The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade in New York City, the world's largest parade, started in 1924,
tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with
America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit (with both parades being four years
younger than Philadelphia's Thanksgiving Day Parade). The three-hour parade is
held in Manhattan from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and has been televised
nationally on NBC since 1952. Employees at Macy's department stores have the
option of marching in the parade.
In 1924, the annual Thanksgiving parade started in Newark, New Jersey by
Louis Bamberger at the Bamberger's store was transferred to New York City by
Macy's. In New York, the employees marched to Macy's flagship store on 34th
Street dressed in vibrant costumes. There were floats, professional bands, and
live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. At the end of that first
parade, as has been the case with every parade since, Santa Claus was welcomed
into Herald Square. At this first parade, Santa was enthroned on the Macy's
balcony at the 34th Street store entrance, where he was then crowned "King
of the Kiddies." With an audience of over 250,000 people, the parade was
such a success that Macy's declared it would become an annual event.
The Macy's parade was enough of a success to push Ragamuffin Day, the
typical children's Thanksgiving Day activity from 1870 into the 1920s, into
obscurity. Ragamuffin Day featured children going around and performing a
primitive version of trick-or-treating, a practice that by the 1920s had come
to annoy most adults. The public backlash against such begging in the 1930s (at
a time when most Americans were themselves struggling in the midst of the Great
Depression) led to promotion of alternatives, including Macy's parade. While
ragamuffin parades that competed with Macy's would continue into the 1930s, the
competition from Macy's would overwhelm the practice, and the last ragamuffin
parade in New York City would take place in 1956.
Anthony "Tony" Frederick Sarg loved to work with marionettes from
an early age. After moving to London to start his own marionette business, Sarg
moved to New York City to perform with his puppets on the street. Macy's heard
about Sarg's talents and asked him to design a window display of a parade for
the store. Sarg's large animal-shaped balloons, produced by the Goodyear Tire
and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, replaced the live animals in 1927. A popular
belief was that a balloon version Felix the Cat balloon was the first character
balloon in the parade back in 1927. Macy's also claimed that, but Felix
actually made his first appearance in 1931.
At the finale of the 1928 parade, the balloons were released into the sky,
where they unexpectedly burst. The following year, they were redesigned with
safety valves to allow them to float for a few days. Address labels were sewn
into them, so that whoever found and mailed back the discarded balloon received
a gift from Macy's.
Through the 1930s, the Parade continued to grow, with crowds of over one
million people lining the parade route in 1933. The first Mickey Mouse balloon
entered the parade in 1934. The annual festivities were broadcast on local
radio stations in New York City from 1932 to 1941 and resumed in 1945, running
through 1951.
The parade was suspended from 1942 to 1944 as a result of World War II, because
of the need for rubber and helium in the war effort. The parade resumed in 1945
using the route that it followed until 2008. The parade became known nationwide
after being prominently featured in the 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street,
which included footage of the 1946 festivities. The event was first broadcast
on network television in 1948. Since 1984, the balloons have been made by Raven
Industries of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, through its Raven Aerostar division.
Other American cities also have parades held on Thanksgiving, none of which
are run by Macy's. The nation's oldest Thanksgiving parade (the Gimbels parade,
which has had many sponsors over the years, and is now known as the 6ABC
Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade) was first held in Philadelphia in 1920.
Other cities with parades on the holiday include the McDonald's Thanksgiving
Parade in Chicago and parades in Plymouth, Massachusetts; Seattle, Houston,
Detroit, and Fountain Hills, Arizona. There is also a second Thanksgiving
balloon parade within the New York metropolitan area, the UBS balloon parade in
Stamford, Connecticut, located 30 miles away; that parade is held the Sunday
before Thanksgiving, so as not to compete with the parade in New York City. It
usually does not duplicate any balloon characters. The Celebrate the Season
Parade, held the last Saturday in November in Pittsburgh, was sponsored by
Macy's from 2006 to 2013 after Macy's bought the Kaufmann's store chain that
had sponsored that parade prior to 2006.
The classic "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" logo was, with one
exception, last used in 2005. For 2006, a special variant of the logo was used.
