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How Macy's Thanksgiving Parade Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh. There's Chuck. Jerry's out there dressed as a
0:17
Speaker 1: turkey dresses a kilgrim weirdly and uh that makes us
0:21
Speaker 1: of course. Stuff you should know. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day
0:25
Speaker 1: Parade edition. That's right. This is an episode we've wanted
0:29
Speaker 1: to do for a while and there's a lot here.
0:31
Speaker 1: It's it's really pretty interesting. Do you watch, By the way,
0:34
Speaker 1: I'm just curious too, if I missed one, I would
0:38
Speaker 1: just be in Shamble's crime. I love the Macy's Thanksgiving
0:42
Speaker 1: Day Parade for sure. I don't think I've ever watched one, really, Chuck, man,
0:46
Speaker 1: you I'm really surprised, especially in the eighties too, that
0:50
Speaker 1: you didn't watch it back back in the day. Yeah,
0:52
Speaker 1: it's it's great, man. It is a very fun thing
0:56
Speaker 1: to watch. It's like full of glad tidings and cornucopias,
1:00
Speaker 1: pumpkins and stuff, and it's great. I mean, I feel
1:04
Speaker 1: like it's on at houses that I go to, so
1:08
Speaker 1: it's not like I don't have never seen bits of it,
1:12
Speaker 1: but I've never like popped the popcorn and sat down
1:15
Speaker 1: and be like, I get my parade on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
1:17
Speaker 1: some people do that weirdos. But for the most part,
1:21
Speaker 1: it's meant to just kind of be seen as you
1:23
Speaker 1: see it, you know what I mean, Like you'll you'll
1:25
Speaker 1: see some of it and then while you're making your
1:27
Speaker 1: trimmings and stuffing. Yeah, or you can sit down and
1:30
Speaker 1: watch bits of it. But if you sit down from
1:31
Speaker 1: nine to twelve, I'm quite sure there are plenty of
1:34
Speaker 1: people out there who do do that. Um, but there,
1:36
Speaker 1: you know, for the most part, it seems like something
1:38
Speaker 1: you just kind of watch here there, you know. And
1:41
Speaker 1: I know we talked about it at some point because
1:43
Speaker 1: I did tell the story about Emily and I going
1:45
Speaker 1: to We were in New York every Thanksgiving a couple
1:48
Speaker 1: of times, and both times we went the day before
1:51
Speaker 1: to watch the balloons being blown up. Yeah, that's a
1:54
Speaker 1: lot of fun. That's an event in and of itself.
1:56
Speaker 1: Inflation Day is what they call it now. Yeah. It's
1:59
Speaker 1: really a good time and just little kiddos everywhere. And
2:02
Speaker 1: I can't wait to go back with my daughter one
2:04
Speaker 1: day once uh, once it's safe to do so. Yeah,
2:07
Speaker 1: And one of one of my friends Molly. Um, she
2:10
Speaker 1: worked for Macy's for a very long time. Okay, well,
2:12
Speaker 1: Molly has been in the parade. This is going to
2:16
Speaker 1: be her fourth time as a matter of fact, And
2:19
Speaker 1: she said some of her best member I was texting
2:21
Speaker 1: her about asking her some questions, and she said some
2:23
Speaker 1: of her best memories ever were formed because everybody is
2:26
Speaker 1: just in the best mood and watching the parade and
2:29
Speaker 1: you're just marching down the street waving and everything. She said,
2:32
Speaker 1: it's just amazingly cool. Yeah, and I think can we
2:35
Speaker 1: go ahead and drop the fact of the episode for
2:37
Speaker 1: me since you said that? Okay, does that make you nervous? Yeah?
2:41
Speaker 1: Which one? Well I never knew this, but you know,
2:45
Speaker 1: except for the performers and you know, the the host
2:48
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, everyone you see in that parade
2:51
Speaker 1: is worked for Macy's. Yeah. Or they're a friend or
2:54
Speaker 1: a family member of a Macy's employee. Yeah. I never
2:56
Speaker 1: knew that. And I'm sure like a straggler might get
2:58
Speaker 1: in there, but it is. It is largely Macy's friends
3:01
Speaker 1: and family and employees. Yeah. So, and that's actually um
3:05
Speaker 1: to kind of get into the history of this. That
3:08
Speaker 1: is a tradition from the very beginning, so like the
3:11
Speaker 1: first ever Macy's parade wasn't even a Thanksgiving parade. It
3:16
Speaker 1: was called the Macy's Christmas Parade, even though it was
3:19
Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving. Still. Um. Back in Um there were a
3:23
Speaker 1: lot of recent immigrants to the United States from Europe
3:27
Speaker 1: who were working for Macy's who said, Hey, we've got
3:30
Speaker 1: these parades that kind of celebrate things over in Europe.
3:34
Speaker 1: We should start doing one here. And they actually led
3:38
Speaker 1: to the first Macy's Thanksgiving well Christmas Parade, And so
3:43
Speaker 1: all the clowns and the cowboys and the people pulling
3:46
Speaker 1: the caged wild animals, um, they were Macy's employees, and
3:50
Speaker 1: has always been the case ever since then. Created by
3:54
Speaker 1: immigrants to the United States. Everybody, yes, rich American tradition.
3:59
Speaker 1: I love it. So except for a three year break
4:02
Speaker 1: during World War Two, they have been launching this Thanksgiving
4:06
Speaker 1: Day parade for ninety six years. Uh. It is morphed
4:10
Speaker 1: and changed over the years from sort of a small
4:13
Speaker 1: thing to a very big thing to an event, one
4:17
Speaker 1: might say, an entertainment event. About quarter of a million
4:22
Speaker 1: people showed up on that first one, and I think,
4:25
Speaker 1: what is it like three and a half million people now?
4:28
Speaker 1: Go in person. Generally, Yeah, and we should say generally traditionally.
4:31
Speaker 1: We gotta qualify with that because the parade, thanks to
4:34
Speaker 1: the paint pandemic, is going to be different, and we'll
4:36
Speaker 1: talk about it. But like, yes, under a normal year
4:40
Speaker 1: in the last like decade or so, three and a
4:42
Speaker 1: half million New Yorkers or people show up on the
4:45
Speaker 1: streets of New York to watch this thing, and then
4:47
Speaker 1: like fifty million more watch it on TV. Amazing, so
4:51
Speaker 1: quarter of a mill at that first one, um, ads
4:54
Speaker 1: read a marathon of mirth is coming to this Macy's
4:57
Speaker 1: Christmas Parade. And it was about a six mile route
5:02
Speaker 1: in that first year, and it was it was pretty
5:05
Speaker 1: long for a while, and then they narrowed it down
5:07
Speaker 1: there like we can't go six miles anymore, this is
5:08
Speaker 1: getting ridiculous. No, it started in Harlem and went all
5:11
Speaker 1: the way down to Harold Square where Macy's flagship stories,
5:15
Speaker 1: which is where it ends. Like yeah, six miles and
5:18
Speaker 1: and on that first um, that first marathon of mirth, UM,
5:22
Speaker 1: like I said, they had caged animals that they dragged
5:25
Speaker 1: along and they did that for the first few years, UM,
5:27
Speaker 1: and then they realized like actually the animals. They're scaring
5:31
Speaker 1: all the little kids. They're not delighted like we thought,
5:34
Speaker 1: so they stopped borrowing them from the Central Park sero.
