It\u2019s the 99th Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Gone is Popeye. Gone, too, his beloved Olive Oyl.<\/p>\n
Down Central Park West, between the cheering grandparents and children, floated a giant leering Labubu and the Demogorgon \u2014 one based on the insanely popular collectible plush toy, the other a demon with a fang-crusted orifice that flaps open and closed.<\/p>\n
There have always been confetti, marching bands and Santa, but today\u2019s parade is not the parade of yesteryear \u2014 deliberately. New characters like the animal sidekicks from the wildly popular \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d movie on Netflix, and giant versions of Labubu purse charms whose fame might be over by the time the parade reaches Columbus Circle, flew in to replace fixtures from another generation\u2019s childhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe incorporate brand-new elements that are speaking to the moment,\u201d said Will Coss, the parade\u2019s executive producer since 2021. He oversaw the inclusion of new elements this year, like the new float bearing the Demogorgon, a monster from the Netflix show \u201cStranger Things,\u201d and a Lego float designed so Lego enthusiasts can replicate it at home in miniature. Popeye, who made his parade debut in 1939 and last made his way down the avenues in 1980, is on hiatus. He spent the day at his home \u2014 a Macy\u2019s warehouse in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
There was an anticipatory hush on Central Park West as Tom Turkey flapped forward and the parade started, and a subdued cheer slowly built into a roar. People craned their necks for balloon Mario, who was right behind, and around him autumnal cheerleaders tossed pompoms. A marching band from Northern Arizona University played a festive Lady Gaga medley.<\/p>\n
Along the sidewalks on either side of the avenue, and in Central Park, hundreds of people had climbed onto a ridge for a better view. \u201cHappy Thanksgiving!\u201d yelled a marcher dressed as a fat turkey, tossing his wattle to the side.<\/p>\n
With a piercing \u201cgobble, gobble, gobble!\u201d ringing down Columbus Avenue, Tommy Johnson, 66, a retired Connecticut municipal worker, hawked his wares: stuffed fuzzy turkey hats, $10 each. He had driven in from his home in New Haven at 2:30 a.m. with 100 hats, and with just a half-hour before the parade kicked off, he had sold all but four.<\/p>\n
He has made this journey for the past 15 years, he said. His family, waiting at home in Connecticut for him to come back for Thanksgiving dinner, doesn\u2019t approve. \u201cThey know I\u2019m crazy,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s Thanksgiving. Everyone eats turkey. Why not wear it on your head?\u201d<\/p>\n
Holding a two-foot-tall cutout of the face of her 17-year-old son, Anthony, Glenda Cordova, a medical assistant from Hurst, Tex., cheered with her family for Anthony as he marched by with the Lawrence D. Bell school band. Anthony had spent much of the year practicing paradiddles on snare drum nonstop, she said, adding that the rest of the family had also prepared for the trip to New York City. \u201cFinancially,\u201d Ms. Cordova said.<\/p>\n
SpongeBob SquarePants floated by, the Wimpy Kid followed, and behind him, Spider-Man. Nowhere in sight yet was the \u201cStranger Things\u201d float, which would feature the snapping Demogorgon. But at least two people will see nothing of it: Paul Andrejco and Michael Bush are the puppeteers who will spend the roughly 43 blocks of the parade squeezed inside the float, manipulating the monster\u2019s arms and legs via a series of linked rods and a contraption similar to bicycle handlebars. \u201cIt has its own sort of life, its own inner anatomy,\u201d said Mr. Andrejco, whose company Puppet Heap worked with Macy\u2019s to design the creature, in an interview before the parade.<\/p>\n
To prepare, the puppeteers worked on their core muscles and their stamina, doing test runs with the demon at the 72,000-square-foot Macy\u2019s studio in Moonachie, N.J., he said. The puppeteers will tap in and out for each other inside the demon during the parade\u2019s long trek from West 77th Street to Herald Square. \u201cPuppeteering is physical work,\u201d Mr. Andrejco said.<\/p>\n
And then there she was, in all her fuzzy, highly collectible glory: the Labubu. As her float crossed 66th Street, Sgt. Aliro Pellerano of the New York City Police Department grabbed his granddaughter, Vanna Vargas, positioning her for the perfect photo-op for a Labubu-obsessed 9-year-old. \u201cThey are all she talks about,\u201d he said, \u201call she thinks about.\u201d Vanna said she currently has two Labubus, but she asked for more for Christmas. \u201cA thousand!\u201d she said as the float passed by.<\/p>\n
At 59th Street, the parade turned east and a sudden crosswind gave balloon handlers something to contend with. A soaring Arctic fox being ridden by the Elf on a Shelf dove precipitously, its paws grazing the pavement as the balloon captains urged the handlers to put their backs into it. The fox turned the corner and continued unscathed.<\/p>\n
High above the crosswind chaos at Columbus Circle, hotel guests at the Mandarin Oriental enjoyed a more serene view. Tables were booked a year in advance at the restaurant on the 35th floor of the hotel for a Thanksgiving buffet, $245 per person. Far below the diners, Buzz Lightyear passed by, the giant balloon version seen at a slightly more toyish scale from this vantage.<\/p>\n
Almost every float concludes with a musical spectacular in Herald Square, home of Macy\u2019s flagship store, on 34th Street. By around 10:30, the balloons and the dancers, the marching band and the floats, had massed into an enormous, inflatable technicolor traffic jam as they waited for the performances in front of Macy\u2019s to wrap up. The temperature had hovered in the low 40s all morning, but the blustery winds made it feel much colder; cheerleaders and stilt walkers in leotards shivered as they waited to head down to the finale.<\/p>\n
It was quieter a block west of Macy\u2019s, where parade marshals acted like traffic cops, directing the floats and the marchers away from Herald Square. \u201cTalent coming through!\u201d a parade organizer shouted as a gang of Kinder chocolate bars sauntered down 34th Street.<\/p>\n
The parade was over, and the marching bands could take a breather. The tuba players gratefully set down their tubas. But not before the marshal shouted one last instruction through his megaphone. \u201cHave a happy Thanksgiving!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the 99th Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Gone is Popeye. Gone, too, his beloved Olive Oyl. Down Central…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[30060,9,24,56,63,65,64,273,26570],"class_list":{"0":"post-54998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-macys-inc","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-ny","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-nyc-headlines","14":"tag-nyc-news","15":"tag-parades","16":"tag-thanksgiving-day"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}