Every year since then (commensurate with Macy's rebranding of the former May
stores nationwide to Macy's), a new logo has been used for each parade. The
logos however are seen rarely, if at all, on television as NBC has used its own
logo with the word "Macy's" in a script typeface and "Thanksgiving
Day Parade" in a bold font. The logos are assumed to be for use by Macy's
only, such as on the Grandstand tickets and the ID badges worn by parade staff.
The Jackets worn by parade staff still bear the original classic parade logo,
this being the only place where that logo can be found.
New safety measures were incorporated in 2006 to prevent accidents and
balloon-related injuries. One measure taken was the installation of wind
measurement devices to alert parade organizers to any unsafe conditions that
could cause the balloons to behave erratically. In addition, parade officials
implemented a measure to keep the balloons closer to the ground during windy
conditions. New York City law prohibits Macy's from flying the balloons if
sustained winds exceed 23 mph or wind gusts exceed 35 mph; New York's tall
buildings and regular grid plan can amplify wind velocity on city streets.
The 2018 parade was the coldest to date with the temperature at 19°F. The
warmest was in 1933 at 69°F. The 2006 parade was the wettest with 1.72" of
rain.
Since 2013, the balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade have come in
two varieties. The first (and older of the two) is the novelty balloon class,
consisting of smaller balloons; the novelty balloons range widely in size and
are handled by between one and thirty people (the smallest novelty balloons are
shaped like human heads and fit on the actual heads of the handlers). The
second and more widely known is the full-size balloon class, primarily
consisting of licensed pop-culture characters; each of these is handled by
exactly 90 people. From 2005 to 2012, a third balloon class, the "Blue Sky
Gallery", transformed the works of contemporary artists into full-size
balloons. New types of ballons have also been introduced: A falloon, a portmanteau of
"float" and "balloon", is a float-based balloon. They were
introduced in 1990. A balloonicle,
a portmanteau of "balloon" and "vehicle", is a self-powered
balloon vehicle. They were introduced in 2004.
Since it began in 1924, participants have been Macy's
colleagues, their families and friends or others who have a relationship with
the Parade's elements and/or partners. This participation policy still exists
today. With the exception of invited performing talent (i.e., marching bands,
celebrities, singers, etc.), aspiring participants must fall under one of these
categories and be approved via application granted by the Macy's Parade Office.
In addition to the well-known balloons and floats, the parade also features
live music and other performances. College and high school marching bands from
across the country participate in the parade, and the television broadcasts
feature performances by established and up-and-coming singers and bands. The
Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall are a classic performance as well (having
performed annually since 1957 as the last pre-parade act to perform and their
performance was followed by a commercial break), as are cheerleaders and
dancers chosen by the National Cheerleaders Association from various high schools
across the country. The parade always concludes with the arrival of Santa Claus
to ring in the Christmas and holiday season.
On the NBC telecast from in front of the flagship Macy's store on Broadway
and 34th Street, the marching bands perform live music. Most "live"
performances by musicals and individual artists lip sync to the studio,
soundtrack or cast recordings of their songs, due to the technical difficulties
of attempting to sing into a wireless microphone while in a moving vehicle
(performers typically perform on the floats themselves); the NBC-flagged
microphones used by performers on floats are almost always non-functioning
props. Although rare, recent parade broadcasts have featured at least one live
performance with no use of recorded vocals.
The 2018 parade
featured Bad Bunny, Barenaked Ladies, Bazzi, Ally Brooke, Kane Brown, Brynn
Cartelli, Kelly Clarkson, Jack & Jack, John Legend, Leona Lewis, Ella Mai,
Tegan Marie, Martina McBride, Rita Ora, Johnny Orlando, Carly Pearce,
Pentatonix, Anika Noni Rose and the cast of Sesame Street, Diana Ross
with her children and extended family (including Rhonda Ross Kendrick, Tracee
Ellis Ross, Evan Ross and Ashlee Simpson), Sugarland, Ashley Tisdale, and Mackenzie
Ziegler.
Every year, cast
members from a number of Broadway shows (usually shows that debuted that year)
perform either in the parade, or immediately preceding the parade in front of
Macy's and before The Rockettes' performance (since NBC broadcasts the parade's
start, the performances are shown during the wait for the parade itself). The
2007 parade was notable as it took place during a strike by the I.A.T.S.E. (a
stagehands' union), and as such, Legally Blonde, the one performing
musical affected by the strike, performed in show logo shirts, with makeshift
props and no sets. The other three shows that year performed in theaters that
were not affected by the strike. In 2018, the casts of Mean Girls,
My Fair Lady, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, and The Prom performed.
