CHICAGO, November 14, 2008 –Robin Baumgarten and Paul Konrad will host the 75th McDonald’s Thanksgiving Parade, Thanksgiving morning, November 27, from 8-11am on WGN-TV. Marcella Raymond will serve as street side reporter. The 75th annual parade (formerly the State Street Christmas Parade) kicks off the 2008 holiday season traveling down historic State Street with giant balloons, high-stepping marching bands, majestic equestrian troupes, fabulous floats, performance groups and celebrities.

The annual holiday favorite and digitally remastered Bozo, Gar & Ray: WGN-TV Classics (details below) will air immediately after the parade.

Chicago’s Very Own Holidays, a new, original half-hour local production, will offer a nostalgic look back at Chicago Christmases past. It will premiere on December 20 from 8-8:30pm, with an encore on Christmas Eve, December 24 from 9:30-10pm. The special, hosted by WGN News anchor Mark Suppelsa, will span events through 100 years starting with the Chicago Tribune’s 1908 predictions of Christmas. Other program highlights will include Jim Lovell’s historic 1968 Christmas Eve flight and a chat with the daughters of Robert L. May, the Chicago copywriter who penned the holiday poem “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in 1939.