5:36
Speaker 1: It also wasn't much fun for the animals, I'm sure
5:38
Speaker 1: as well. Um, and so they replaced the animals with
5:42
Speaker 1: floats I think in nineteen twenty seven, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah,
5:49
Speaker 1: And you know, that was a good idea that because
5:51
Speaker 1: they're like, what do kids not like? Are angry tigers?
5:57
Speaker 1: What do kids like? Are happy balloon type? Yeah? Especially
6:01
Speaker 1: when it's cold out you don't want your pants to
6:03
Speaker 1: be wet, that's right. By the mid sort of nineteen
6:08
Speaker 1: thirties is when the Christmas Parade really made the transition
6:11
Speaker 1: to the Thanksgiving Parade that we know and love, and uh,
6:15
Speaker 1: that's when pop culture started to be a thing and people,
6:18
Speaker 1: you know, Felix the Cat was a very first character
6:20
Speaker 1: balloon in ninety seven, and traditionally, UH, celebrities started taking
6:26
Speaker 1: part uh in about nineteen thirty four. I think Eddie
6:29
Speaker 1: Canter was the first big celeb who was a pretty
6:33
Speaker 1: interesting guy. If you want to look, come up old
6:35
Speaker 1: ban Joe eyes Eddie Canter. He so not only was
6:38
Speaker 1: he the first celebrity to take part. He's also the
6:41
Speaker 1: one and only celebrity to have a balloon based on
6:44
Speaker 1: him too. Yeah, I'm kind of surprised by that. Yeah,
6:47
Speaker 1: that that's the only one. Yeah, you'd think would have
6:52
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm hoping that this really tips the
6:54
Speaker 1: scales in our favor, though, Man, that would be amazing.
6:56
Speaker 1: Mine would be mostly beard, you know, would be cool
6:59
Speaker 1: as if they made a balloon n of us as
7:01
Speaker 1: the thing with Two Heads with Rosie Greer and Ray Milan. Yeah,
7:07
Speaker 1: do you remember that movie? Sort of do? Like? Its
7:12
Speaker 1: like Ray Milan is like a terrible like horrible racist,
7:16
Speaker 1: like old rich guy who pays to have his head
7:20
Speaker 1: put on Rosie Greer's body and they have to get
7:24
Speaker 1: along the first deep fake I guess. I guess maybe
7:30
Speaker 1: so parade wise, boy, that's a that's a deep cut. Um,
7:34
Speaker 1: that's wise. He's shrunk, shrunk this thing down. Like I
7:38
Speaker 1: said to about forty three blocks that we see today,
7:41
Speaker 1: the balloons and the floods just got bigger and bigger.
7:43
Speaker 1: Of course, the rockets started kicking their way in in
7:46
Speaker 1: nine and then in seventies seven, uh, with the addition
7:52
Speaker 1: of Gene McFadden who was the macy Stay planner, the
7:56
Speaker 1: parade planner, that's when they started doing the big Broadway
7:59
Speaker 1: perform Mints is Yeah, Jim McFadden. She was from Texas
8:03
Speaker 1: and so of course everything is bigger in Texas. She
8:05
Speaker 1: injected that idea into the Macy's Parade, which was already
8:09
Speaker 1: like a big deal by the time she came along,
8:11
Speaker 1: but she really blew it up and turned it into
8:14
Speaker 1: like this, this incredibly huge event that it is today.
8:18
Speaker 1: And she also will see brought in sponsors to UM,
8:22
Speaker 1: which definitely altered the complexion of the parade for the
8:25
Speaker 1: better and the worst. Really, yeah, I think so. Um.
8:29
Speaker 1: They planned the parade for about eighteen months, so if
8:32
Speaker 1: you do the math there, there's about six months where
8:35
Speaker 1: there are two parades um being planned at the same time.
8:39
Speaker 1: Which did you imagine? Yeah, I bet you. It's pretty sigmented.
8:42
Speaker 1: Though it's confusing. I would be totally bald, I think
8:46
Speaker 1: if I were in charge of that. Uh. And then
8:49
Speaker 1: last year in nineteen it was the nine parade. They
8:52
Speaker 1: had twenty six floats, sixteen giant helium character balloons, and
8:57
Speaker 1: forty heritage and novelty balloons, and eleven marching bands. Yeah,
9:02
Speaker 1: that's a that's a lot, um, I mean, especially up
9:05
Speaker 1: from four horse drawn floats to you know where they've
9:10
Speaker 1: got now twenty six and those those giant character balloons,
9:14
Speaker 1: those are the ones you always see. But in addition
9:15
Speaker 1: to those, there's all those other balloons you mentioned too.
9:18
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot going on in this parade. I
9:20
Speaker 1: mean it's a three hour parade for Pete's sake, that
9:22
Speaker 1: over two and a half miles. It still takes three
9:25
Speaker 1: hours or so much to it. Yeah, and it's interesting.
9:28
Speaker 1: There are a lot of balloons and over the years, Um,
9:32
Speaker 1: you know what happens is this parade acts like a
9:34
Speaker 1: time capsule. So whatever's going on in twenty nineteen, they're
9:38
Speaker 1: gonna try and feature like like very twenty nineteen things
9:41
Speaker 1: and over the years that is paid off. Um. You know,
9:44
Speaker 1: you've got your your timeless characters that are always there.
9:47
Speaker 1: But um, sometimes you're gonna have characters like in ninety
9:51
Speaker 1: nine when they had the ask Jeeves float or I'm
9:53
Speaker 1: sorry the balloon and uh you know that one didn't
9:58
Speaker 1: age so well. Asked Jeeves went away is retired, right,
10:00
Speaker 1: he retired for sure. But at the same time, like
10:03
Speaker 1: fortunate lyst somebody like videotape that and you can go
10:06
Speaker 1: on the internet now and see footage of the Ask
10:10
Speaker 1: Jeeves the balloon, you know, like it's kind of the
10:12
Speaker 1: point though, it's like it does transport you to ninety
10:16
Speaker 1: nine when you see something that exactly kind of was
10:18
Speaker 1: only or if you go on, if you watch the
10:22
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight parade, you'll see Rick Astley Rick
10:24
Speaker 1: rolling the parade, like he comes out and sings like
10:27
Speaker 1: never gonna give you up, And that is about as
10:30
Speaker 1: two thousand eight as it gets, you know, so like yeah,
10:33
Speaker 1: it's it's like these these time capsule and you can
10:35
Speaker 1: go watch and entire parades on YouTube right now. One
10:40
Speaker 1: of my favorites the parade, remember the Where's the Beef balloon?