In 2018, CNS H.S. Northstars marching band, Cicero, New
York; Grants Pass H.S. marching band & color guard, Grants Pass, Oregon;
Homewood Patriot Band, Homewood, Alabama; JMU Marching Royal Dukes,
Harrisonburg, Virginia; Keller High School marching band, Keller, Texas;
Lafayette H.S. Mighty Lion marching band, Lafayette, Louisiana; Macy's Great
American Marching Band; New York City Police Department Marching Band, New
York; Ohio State U. marching band, Columbus, Ohio; Park Vista High School
marching band performers, Lake Worth, Florida; Riverside City College Marching
Tigers, Riverside, California; Woodland High School Wildcat marching band,
Cartersville, Georgia marched.
More than 44
million people watch the parade on television on an annual basis. It was first
televised locally in New York City in 1939 as an experimental broadcast on
NBC's W2XBS (forerunner of today's WNBC). No television stations broadcast the
parade in 1940 or 1941, but when the parade returned in 1945 after the wartime
suspension, local broadcasts also resumed. The parade began its network
television appearances on CBS in 1948, the year that major, regular television
network programming began. NBC has been the official broadcaster of the event
since 1952, though CBS (which has a studio in Times Square) also carries unauthorized
coverage under the title The Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS. Since the
parade takes place in public, the parade committee can endorse an official
broadcaster, but they cannot award exclusive rights as other events (such as
sporting events, which take place inside restricted-access stadiums) have the
authority to do. The rerouting of the parade that was implemented for the 2012
event moved the parade out of the view of CBS's cameras and thus made it
significantly more difficult for the network to cover the parade (though the
route now passes along the west side of the network's Black Rock headquarters
building along Sixth Avenue, and the hosts are stationed on a temporary tower
platform at the Sixth/West 53rd Street corner of the building); CBS nevertheless
continues to cover the parade to the same extent as in previous years. Since
2003, the parade has been broadcast simultaneously in Spanish on the sister
network of NBC Universal (Telemundo) host by Maria Celeste Arraras from
2003-2006. The parade won nine Emmy Awards for outstanding achievements in
special event coverage since 1979.
At first, the
telecasts were only an hour long. In 1961, the telecast expanded to two hours,
and was then reduced to 90 minutes in 1962, before reverting to a two-hour
telecast in 1965; all three hours of the parade were televised by 1969. The
event began to be broadcast in color in 1960. NBC airs the Macy's Thanksgiving
Day Parade live in the Eastern Time Zone, but tape delays the telecast
elsewhere in the continental U.S. and territories from the Central Time Zone
westward to allow the program to air in the same 9:00 a.m. to
12:00 p.m. timeslot across its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations;
since the morning program's expansion to three hours in 2000 and eventually to
four hours, NBC's Today only airs for two hours Thanksgiving morning as
a result, pre-empting the latter two talk-focused hours of the show for the
day. NBC began airing a same-day afternoon rebroadcast of the parade in 2009
(replacing the annual broadcast of Miracle on 34th Street, which NBC had
lost the broadcast television rights to that year). CBS's unauthorized coverage
airs live in most time zones, allowing viewers to see the parade as many as two
hours before the official NBC coverage airs in their area; CBS still broadcasts
the parade on delay on the West Coast, immediately after the Detroit Lions
Thanksgiving game in even-numbered years when CBS carries it, or at 9 a.m.
local time in odd-numbered years when they carry the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving
game.
From 1962 to
1970, NBC's coverage was hosted by Lorne Greene (who was then appearing on
NBC's Bonanza) and Betty White. Ed McMahon co-hosted in 1971, then
hosted until 1981. Since 1982, NBC has appointed at least one of the hosts of Today
to emcee the television broadcast, starting with Bryant Gumbel, who hosted the
parade until 1986. From 1987 to 1997, NBC's coverage was hosted by longtime Today
weather anchor Willard Scott. During that period, their co-hosts included Mary
Hart, Sandy Duncan, and Today colleagues Deborah Norville and Katie
Couric. In recent years, NBC's coverage has been hosted by Today anchors
Matt Lauer (from 1998 to 2017), Meredith Vieira (from 2006 to 2010), Ann Curry
(2011), Savannah Guthrie (since 2012) and Hoda Kotb (since 2018) as well as Today
weather anchor Al Roker who usually joins the producers of the parade and
special guests in the ribbon cutting ceremony.
