and a film crew.
He added that Macy’s “encouraged the clowns” to run in the streets and “incorporate a personal touch with the audience,” which is how he came upon the host a second time.
“This however, put me behind with my group and I was not supposed to get behind… So I had to sprint to catch up. As I was sprinting I quickly ran up on Al Roker again. It was not my intention to get in front of the camera again,” he explained.
“I was simply the guy dressed like a stick of butter with the goal of making people who had been standing on the street since 5 a.m. smile and be happy that they came to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade,” he wrote. “It was an honor to play a part in the Al Roker/Butterman encounter.”
Speaking to Today on Friday, Roker said that he “had no enmity” against Willis and described the situation as “the goofiest thing.”