10:46
Speaker 1: She was great and she was great, or that I'm
10:49
Speaker 1: not going to pay a lot for this muffler lady, yeah,
10:51
Speaker 1: or the them It's time to make the donuts guy,
10:55
Speaker 1: or ninety nine. I think they also had the Fight
10:57
Speaker 1: Club float, which was fantastic. It was it was just
11:00
Speaker 1: Edward Norton staring at his hand with a lie chemical
11:03
Speaker 1: burn growing on it. We're getting about all this, by
11:07
Speaker 1: the way, although I wouldn't be surprised if they wears
11:08
Speaker 1: the beef Lady might have. She was pretty big. She
11:12
Speaker 1: was very big. Uh, so maybe we should take a
11:16
Speaker 1: break and really get into these balloons after this. Okay,
11:38
Speaker 1: so um balloons, like we said, first, came about to
11:41
Speaker 1: replace those poor animals from the Central Park Zoo. Um,
11:44
Speaker 1: which was a good move. And there was a guy
11:47
Speaker 1: who really put the first stamp on the Macy's Thanksgiving
11:51
Speaker 1: Day parade. His name is Tony sarg and this guy
11:55
Speaker 1: is just such an amazing character. He has his own
11:57
Speaker 1: American Experienced documentary about him. Watched that. I have not
12:01
Speaker 1: seen it. I saw a clip of it to make
12:02
Speaker 1: sure we were pronouncing his name correctly. How is it good? Yeah,
12:08
Speaker 1: it's good. It's short and sweet. Did you see the
12:10
Speaker 1: beginning part, that little stunt he did about the sea monster. Yeah,
12:14
Speaker 1: it's pretty great. And I mean that was that was
12:18
Speaker 1: a Macy's Day float. I mean, it wasn't a Macy's
12:20
Speaker 1: Day float, but it's essentially what what it was. I
12:22
Speaker 1: think it was originally and he borrowed it. I'm pretty
12:26
Speaker 1: sure it was used in the parade and he repurposed it.
12:28
Speaker 1: So so I guess for those of you the million
12:31
Speaker 1: of you who don't know what we're talking about. This
12:33
Speaker 1: guy Tony Sarry. He was a puppeteer, a designer, and
12:36
Speaker 1: he was responsible for creating the first floats and balloons
12:39
Speaker 1: in the Macy's Parade. Um. He was also a bit
12:42
Speaker 1: of a prankster, and he took one of these a
12:44
Speaker 1: sea monster balloon from the Macy's Parade and had it
12:47
Speaker 1: come ashore on Nantucket as like a sea monster. It
12:50
Speaker 1: was like this early, like nineteen thirties prank. But he
12:53
Speaker 1: was just this whimsical, great guy who really kind of
12:56
Speaker 1: took this you know, hum drum parade and turned it
13:00
Speaker 1: into like a major annual event for the first time.
13:03
Speaker 1: Yeah he was Uh, he said he was a puppeteer.
13:06
Speaker 1: He is the father of American puppeteering, so very big
13:10
Speaker 1: figure in puppeteering in the United States. Um, and yeah
13:14
Speaker 1: he's he's what really I think I think it was
13:17
Speaker 1: basically in the history of the parade, you can look
13:20
Speaker 1: at Tony sarg and you can look at Gene McFadden
13:23
Speaker 1: is kind of being the two people that really injected
13:26
Speaker 1: the most. Uh. I don't want to see enthusiasm because
13:29
Speaker 1: everyone's always been enthusiastic. Yeah, magnificence, it's the Sorg McFadden effect.
13:36
Speaker 1: It's a good band name. Uh So in nineteen eight
13:40
Speaker 1: they had a little promotion. It's kind of funny to
13:43
Speaker 1: look back on these promotions over the years and little
13:45
Speaker 1: things that you try that don't necessarily work out, But
13:47
Speaker 1: this was one of them. They said, here's what we're
13:49
Speaker 1: gonna do. We're gonna release five balloons, like release them
13:53
Speaker 1: and they have slow release valves, and they're going to
13:55
Speaker 1: just sort of float around the country and get lower
13:57
Speaker 1: and lower and lower, and about a week later, they're
14:00
Speaker 1: the land. And if you gather this thing up, travel
14:03
Speaker 1: to New York City and bring it back to Macy's.
14:05
Speaker 1: I guess, could you bring it back to your local Macy's.
14:07
Speaker 1: I wonder I think you had. I don't know. Anything
14:10
Speaker 1: I say would be a guess. Okay, but you bring
14:13
Speaker 1: it back to Macy's and you get a hundred bucks.
14:16
Speaker 1: And uh That ran for four years until a dangerous
14:19
Speaker 1: thing happened, which was people started using their airplanes to
14:23
Speaker 1: try and go catch these things. And they said, you
14:26
Speaker 1: know what, let's we did it for four years. Maybe
14:28
Speaker 1: we'll just kind of trim that down now, yeah, I
14:30
Speaker 1: think it was either Civil Air Patrol or Tuskegee Airman
14:34
Speaker 1: episode where we talked about like that was about the
14:36
Speaker 1: time when flying was like this cool new thing that
14:39
Speaker 1: people were trying, and they were also dummies, so they
14:43
Speaker 1: would do horrible daredevil stuff like that, which you know
14:47
Speaker 1: that is to Macy's credit that they stopped doing it
14:49
Speaker 1: rather than they're like, yeah, let's see what happens, let's
14:52
Speaker 1: keep this going. Have you ever been to that Flagship
14:55
Speaker 1: store I have? They have like the original escalators in there.
14:59
Speaker 1: That's a that's all I can think about when I
15:02
Speaker 1: In fact, sometimes I'll go to New York and I
15:03
Speaker 1: will ride that wooden escalator just to do it. It's
15:06
Speaker 1: so cool because if you look through like the the
15:09
Speaker 1: gap between the handrail and the stairs, you can see
15:12
Speaker 1: the army of monkeys cranking the levers to make the
15:16
Speaker 1: thing go up. No, the monkey poop. Um. So all right,
15:24
Speaker 1: thanks to our buddies at Mental Flaws, we know that. Um.
15:28
Speaker 1: How these balloons are done these days, Uh, they are
15:31
Speaker 1: hand drawn at first, which you might, you know, kind
15:34
Speaker 1: of assume, and it's kind of cool how they used
15:37
Speaker 1: to do it. They used to create an actual model
15:40
Speaker 1: and immerse it in water to see how much to
15:43
Speaker 1: kind of calculate how much helium they would need to
15:46
Speaker 1: float this thing. UM Today you can use just math
15:50
Speaker 1: and science and computers to do all that and figure
15:54
Speaker 1: it out. But you still start with that pencil sketch.