CBS's coverage
was originally part of the "All-American Thanksgiving Day Parade," a
broadcast that included footage from multiple parades across North America,
including parades at Detroit, Philadelphia, and Disneyland (the latter was
later replaced by Opryland USA in 1997 and after that, Miami Beach), and taped
footage of the Toronto Santa Claus Parade (taped usually the second or third
weekend of November) and the Aloha Floral Parade in Honolulu (which usually
took place in September). Beginning in 2004, however, CBS has focused
exclusively on the Macy's parade, but avoids using the Macy's name due to the
lack of an official license. To compensate for the fact that the Broadway and
music performances can only appear on NBC, CBS adds their own pre-recorded
performances (also including Broadway shows, although different from the ones
that are part of the official parade and recorded off-site) to fill out the
special.
The Parade has
always taken place in Manhattan. The parade originally started from 145th
Street in Harlem and ended at Herald Square, making a 6-mile route.
In the 1930s, the
balloons were inflated in the area of 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue near
St. John the Divine Cathedral. The parade proceeded South on Amsterdam Avenue
to 106th Street and turned east. At Columbus Avenue, the balloons had to be
lowered to go under the Ninth Avenue El. Past the El tracks, the parade
proceeded through 106th Street to Central Park West and turned south to
terminate at Macy's Department Store.
A new route was
established for the 2009 parade. From 77th Street and Central Park West, the
route went south along Central Park to Columbus Circle, then east along Central
Park South. The parade would then make a right turn at 7th Avenue and go south
to Times Square. At 42nd Street, the parade turned left and went east, then at
6th Avenue turned right again at Bryant Park. Heading south on 6th Avenue, the
parade turned right at 34th Street (at Herald Square) and proceeded west to the
terminating point at 7th Avenue where the floats are taken down. The 2009 route
change eliminated Broadway completely, where the parade has traveled down for
decades. The City of New York said that the new route would provide more space
for the parade, and more viewing space for spectators. Another reason for
implementing the route change is the city's plan to turn Broadway into a
pedestrian-only zone at Times Square. Another new route was introduced with the
2012 parade. This change is similar to the 2009 route, but eliminated Times
Square altogether. It is not advised to view the parade from Columbus Circle,
as balloon teams race through it due to higher winds in this flat area. New
York City officials preview the parade route and try to eliminate as many
potential obstacles as possible, including rotating overhead traffic signals
out of the way.
Inflation:
Inflation of the balloons takes place on the day before the
parade near the Museum of Natural History. Guests access the viewing area at
the public entrance on West 79th Street and Columbus Avenue. They can enter the
viewing area at 1:00 pm, but the balloons really begin taking shape around 5:00
pm, and the last admission to the balloon inflation area is 8:00 pm. The
viewing path for the balloon inflation winds travels along Columbus Avenue,
77th Street, Central Park South, and exits at 81st Street. It takes about two
hours to proceed through the entire viewing path and balloon area.
Some facts about the balloons we saw
follow.
- The Red Mighty Morphin Power Ranger is the longest
balloon in the Parade; one of his arms is the length of a standard school
bus at 45 feet.
- The original DINO balloon was inducted as an
honorary member of the Museum of Natural History in 1975, and the balloon
returned to the Macy’s Parade in 2015, after nearly 40 years.
- Illimination's The Grinch and Max are only the
fourth-ever giant balloons to take flight as a duo in the Parade’s
history.
- Jett is the widest balloon in the parade, and his
wingspan is equal to the size of an actual Learjet.
- If the Olaf balloon were made of actual snow, it
would be enough to cover the surface of the Matterhorn Bobsleds at
Disneyland Resort.
- It would take more
than four million Pillsbury Crescent Rolls to create a dough-sized version
of the Pillsbury Doughboy balloon.
