Elsie the Cow is a cartoon cow developed as a mascot for the Borden Dairy Company in 1936 to symbolize the "perfect dairy product". Since the demise of Borden in the mid-1990s, the character has continued to be used in the same capacity for the company's partial successor, Eagle Brand, owned by The J.M. Smucker Company.
History with the Macy's Parade[]
Elsie made her parade debut in 1963, alongside Dino the Sinclair Oil Dinosaur. The balloon shows Elsie, a 12-foot papier-mache figurine, riding a trapeze attached to a 27-foot balloon. The balloon itself had flowers forming circles with the message “See You at the Fair, Elsie” on them. Like with Sinclair, the Borden Dairy Company was one of the main sponsors of the 1964 New York World’s Fair and so Elsie had her own area, complete with a real cow.
In 1965, the NYWF message on the balloon was changed to various Christmas greetings after the fair ended.
She retired in 1967, and the balloon part has been reused for various other Balloons, two of them being Smile and Babar the Elephant.