15:57
Speaker 1: Then you UM submit it to a three D modeling
15:59
Speaker 1: soft where you're gonna fine tune it, and then you're
16:02
Speaker 1: gonna three D print a few of these things. They
16:04
Speaker 1: probably do a bunch, because I would want to take
16:06
Speaker 1: one home, but they print a couple of them to
16:08
Speaker 1: use UM. One to use that the actual hand paint
16:12
Speaker 1: to say like, here's how it's supposed to look like
16:14
Speaker 1: every part of it is painted exactly right. And then
16:17
Speaker 1: another one is a blueprint that's going to guide UM
16:20
Speaker 1: the cutting of the fabric and the heat ceiling of
16:22
Speaker 1: the fabric and everything like that. So the dimensions of
16:25
Speaker 1: the balloons very obviously according to what kind of character
16:29
Speaker 1: it is, but most of them are about five or
16:31
Speaker 1: six stories UM, about sixty ft long, about thirty ft
16:35
Speaker 1: wide ish, And they actually have to UM employ UH
16:41
Speaker 1: engineers and aerodynamic experts just to make sure these things
16:46
Speaker 1: do what they're supposed to do, which is float with
16:49
Speaker 1: with you know, uh, guidance from their human friends on
16:52
Speaker 1: the ground, which we'll talk about. But they don't want
16:55
Speaker 1: that kermit arm dragging along down behind them like it's
16:58
Speaker 1: a gimpy or something, or even worse like flying higher
17:02
Speaker 1: than the head. No, and let's it's supposed to. Well,
17:06
Speaker 1: sure if it's opposed to, but what kind of world
17:08
Speaker 1: is that? Well, I don't know. You know, he waves
17:10
Speaker 1: his arms about in a crazy way, and he does
17:12
Speaker 1: case he wanted to do somethun like that. I've been corrected.
17:16
Speaker 1: But they make these balloons. It's not just one big balloon.
17:20
Speaker 1: It's a bunch of different chambers. And they do this
17:22
Speaker 1: for a few reasons. One is because one like, let's
17:26
Speaker 1: say you do want that arm. Let's say it's uh,
17:28
Speaker 1: it's the where's the beef lady high fiving somebody. You're
17:31
Speaker 1: gonna want that arm higher than the head in that case,
17:34
Speaker 1: so more helium, less air. Um. And also if where's
17:38
Speaker 1: the beef lady which never existed, um, the balloon that is,
17:43
Speaker 1: like let's say her leg popped or something, the whole
17:46
Speaker 1: thing wouldn't go down. They'd be able to still float her. Yes, um.
17:52
Speaker 1: And that's the other reason to have it in chambers too.
17:54
Speaker 1: Plus I believe it's easier to make in different parts
17:57
Speaker 1: different components that you end up putting together too. So
18:00
Speaker 1: where do they do this though? They have what's called
18:04
Speaker 1: it's one of the most magical places on the planet
18:06
Speaker 1: from what I can tell from videos I've seen Macy's
18:09
Speaker 1: parade studio. And they used to have in a tutsie
18:12
Speaker 1: roll factory in Hoboken, which is a pretty new Jersey sentence. Um.
18:18
Speaker 1: And then they moved to a different part of Jersey
18:21
Speaker 1: Moonaki not to be confused with one of our former
18:24
Speaker 1: favorite words on the podcast, um. And they went from
18:29
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand square feet and the tutsie roll factory to
18:32
Speaker 1: seventy two thousand square feet in forty four ft high ceilings.
18:35
Speaker 1: So now they can like build these balloons and test
18:38
Speaker 1: them indoors in their enormous magical parade studio. Yeah, and
18:43
Speaker 1: here's another cool little fun fact um. Up until the eighties,
18:47
Speaker 1: they would repurpose the balloon sometimes, which I think is
18:50
Speaker 1: pretty cool and efficient. The Smile balloon, uh, the little
18:55
Speaker 1: Smiley Face from nineteen seventy two, just one year as
18:58
Speaker 1: Smiley Guy um was actually made from Elsie the Cow,
19:04
Speaker 1: which was Borden's mascot, and then after that repurposed into
19:08
Speaker 1: hot air balloon for Old Alban and the Chipmunks in
19:11
Speaker 1: their float. I love that fact too, pretty neat. They
19:14
Speaker 1: also have they have something kind of newer. I think
19:16
Speaker 1: it's started in two thousand five. Maybe it's called a
19:18
Speaker 1: Blue Sky Gallery, where they're like, how about you famous
19:22
Speaker 1: artists submit some designs for a balloon that you would make,
19:25
Speaker 1: And so there's like a Yayoi Kusama balloon. Um, there's
19:29
Speaker 1: a Cause balloon to Kashi Murakami balloon. But then the
19:33
Speaker 1: Balloon of Balloons, and I'm not sure how many times
19:35
Speaker 1: it's flown, but its first flying first flight was in
19:39
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. Is a Keith Herring balloon. So
19:42
Speaker 1: you know, like his little kinetic figures. Of course, it's
19:45
Speaker 1: one of those, a black and white um kinetic figure
19:48
Speaker 1: and he's holding a red heart over his head. So
19:50
Speaker 1: I guess in that case you would want the arm
19:52
Speaker 1: above the head um. And it turns out that apparently
19:56
Speaker 1: Keith Herring had for a very long time wanted to
19:58
Speaker 1: design balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but died
20:03
Speaker 1: before he got a chance to. Yeah, he died of
20:06
Speaker 1: complications from AIDS in nine and I think this is
20:10
Speaker 1: a lovely tribute, um, you know, in two thousand eight,
20:14
Speaker 1: on the fiftieth anniversary of his birth to do this,
20:17
Speaker 1: I think, I think that was really really neat and
20:19
Speaker 1: it was wrangled by his family, his father and his siblings,
20:22
Speaker 1: which is really really beautiful. Yeah, and keep keep an
20:24
Speaker 1: eye out for the Keith Herring balloon because it makes
20:27
Speaker 1: another appearance later in this episode. That's right. So what
20:31
Speaker 1: you were talking about was UM Inflation Day, right, where
20:34
Speaker 1: people go and watch the balloons being inflated, and it's
20:38
Speaker 1: the day before into the wee hours before the parade
20:42
Speaker 1: UM and it's outside of the Museum of Natural History, Right, Yeah,
20:45
Speaker 1: it's really cool. It's um. I mean, don't expect to
20:49
Speaker 1: go and have just a very leisurely uh you know,
20:54
Speaker 1: it's pretty hectic, you know there. If you think there
20:56
Speaker 1: are a lot of kids at the parade, I felt
20:57
Speaker 1: like there were even more kids at the UH Inflation Day.
