NEW YORK—The annual tradition of welcoming old favorites and greeting new additions to the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade had thousands of New Yorkers and visitors filing past the Museum of Natural History on Columbus Avenue Wednesday evening. Fifteen giant figures appeared one after another, each taking about an hour to fill up. From Felix the Cat’s appearance as the first Macy’s parade balloon in 1927, iconic figures have been inflated on the eve of Thanksgiving.
Giant pieces of polyurethane gradually transformed into some of America’s most endearing cartoon characters, as chamber by chamber the balloons filled with helium before the big day. The correct wording used by ballon folks is “inflated,” they do not prefer the term “blown up.”
Debuting in Macy’s 84th annual Thanksgiving parade are Po from “Kung Fu Panda” and Greg of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” As Po’s many “chubby parts” filled up, executive director of the parade Amy Kule described the cartoon character as “big, round and immediately aerodynamic.”
At 42 feet tall, 46 feet long, and 34 feet wide, the giant panda was still not as big as the wimpy kid of Jeff Kinney’s books. Greg gained considerable stature and weight in his balloon likeness, standing 56 feet tall and weighing in at 400 pounds. Ronald McDonald, however, remains the longest balloon in the parade at 76 feet said Kule.
Giant pieces of polyurethane gradually transformed into some of America’s most endearing cartoon characters, as chamber by chamber the balloons filled with helium before the big day. The correct wording used by ballon folks is “inflated,” they do not prefer the term “blown up.”
Debuting in Macy’s 84th annual Thanksgiving parade are Po from “Kung Fu Panda” and Greg of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” As Po’s many “chubby parts” filled up, executive director of the parade Amy Kule described the cartoon character as “big, round and immediately aerodynamic.”
At 42 feet tall, 46 feet long, and 34 feet wide, the giant panda was still not as big as the wimpy kid of Jeff Kinney’s books. Greg gained considerable stature and weight in his balloon likeness, standing 56 feet tall and weighing in at 400 pounds. Ronald McDonald, however, remains the longest balloon in the parade at 76 feet said Kule.
Another parade debutant, the Kool-Aid Man will call out “Oh yeah!” as he makes his way down Seventh Avenue. New additions to the parade are chosen based on either emotional response, explains Kule, or as in the case of the Kool-Aid Man, are considered to be “an advertising icon that has really ingratiated himself into American culture.”
The energizer bunny is Joe Garvey’s favorite. Taking his nieces to watch Spongebob Squarepants and other icons of their generation take form, he remembers the fuzzy pink critter that kept going and going through the commercials of his childhood.
Snoopy, an old favorite revisited, will appear in this year’s parade as an aviator. This is the sixth version the famous pup has taken in his 40 consecutive years in the parade. Retired teacher, Alison Beckett, 61, mused that the Snoopy balloon “reminds me of being a kid again.”
In Kule’s 15 years working on the parade, there have not been any notable mishaps with the inflation. The balloons are designed to slowly release the helium so they don’t blow as the heat expands the helium within. Each balloon is made of hundreds of chambers so if a problem occurs, it is likely to remain isolated and have minimal impact.
Certainly no incidents resembling the fly-away Woody Woodpecker that occurred in a Seinfeld episode have occurred in her experience. Though, she says she hopes to revive the old tradition of releasing the balloons at the end of the parade for the 100th anniversary in 2026. The balloons used to have tags on them that people could redeem for a free washer and dryer at Macy’s if they found the deflated balloon after the parade. As air traffic increased over the parade route, this became less feasible.
Though Macy’s has long stopped giving away washers and dryers as part of the parade, Kule says the parade itself is “our gift to the city and to America on Thanksgiving.”
The energizer bunny is Joe Garvey’s favorite. Taking his nieces to watch Spongebob Squarepants and other icons of their generation take form, he remembers the fuzzy pink critter that kept going and going through the commercials of his childhood.
Snoopy, an old favorite revisited, will appear in this year’s parade as an aviator. This is the sixth version the famous pup has taken in his 40 consecutive years in the parade. Retired teacher, Alison Beckett, 61, mused that the Snoopy balloon “reminds me of being a kid again.”
In Kule’s 15 years working on the parade, there have not been any notable mishaps with the inflation. The balloons are designed to slowly release the helium so they don’t blow as the heat expands the helium within. Each balloon is made of hundreds of chambers so if a problem occurs, it is likely to remain isolated and have minimal impact.
Certainly no incidents resembling the fly-away Woody Woodpecker that occurred in a Seinfeld episode have occurred in her experience. Though, she says she hopes to revive the old tradition of releasing the balloons at the end of the parade for the 100th anniversary in 2026. The balloons used to have tags on them that people could redeem for a free washer and dryer at Macy’s if they found the deflated balloon after the parade. As air traffic increased over the parade route, this became less feasible.
Though Macy’s has long stopped giving away washers and dryers as part of the parade, Kule says the parade itself is “our gift to the city and to America on Thanksgiving.”
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