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Al Roker reunites with 'Butter Man' 1 year after their Thanksgiving parade 'feud'

The butter feud between the two has melted.
/ Source: TODAY

Al Roker and his Thanksgiving nemesis are much butter friends a year later.

The TODAY weatherman and co-host of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade reunited with the man in the butter costume on Thursday, one year after Al famously shoved him and said "Get out of here, Butter!"

The butter feud between the two has melted, as he warmly greeted Donny Willis, 33, whose relentless pursuit of him at last year's parade had people cracking up to start their turkey day with a smile.

"Butter is back and better than ever," Al said. " Donny Willis is reprising his role, and when I say role, I mean 'buttered roll.'"

Willis, a pastor at Westchester Church in Valhalla, New York, got involved in the parade though a good friend who works for Macy's. He shared on TODAY last year after his viral moment that "one of the biggest lessons is embrace big moments like a hot potato."

On Thursday, he remembered finding out he had become a sensation in the midst of the parade last year when his wife ran down from the grandstand and asked him "Donny, what did you do?!"

Willis was like butter on toast when it came to sticking to Al at seemingly every turn of the parade route.

"There was one moment that I got involved with where my kids were like, 'Dad, what did you do?!'" Al said Thursday. "All of a sudden I had to worry about a butter guy, a butter man who was just driving me crazy all throughout the parade."

"Hamilton" star Lin-Manuel Miranda was one of many who did a double take at Al avoiding butter on Thanksgiving.

"Roker did a shove to a butter," he tweeted.

Al responded to the moment with as many puns as he could muster.

"#HappyThanksgiving - You butter be watching or the yolks on you!" he tweeted.

Al's margarine mayhem had people laughing to start their holiday.

A year later, Willis has plenty to be thankful for during a difficult year across the world in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

"You know, it has been a butter year than expected," he joked. "We have no complaints. A lot of good things happening with my family, wife is now a principal at her school and she's just been leading through that whole thing and so we have no complaints, very blessed."

The pandemic also brought changes to this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. There will be no crowd of millions or the usual two-mile parade route, as it will be centered in the Herald Square area near the flagship Macy's store in Manhattan.

That just means less ground to cover for the butter man to stick to Al.

"You've got a shorter parade route to harass me, so I will be looking for you," Al said.