21:02
Speaker 1: But it's fun, it's relaxed that you walk around, the
21:05
Speaker 1: opposite of what you said, Well, no, I mean it's
21:07
Speaker 1: it's it's not like it's not an organized thing. That's
21:10
Speaker 1: what I meant by relaxed. You can just kind of
21:12
Speaker 1: wander about and um, how close can you get? I
21:16
Speaker 1: mean you can get really close. We got over. We
21:18
Speaker 1: have a great UM picture we recreated probably fifteen years
21:22
Speaker 1: later in front of Kermits, so we did a nineteen whatever.
21:25
Speaker 1: I don't even know the years, but they're about ten
21:27
Speaker 1: or fifteen years apart. That's yeah, it's good. And they
21:30
Speaker 1: use up something like four hundred thousand cubic feet of
21:34
Speaker 1: helium to fill all those balloons every year. Yeah. And
21:38
Speaker 1: if you listen to our helium podcast and we talked
21:40
Speaker 1: about the helium shortage, UM, we're actually good right now.
21:43
Speaker 1: There have been three major shortages over the years, and
21:47
Speaker 1: apparently we're doing great UM because of the pandemic. Oh,
21:52
Speaker 1: people aren't buying like balloons and stuff as much. That's
21:55
Speaker 1: what that's this article and that's what it said, and
21:58
Speaker 1: said that we're like flush of helium right now. Well, yeah,
22:01
Speaker 1: so apparently um Macy's used to be the number two
22:05
Speaker 1: consumer of helium in the world after the US Armed Forces.
22:09
Speaker 1: But apparently that UM is like that was true sixty
22:13
Speaker 1: years ago or something. Since the advent of UM medical
22:16
Speaker 1: imaging and aeronautics. They started to kind of use a
22:20
Speaker 1: lot more helium than Macy's, but still, I mean, four
22:23
Speaker 1: hundred thousand cubic feet of helium, it's nothing to sneeze at. No,
22:27
Speaker 1: And I think they drop about a half a million
22:29
Speaker 1: bucks on helium every year, don't they. Yeah, we should say.
22:33
Speaker 1: Apparently they don't ever release numbers, Like every number that
22:39
Speaker 1: I found, I guess is a guestimate, an estimate, or
22:43
Speaker 1: just a straight up guess Mark Mark Twain's three Most
22:47
Speaker 1: Hated Lives. So um the helium is actually, I think
22:54
Speaker 1: is when they started using helium, which is pretty close
22:56
Speaker 1: after the um the debut of balloons in the Prey
23:00
Speaker 1: in the first place, I think it was seven that
23:01
Speaker 1: they really started, right. Yeah, they used air at first
23:05
Speaker 1: and had people with sticks and it was kind of
23:08
Speaker 1: like a big marionette, which makes sense with Tony sarg
23:10
Speaker 1: But I think everyone was like, this is for the birds, man,
23:13
Speaker 1: we need to get some helium up in these things.
23:16
Speaker 1: And they've used helium ever since except for I think
23:19
Speaker 1: Night because of the first helium shortage, they went with air. Yes,
23:25
Speaker 1: And so because you have helium, that means that those
23:28
Speaker 1: balloons can float away, like if they're not held down,
23:31
Speaker 1: and so they're held by ropes on that inflation day
23:33
Speaker 1: when they're when they're blown up, they throw netting over
23:36
Speaker 1: them and then put sandbags on the net and connect
23:38
Speaker 1: the things to like support utility vehicles basically to keep
23:42
Speaker 1: them from floating away overnight. But then you know, you
23:45
Speaker 1: can't just keep it under a net during the parade
23:47
Speaker 1: and drag it along the ground. You wanted to kind
23:49
Speaker 1: of float up in the air a little bit. So
23:51
Speaker 1: they need something like eighty to nine handlers per gigantic balloon.
23:57
Speaker 1: That surprised me, and there's usually in this is under
24:00
Speaker 1: normal circumstances, up to three thousand balloon handlers. Again, all
24:04
Speaker 1: Macy's employees are friends and family at Macy's employees. That's right.
24:08
Speaker 1: If you want to be a handler, uh, and you're
24:11
Speaker 1: let's say you work in the cosmetics department at Macy's,
24:14
Speaker 1: they're gonna size you up and say step on the scale.
24:17
Speaker 1: You need to wait at least a pounds to carry
24:20
Speaker 1: these things. Uh. They're gonna check your I. D. To
24:23
Speaker 1: make sure you're over eighteen. Uh, it's like getting in
24:26
Speaker 1: the club that sort of they're gonna make sure you're
24:28
Speaker 1: in good health. And uh, if you want to, you
24:31
Speaker 1: can go to training, but I think only the team
24:35
Speaker 1: leaders have to go to the training where they're going
24:38
Speaker 1: to learn about aerodynamics and geometry and physics. Um, they're
24:42
Speaker 1: gonna practice, they gotta you know, they're gonna take you
24:45
Speaker 1: out to a field with a real balloon and and
24:48
Speaker 1: practice and say, as team leader, Um, you're gonna be
24:51
Speaker 1: in charge of this thing. You're gonna have a pilot
24:53
Speaker 1: and a captain and two drivers. And I think the
24:56
Speaker 1: pilot is the person walking backwards that you see on
24:59
Speaker 1: TV kind of guiding it along with a rope. Right, yeah, yeah,
25:02
Speaker 1: but while they're managing the balloon in that sense, they're
25:06
Speaker 1: not actually the leader. They they take their orders from
25:10
Speaker 1: the leader leader. Right. And there's also apparently an NYPD
25:15
Speaker 1: representative or a cop basically who's also trained in balloon
25:19
Speaker 1: handling that marches along with everything balloon too, but they're
25:23
Speaker 1: they're like highly trained in balloon handling. The NYPD is
25:26
Speaker 1: generally from what I understand, So, um, should we take
25:30
Speaker 1: a break. Yeah, I think we should take a break
25:32
Speaker 1: and maybe talk about some of the foibles over the years,
25:35
Speaker 1: because those are always fun. It is fun, alrighty, So
25:56
Speaker 1: we talked about foibles. Um, everyone watching this thing on
25:59
Speaker 1: TV in person loves to see a well timed, well
26:02
Speaker 1: honed parade that goes off without a hitch. But sometimes
26:07
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun to see a balloon going a
26:10
Speaker 1: little crazy because because of the wind, it adds a
26:13
Speaker 1: little excitement, It adds a little something else, a little
26:17
Speaker 1: air of the of the what is going to happen now? Maybe,
26:20
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't think people root for that, but
26:23
Speaker 1: when it happens, um, it's it's always kind of fun.
26:28
Speaker 1: And in fact, if you want to see a crowd
26:29
Speaker 1: react how a crowd reacts to an out of controlled
26:33
Speaker 1: giant character balloon in New York City, go look up
26:37
Speaker 1: Barney the balloon Macy's Parade and just thank me later.
