Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb had NBC viewers laughing at an inconspicuously NSFW joke during the 2023 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. While the Tom Turkey float approached Macy’s along the parade route, Guthrie asked her broadcast partner what it was like earlier in the day when she got to hitch a ride along the massive float – but the question came out a little sideways.
“How was it riding on Tom?” Guthrie asked Kotb after a short stretch of silence. Luckily, Kotb didn’t miss a beat and answered right away, “Oh my God, it was such a cool, unique perspective being atop the turkey right there. You have a great view of the crowd and the route. It was incredible.”
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The seasoned live TV professionals they are, Guthrie and Kotb didn’t let the moment derail them — but they clearly had a small case of the giggles during the segment, with both of them fighting through laughs to finish the Tom Turkey segment. “That is a vantage point that you don’t often get to see,” Guthrie said with a laugh.
Of course, the moment garnered a lot of attention on Twitter, with many viewers taking to the social media platform to laugh at the hilarious mistake. “So Savannah Guthrie just asked Hoda ‘How was it riding on Tom?’ And she was talking about the Tom the Turkey float but my immature butt can’t stop laughing,” one viewer wrote on Twitter. Someone else wrote that their “Thanksgiving morning was made.”
Earlier in the morning, Kotb made her grand entrance to the parade on the iconic float, which traditionally leads all the floats to start the parade. Kotb perched atop the animatronic turkey rolling down the streets of Manhattan, offering her a view she’d never seen before in all her coverage of the historic event.
“This is amazing,” Kotb said. “I had to ride with Tom Turkey, I’ve never ridden with him before. This is an amazing perspective. The crowds are wild, the crowds are ready.”
“Tom Turkey is hilarious,” Kotb said. “By the way, I guess you don’t realize it from here, the crowds are like 40 deep when you’re going down that parade route. It was a perspective I’d never seen, I’m totally into it, you can feel it. And I’ve never sort of seen this city from that perspective, so it was pretty amazing.”
Standing aboard Tom Turkey, Kotb helped lead the procession that features 5,000 volunteers, 16 character balloons, 26 floats, 32 heritage and novelty balloons, more than 700 clowns, 12 marching bands, nine performance groups, huge music stars and Santa Claus himself. Kotb and Guthrie returned for another year of hosting duties along with Today show weatherman Al Roker, who made his grand return after missing last year’s parade due to health issues.