I LOVE the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I love the balloons, marching bands, entertainers and even the cheesy promotional floats. This year was probably the cheesiest with the Heinz Homemade Gravy float that looked like a pirate ship but was actually a giant gravy boat. I believe the host’s copy was that it was “out searching the world for flavor.” If nothing else, it was good for a laugh. I marvel at the balloon handlers and how they can control such mammoth inflatables. Plus, you get to see who the popular cartoon characters are for that year. I can’t imagine being a balloon creator and transforming the tiny images on the screen into such massive balloons. It is quite extraordinary. I played the clarinet in my high school marching band, so I appreciate everything the bands do. I know how difficult it is to get a crowd of teenagers all in straight lines, marching in sync. And, their musical choices have greatly expanded over the years. This year an all-girls’ school played “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cindy Lauper and another band played a Michael Jackson song — unlike the “Stars and Stripes” march I always used to play in the band. This is not your typical parade. There is a staging area in the street for musical performers, often Broadway show stars. It really is marvelous entertainment. Let’s learn more about it.
According to Wikipedia, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City. The world's largest parade, it is presented by the U.S.-based department store chain Macy's. The 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, ending outside Macy's Herald Square, and takes place from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Thanksgiving Day and has been televised nationally on NBC since 1953. Employees at Macy's department stores have the option of marching in the parade.
History
According to Rebecca Paul’s Nov. 16, 2021 article “The 97-Year History of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade” at 6sqft.com, the 1920s were called “the booming ’20s” for good reason, as it was an era of vaudeville, flappers, bootleggers and excitement. This was also a time of prosperity for the Macy’s department store, which by 1924 occupied an entire city block stretching from Broadway and Herald Square to 7th Avenue.
To account for its increase in size, Macy’s was also growing its human resources, and the majority of employees working for the company were immigrants. These newcomers embraced their home and were proud of their new American heritage. They loved the sentiment behind the Thanksgiving holiday but wanted to celebrate with the type of festival their parents had loved in Europe. With so much to be thankful for, two weeks before Thanksgiving, Macy’s president Herbert Strauss announced that the city of New York would be treated to a one-of-a-kind holiday event like nothing it had seen before. The first parade was intended to be a pre-Christmas celebration inviting shoppers to the store for the holiday, but as the tradition grew, the parade’s association with Christmas quickly fell away.
The original parade route started at 145th Street and Convent Avenue in Harlem and continued six miles to Herald Square. The parade itself was small, about two blocks, but the route was almost three times as long as it is today. The boisterous processional included Macy’s employees marching to the flagship store, as well as floats, professional bands and live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. The parade was a big success, and within a week, Macy’s announced that New York City should set aside the morning of November 25, 1925, because the parade would be back next year.
Over the next few years, the parade continued to grow in popularity, and in 1927, the live animals were replaced with balloons. A man by the name of Anthony Frederick Sarg moved to New York from London to start his own marionette business. When Macy’s caught wind of his unique talents, they invited Sarg to design a window display for the store to advertise the parade. In addition to the display, Sarg’s animal-shaped balloons made their way into the main event. They were made by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Akron, Ohio. Felix the Cat was the first balloon animal to be included in the parade.
In 1928, the cast of balloon characters was released into the sky as part of the parade’s finale, but much to everyone’s surprise, they all burst. The next year, the balloons were redesigned to include a safety valve that allowed them to float on for days. Each one also included an address, so whoever found the deflated balloons could mail them back to the store for a free gift.
According to Wikipedia, 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.
According to Rebecca Paul’s Nov. 16, 2021 article “The 97-Year History of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade” at 6sqft.com, despite the onset of the Clutch Plague, the parade marched on without interruption through the 1930s. By 1939, the first national broadcast of the parade took place, and the following year, the number of parade spectators had reached one million. The Macy’s parade floats were also pulled by horses until 1939, and a short two years later, Disney decided to add a Mickey Mouse balloon to the roster of characters.
While the parade stayed strong through the economic crisis, it was suspended during World War II from 1942 to 1944, as both helium and rubber were needed for the war effort. It picked up again in 1945 with two million spectators in attendance, and the parade took back the streets of NYC, marching the same route used up until 2008.
When footage from the 1946 parade was featured in the movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” the event became a prominent part of American culture.
In 1963, Thanksgiving was just six days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There was some debate, but Macy’s decided to go ahead with the parade in the hope that it would raise the American spirit.
According to Wikipedia, since 1985, the parade was traditionally led by the New York City Police Department Highway Patrol.
Following an incident in 2005 where a balloon knocked over a street light and injured spectators, 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 full-size balloons if sustained winds exceed 23 mph or wind gusts exceed 35 mph; New York's tall buildings and mostly uniform grid plan can amplify wind velocity on city streets. This law, imposed in 1997, has never been activated, despite several close calls; the only time the parade balloons have ever been grounded was 1971. Each balloon has its own risk profile to determine handling in windy conditions; taller, upright balloons are rotated so that they appear horizontal and facing downward in such situations — as was the case in 2019, when a grounding was narrowly averted. In the event the balloons are grounded, the remaining floats and performances would continue as scheduled.
According to Rebecca Paul’s Nov. 16, 2021 article “The 97-Year History of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade” at 6sqft.com, over the years, the design of the parade balloons has expanded beyond just familiar cartoon characters, and now includes popular images from some of today’s most prominent artists. Iconic New York artists like Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, and Takashi Murakami have all had a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.
As described by Wesley Whatley — the parade’s creative director from 2003 to 2018 and the current creative producer for both the parade and the Fourth of July fireworks — the boisterous event is a massive production that requires 18 months of planning. The show as we know it today features over a dozen helium-filled balloons, more than 30 parade floats, 1,500 dancers and cheerleaders, more than 750 clowns, marching bands from around the country and over 8,000 participants.