26:43
Speaker 1: That crowd is screaming and thrilled. It could be in
26:49
Speaker 1: in or it could be in ninet. It could be
26:55
Speaker 1: but they're like, they're clearly it's that kind of scared
26:59
Speaker 1: where you're you're it's like roller coaster. It sounds like
27:03
Speaker 1: several hundred thousand people on the same roller coaster right then, Yeah,
27:08
Speaker 1: but that was this one year was a particularly bad year. Um,
27:11
Speaker 1: there have been people who have been, you know, seriously
27:14
Speaker 1: injured when balloons go wrong. Um. One of the first
27:18
Speaker 1: injuries came in UM when an off duty police captain
27:22
Speaker 1: was injured by a street light that fell on him
27:26
Speaker 1: when a sonic the Hedgehog balloon random mock and knocked
27:30
Speaker 1: the street light over onto the cop um and I
27:34
Speaker 1: think he like broke his shoulder something horrid like that. Yeah, there,
27:38
Speaker 1: that seems to be sort of a UM's not common
27:41
Speaker 1: because it doesn't happen that much, but it seems like
27:43
Speaker 1: lamp posting street lights, which really goes to show you
27:46
Speaker 1: how big and heavy these things really are. Uh seven,
27:50
Speaker 1: like you were talking about. Besides Barney the big wind
27:52
Speaker 1: gus that year about forty miles an hour. But there
27:55
Speaker 1: was a cat in the hat balloon hit a lamppost
27:57
Speaker 1: and uh it knocked it knocked this decorative arm to
28:01
Speaker 1: the ground and actually put a woman in a coma
28:04
Speaker 1: for about a month. And if you think that is interesting,
28:08
Speaker 1: the same lady, her name was Kathleen Corona. She recovered
28:13
Speaker 1: and she went on to uh be the same lady
28:17
Speaker 1: who's remember when that that Yankees pitcher Corey lidell Um
28:21
Speaker 1: crashed his plane into a building in two thousand ten
28:24
Speaker 1: that was her apartment. So that's um man, that woman
28:30
Speaker 1: has a specific New York strain of bad luck, I know.
28:34
Speaker 1: And it was a cat in the hat. So like
28:36
Speaker 1: I don't know how many lives does she have. That's
28:41
Speaker 1: a great she's she's on at least three now the
28:44
Speaker 1: third one. I think I might move. Uh, she may
28:48
Speaker 1: by this time. Um. And two thousand five there was
28:51
Speaker 1: a big incident with the Eminem's balloon that yet again
28:55
Speaker 1: hit a street lamp and UM knocked it onto a
28:58
Speaker 1: pair of sisters who were injured. And then we said
29:01
Speaker 1: before that the Keith Herrying balloon was going to make
29:03
Speaker 1: another appearance, and it did in that two thousand and
29:06
Speaker 1: eight parade. UM, because it's sideswiped the NBC broadcast and
29:13
Speaker 1: apparently I haven't seen it, but it's scared Al Roker
29:15
Speaker 1: and Meredith Viera and Matt Lowerd quite quite badly for
29:18
Speaker 1: a second there. M hmm. There's the urban legend is
29:22
Speaker 1: that it knocked UM the broadcast off the air, but
29:24
Speaker 1: that's not true. Not true. Because of these accidents, you know,
29:28
Speaker 1: they're always trying to make it safer. UM, Giuliani when
29:33
Speaker 1: he was mayor there. He appointed a task force to
29:36
Speaker 1: review the ninety seven cat in the hat balloon accident,
29:40
Speaker 1: and there were some rules that came out that said, um,
29:45
Speaker 1: you know what if it's uh, if the winds are
29:47
Speaker 1: twenty three miles an hour or higher, or if it's
29:50
Speaker 1: gusting thirty four or higher than um, you can't fly
29:54
Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, so think about that. That was a
29:57
Speaker 1: big enough incident. Again, a woman was put in a comba.
30:00
Speaker 1: It was big enough incident that the administration of New
30:03
Speaker 1: York City got involved in appointed a task force to
30:06
Speaker 1: figure out how to make this work. That says a
30:08
Speaker 1: few things if you step back and think about it.
30:10
Speaker 1: One like, these these balloons can pose a danger of
30:13
Speaker 1: just some extent if they if they go wrong, and
30:15
Speaker 1: they can under certain circumstances. But too the Thanksgiving parade
30:20
Speaker 1: is so beloved that they're like, we're not going to
30:23
Speaker 1: stop this, so we need to figure out what to
30:25
Speaker 1: do to make it less, to make it safer. New
30:28
Speaker 1: York's not a nanny state, no, which is funny because
30:31
Speaker 1: Mayor Bloomberg, who who created the soda tax, which is
30:37
Speaker 1: like the pinnacle of the nanny state in some people's eyes.
30:40
Speaker 1: He still wouldn't change things. He appointed his own task
30:44
Speaker 1: force after that Eminem's incident, and they still were like,
30:47
Speaker 1: we can just figure out how to how how high
30:50
Speaker 1: each balloon should fly. That's another thing we should do.
30:52
Speaker 1: So New York has taken steps. The City of New
30:55
Speaker 1: York has taken steps to ensure that that parade keeps
30:58
Speaker 1: going on regardless UM. And one of the things that
31:01
Speaker 1: they do that I saw, they have contractors that come
31:05
Speaker 1: through the night before and they take street lights and
31:08
Speaker 1: the arm the posts that go over the street that
31:11
Speaker 1: hold the street lights. They take those down on the
31:13
Speaker 1: parade route two and a half mile stretch of New
31:16
Speaker 1: York overnight, they take down all of those arms, and
31:19
Speaker 1: they take down other street lights, street lamps. They trim
31:21
Speaker 1: trees that might get in the way. And from what
31:23
Speaker 1: I saw in those incidents where UM, at least with
31:27
Speaker 1: the M and M balloon, if not also the cat
31:29
Speaker 1: in the hat balloon, UM, they got out, they went
31:33
Speaker 1: out of the way. I think they hand the handlers
31:36
Speaker 1: didn't keep them in line because of the gusts, and
31:38
Speaker 1: they went out of like their normal route onto a
31:41
Speaker 1: street lamper that that hadn't been you know, taken down.
31:45
Speaker 1: Should have gone to that training, I guess so. Uh
31:48
Speaker 1: so those are balloons. You've also got your floats, um.
31:52
Speaker 1: These floats really started when nine, like the big Spectacle
31:58
Speaker 1: floats Wind Float is under Manford Bass got on board.
32:01
Speaker 1: You know, this is another big, big moment. It was
32:04
Speaker 1: Manford Bass was like, you know what, we can only
32:06
Speaker 1: make these things so big because they have to travel
32:08
Speaker 1: from New Jersey to New York and we're not putting
32:11
Speaker 1: them on a barge. We're going through the Lincoln Tunnel.
32:14
Speaker 1: So he said, how about this, how about we figure
32:15
Speaker 1: out how to collapse these things and fold them down
32:19
Speaker 1: and then fold them right back up so we can
32:21
Speaker 1: get them through the Lincoln Tunnel and then we can
32:23
Speaker 1: just pop them right back up. And that collapsibility is
32:26
Speaker 1: what really changed the game in the nineteen seventies when
32:29
Speaker 1: these floats um, you know, got to be really really big,
32:33
Speaker 1: and you know it takes three to five months to
32:35
Speaker 1: build them, up to a hundred thousand dollars to build them,
32:39
Speaker 1: and it kind of goes the way of the balloons
32:41
Speaker 1: as far as the sort of starting out with the
32:42
Speaker 1: sketch and then eventually a little three D model. Yeah,
32:45
Speaker 1: they start out with architectural drawings from the sketch and
32:48
Speaker 1: then make the models, and then they start building and
32:50
Speaker 1: they make them out of like these things are like
32:52
Speaker 1: well died metal structures. They're like really sturdy, and they
32:57
Speaker 1: have to be because like the Santa Clause float, the
32:59
Speaker 1: one the current incarnation that was designed by a guy
33:02
Speaker 1: named Joel Joel napper Stick, I think n A P
33:08
Speaker 1: R S T e K. It's an amazing float. Like
33:12
Speaker 1: it's four small houses, snow covered roofs with Santa's reindeer,
33:17
Speaker 1: you know, swooping down the roofs and Santa is on
33:20
Speaker 1: the top of the sleigh, which you know, in in
33:23
Speaker 1: in reality is like three stories up. Um and it
33:27
Speaker 1: I guess it's it's enough to keep Santa's bowl full
33:30
Speaker 1: of jello, you know. Intact. They're that sturdily made. You've
33:36
Speaker 1: also obviously got tons of costuming going on. Um. They've
33:39
Speaker 1: got about five thousand costumes in their costume house. They're
33:44
Speaker 1: led by Kimberly Montgomery, and the costumes are estimated to
33:49
Speaker 1: be about worth two million bucks um. Just the clauses
33:53
Speaker 1: um each Mrs and Mr. Santa Clause. Uh, they cost
33:57
Speaker 1: about twenty grand each and they reside in a little
34:00
Speaker 1: specially made cedar chest all year long, and they add
34:04
Speaker 1: about seven hundred new costumes a year and then end
34:06
Speaker 1: up dressing about individuals a year in costumes, which is
34:13
Speaker 1: mind boggling. Yeah, and they do it in like a
34:15
Speaker 1: couple of hours. It's his four hours. That's uh, you
34:19
Speaker 1: really got to be on your game. I've been on
34:20
Speaker 1: the movie sets. That's yeah, that's very impressive. And then
34:24
Speaker 1: there's one other thing that a lot of people don't
34:26
Speaker 1: think about. Um, all of those costumes have to be
34:30
Speaker 1: washed and laundered after the parade, which I would not
34:34
Speaker 1: want to be on the wardrobe team just for that.
34:36
Speaker 1: You know. I bet you they sent that stuff out
34:39
Speaker 1: or maybe they have in house. Uh yeah, you know so.
34:43
Speaker 1: Um remember Tony sarg the amazing puppeteer, sorry, the father
34:47
Speaker 1: of American puppetry, Thank you. He was, from what I
34:51
Speaker 1: could tell, the first parade host. I don't know if
34:54
Speaker 1: that's supported by the facts or not, but I saw
34:56
Speaker 1: it mentioned in a couple of places, and I traced
34:59
Speaker 1: it back to one site that said it, and I
35:02
Speaker 1: can't find out if he was or not, but I
35:04
Speaker 1: believe he was. If not, the first parade host, one
35:07
Speaker 1: of the early parade hosts, UM because the pretty and
35:12
Speaker 1: pretty short order. Within you know, less than a decade,
35:16
Speaker 1: that parade started to be broadcast at least locally on
35:18
Speaker 1: the radio, I think, and starting in the thirties, and
35:21
Speaker 1: then very quickly after that it was broadcast in the
35:24
Speaker 1: forties and uh CBS picked it up and started broadcasting
35:27
Speaker 1: at nationally in the late forties early fifties. UM, and
35:31
Speaker 1: then NBC picked it up. And when you have a broadcast,
35:34
Speaker 1: you need to have a host. And so from what
35:36
Speaker 1: I saw, Tony sarg was was the first host, and
35:38
Speaker 1: then eventually as the parade got bigger and bigger, he
35:41
Speaker 1: was supplanted by more nationally recognized figures. Yeah. And for
35:45
Speaker 1: many years it was kind of kid friendly stuff. UM,
35:49
Speaker 1: not that they ever like you know, went Blue and
35:52
Speaker 1: like you know, Richard Pryor doing it or anything like that,
35:56
Speaker 1: but a kid friendly meaning like Captain Kangaroo and stuff
35:59
Speaker 1: like that. They did have Andy Kaufman like on one
36:02
Speaker 1: of the um yeah, one of the floats ones, but
36:05
Speaker 1: he was ironically very kid friendly at times. You're right,
36:07
Speaker 1: that's a dirty comedian UM. But that changed I think
36:11
Speaker 1: in the fifties Jackie Gleeson, who was certainly not kid friendly. Um,
36:15
Speaker 1: he was a host. And then basically it kind of
36:18
Speaker 1: just became like, you know, let's get as biggest celebrity
36:20
Speaker 1: in here as we can. And they got bigger and bigger, um,
36:24
Speaker 1: which of course, you know, there's a lot of eyeballs
36:26
Speaker 1: on this thing in person and at home, and so
36:29
Speaker 1: they said, you know what we should do, We should
36:31
Speaker 1: probably try like this then costs us a lot of money. UM,
36:34
Speaker 1: we should probably offset some of these costs by allowing
36:37
Speaker 1: people to sponsor some of these balloons. So they did that,
36:41
Speaker 1: and um, selling sponsorships has become a great way to
36:44
Speaker 1: alleviate those costs. Yeah, and we should also say that
36:46
Speaker 1: they are like adamant that that they're like, this is
36:49
Speaker 1: not we have never said that, So it's like, but
36:52
Speaker 1: it's all out there. A bunch of people have done
36:54
Speaker 1: a bunch of um number crunching and stuff and reported
36:58
Speaker 1: that it costs about or and a half million dollars
37:01
Speaker 1: to put on the parade um, and that they have
37:04
Speaker 1: something like nine million dollars in balloons and floats, in
37:07
Speaker 1: studio space and costumes. And then again, like you said,
37:10
Speaker 1: about a half a million dollars worth of helium. So
37:13
Speaker 1: that's a that's a bunch of cash. And when Gene
37:16
Speaker 1: McFadden came in and said, wait a minute, you guys
37:18
Speaker 1: aren't selling sponsorships. Let's get sponsors in here in the
37:20
Speaker 1: late seventies, that really changed everything. Um. And so now
37:26
Speaker 1: from I think CBS News, if not Bloomberg, somebody reported that, um,
37:32
Speaker 1: the rumors companies pay about two grand to sponsor a
37:35
Speaker 1: new balloon, which I have to say, these are like national,
37:40
Speaker 1: sometimes global companies. That seems low to me, don't you
37:44
Speaker 1: think so? Sure when you look at like advertising for
37:46
Speaker 1: the Big Game. Yeah, fifty million people plus another three
37:50
Speaker 1: and a half million in person, everybody's in really good mood,
37:52
Speaker 1: all looking at the same thing. That just seems like
37:55
Speaker 1: a bit of a deal to me. Um, which makes
37:57
Speaker 1: me wonder if it's way more than that in reality.