According to Wikipedia, the 2018 parade was the coldest to date with the temperature at 19 °. The warmest was in 1933 at 69 °F. The 2006 parade was the wettest with 1.72 inches of rain. Actresses Caitlin Kinnunen and Isabelle McCalla's kiss during “The Prom's” performance at the 2018 parade received significant media attention for being the first same-sex kiss in the parade's broadcast history.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, the 2020 parade was downsized and closed to the public — being filmed as a broadcast-only event in the Herald Square area. There were 88% fewer participants, and social distancing was enforced. The event did not include college and high school marching bands — with the affected bands having been reinvited for 2021 — nor any participant under 18 years of age. Balloons were tethered to a "specially rigged anchor vehicle framework of five specialty vehicles" rather than carried by handlers. Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio stated that it will "[not be] a live parade, but something that will really give us that warmth and that great feeling we have on Thanksgiving Day."
In 2021, Macy resumed one of the most significant events in New York City, the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The parade was attended by 6,500 people and started from 77th Street and Central Park West to 34th Street to Macy's in Herald Square.
Balloons
The balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade have had several varieties. The oldest is the novelty balloon class, consisting of smaller balloons ranging widely in size and handled by between one and 30 people; the smallest balloons are shaped like human heads and fit on the heads of the handlers. The larger and more popular class is the character balloons, primarily consisting of licensed pop-culture characters; each of these —16 in 2019 — 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; after a five-year hiatus, the Blue Sky Gallery returned in 2018.
Macy’s Green Dog falloon in 2000 — a blend of a float and a balloon. Falloons were introduced in 1977.
Cruising Cupcakes balloonicle in 2020 — a blend of a balloon and a vehicle, a self-powered balloon vehicle. They were introduced in 2004.
Heinz Gravy Pirates floalloonicle in 2021 — a blend of a float, balloon and vehicle, a self-powered balloon vehicle structured around a float. They were introduced in 2021.
Performers and acts
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 — with the exception of the 1932 parade, when Santa led the parade. Since 2017, the Macy's Singing Christmas Tree choir serves as the final performer of the parade before the arrival of Santa Claus.
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.
Broadway shows
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.
Television coverage
More than 44 million people typically 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 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 1953, 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/W. 53rd St. 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 NBCUniversal (Telemundo) hosted by María Celeste Arrarás from 2003 to 2006. The parade won nine Emmy Awards for outstanding achievements in special event coverage since 1979. Since 2020, the parade also provided audio description via a second audio program channel.
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 as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as the network uses feeds from that time zone — which due to time differences starts at 10:00 a.m. AST — 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 except for Guam, which airs it the day after Thanksgiving at 9:00 a.m. local time, as the territory is located west of the International Date Line and therefore a day ahead from the rest of the United States; 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 9:00 a.m. local time in odd-numbered years when they carry the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game.
From 1963 to 1972, NBC's coverage was hosted by Lorne Greene — who was then appearing on NBC's “Bonanza” — and Betty White. David Hartman and Karen Grassle hosted the parade in 1974, With Ed McMahon serving as a man on the street host, he would become a main host in 1977 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 1984. 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 or the CEO of Macy's and special guests in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
From the early 1970s until 1993, the television broadcast was produced and directed by Dick Schneider; since 1994, it has been executive produced by Brad Lachman — who has otherwise been known for producing reality television series, produced by Bill Bracken and directed by veteran sitcom director Gary Halvorson. Announcements during the telecast were first provided by Bill McCord, followed by Bill Wendell, then followed by Lynda Lopez, the telecast's only female announcer, then followed by Don Pardo; from circa 2000 to 2010, announcer duties were helmed by Joel Godard who also served as the announcer for “Late Night with Conan O'Brien” for much of that period, and then were assumed by “Today” announcer Les Marshak with the 2011 telecast. Milton DeLugg served as the telecast's music director until his death in 2015.
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. With the lack of a live parade for 2020, CBS aired “The CBS Thanksgiving Day Celebration” — which was hosted by Kevin Frazier and Keltie Knight of “Entertainment Tonight” and featured highlights and new performances.
For the 1997 parade, MTV guest reporters, Beavis and Butt-head with host Kurt Loder provided their usual style of commentary on aspects of the parade and of their take on Thanksgiving in general. The special, titled “Beavis and Butt-head Do Thanksgiving,” included a balloon of Beavis and Butt-head spectating from their couch. The balloon was not participating in the parade but stationed on top of a building alongside the parade route.
Radio coverage is provided by Audacy's WINS (1010 AM) in New York City. It is one of the few times throughout the year in which that station breaks away from its all-news radio format.
From 2016 to 2019, Verizon produced a 360-degree virtual reality live telecast of the parade, with minimal commentary, made available through YouTube. The 2019 edition, produced in cooperation with NBC, had more extensive production, adding hosts Terry Crews, Lilly Singh and Ross Matthews, also adding "virtual balloons" generated through viewers' votes. Verizon's simulcast of the 2020 event ran in a traditional flat, single-perspective format, and was the very first to be broadcast internationally, not just in the United States, thru Verizon's and Macy's YouTube and Twitter handles. Verizon did not simulcast the 2021 event in either format.
The first ever live international broadcast of the parade occurred in 2020, when Philippine cable television channel TAP TV became the first foreign-based broadcaster to air the parade's live telecast. Before that, the broadcasts were delayed and aired on Black Friday on what is now CNN Philippines until 2013. In addition, delayed broadcasts are aired to United States military installations overseas thru American Forces Network hours following the original U.S. broadcast.
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