38:00
Speaker 1: And then CBS News also said that it supposedly drops
38:03
Speaker 1: to ninety grand after that initial year, because you know,
38:06
Speaker 1: you don't have the cost of designing and building it.
38:08
Speaker 1: It's just you know, it's been in storage for year
38:11
Speaker 1: and they just have to fill it up again. Yeah,
38:13
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of celebrity appearances over the years. Um,
38:18
Speaker 1: some I think a little bit more. Uh. Some makes sense,
38:21
Speaker 1: some don't make as much sense. Yeah, I love the
38:23
Speaker 1: ones that don't make sense. I didn't get what didn't
38:26
Speaker 1: make sense though about Miami Vice. That's when I didn't get.
38:29
Speaker 1: So to me, I picked this. It's Miami Vice in
38:33
Speaker 1: New York in the fall, almost wintertime. It's the Big
38:38
Speaker 1: Apple Float, which makes sense, but it's also Miami Vice
38:41
Speaker 1: on the Big Apple Float and then the speakers blaring
38:45
Speaker 1: Glenn Fries you belong to the city. That's like one
38:48
Speaker 1: of the least holiday theme songs anyone's ever recorded. But
38:52
Speaker 1: it's a Miami my song. I know, but it just
38:54
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. Like just have Philip Michael Thomas
38:57
Speaker 1: on their waving at people. You know everybody loves to
39:00
Speaker 1: srico tubs. Why have you belonged to the city like
39:03
Speaker 1: a real down or like like song playing in the
39:08
Speaker 1: in the Thanksgiving prayed It just struck me as weird.
39:12
Speaker 1: And I loves the Miami by s theme. Would that
39:14
Speaker 1: be better? Much better? It's upbeat, it's energetic. Can you
39:18
Speaker 1: imagine you belong to the city just dragging you down
39:21
Speaker 1: on a nice. You know, Thursday Thanksgiving morning, while you're
39:24
Speaker 1: standing out there, you'd be like, get on with that,
39:26
Speaker 1: keep going. I don't know. I mean I'm living in
39:28
Speaker 1: a river of darkness under the neon lights exactly. Yeah.
39:34
Speaker 1: What else? Nine There was Buckar Rogers himself Mr Gil
39:37
Speaker 1: Gerard on the Ocean Spray Cranberry float. Right, I gotta
39:42
Speaker 1: put somebody up there, um, Andy Kaufman on the Rocking
39:47
Speaker 1: Lion float. So two facts. One, Andy Kaufman was the
39:51
Speaker 1: first celebrity to ever ride the rocking line, so instead
39:53
Speaker 1: of a rocking horse as a rocking lion. Yeah, okay,
39:57
Speaker 1: he was late, so they actually had somebody feeling I
39:59
Speaker 1: don't remember who until he made it, you know, onto
40:02
Speaker 1: the parade route. And then three that is one of
40:06
Speaker 1: the oldest floats still in the parades. When you see
40:09
Speaker 1: the Rocking Lion on the on the parade, you can
40:12
Speaker 1: be like Andy Kaufman went stood there. I know. There
40:15
Speaker 1: was I think like five or six years ago there
40:18
Speaker 1: was a bit of a kerfuffle with the rock band
40:21
Speaker 1: kiss Uh. You know the parade is that they can't
40:24
Speaker 1: they can't sing live. You know, that's just not how
40:26
Speaker 1: parades working. Give me lip syncing, and depending on how
40:29
Speaker 1: things are going and the weather and the wind and
40:31
Speaker 1: the sound, sometimes the lip lip syncing is better than others. Um.
40:35
Speaker 1: But I think the deal with Kiss was they got
40:37
Speaker 1: really kind of mad afterward, um, because they thought they
40:41
Speaker 1: were going to be on the Gibson Guitar float, which
40:43
Speaker 1: was this make sense, huge, um kiss worthy float because
40:49
Speaker 1: Kiss does the big, big thing, and they were like,
40:51
Speaker 1: Paul Stanley gotta pay play Gibson guitar up there. He's like,
40:54
Speaker 1: I don't play Gibson guitars and never have. I'm not
40:56
Speaker 1: gonna play Gibson. So they said, all right, well you
40:59
Speaker 1: can't be on the Gibson, but we gotta float for you,
41:02
Speaker 1: and they put him on. I mean, you can look
41:04
Speaker 1: it up from it was. It was a little underwhelming
41:07
Speaker 1: for Kiss, but the Ocean Spray Cranberry float, No, it
41:11
Speaker 1: was just a just sort of a flatbed with rails
41:14
Speaker 1: and it was not not the most impressive float. But
41:17
Speaker 1: they at least have bales a hey on there. No,
41:21
Speaker 1: it's where it's worth watching interesting camera work, Um, cutting
41:26
Speaker 1: way too the things that are not Kiss while they're
41:28
Speaker 1: playing it was. They were pretty pretty upset about the
41:31
Speaker 1: whole thing you you mentioned lip sinking. I mean like
41:33
Speaker 1: this parade is well known for bad lips sinking. Um.
41:36
Speaker 1: There's a great one if you go watch again that
41:40
Speaker 1: one of the guys from Little House on the Prairie,
41:42
Speaker 1: Deean Butler, is doing a horrible lip sinking job to
41:46
Speaker 1: don't fence me in um, and it's definitely worth watching.
41:49
Speaker 1: I think you said the starts of the mark, um,
41:53
Speaker 1: just go check it out. And then I guess John
41:55
Speaker 1: Legend was on, and you know, he's well known as
41:58
Speaker 1: a very very talented MUSICI and he felt compelled actually
42:02
Speaker 1: tweet out an apology saying like, hey, I'm sorry, I
42:05
Speaker 1: know I was lip sinking. I actually don't lip sync
42:07
Speaker 1: at my concerts, but these floats are not set up
42:10
Speaker 1: for concert quality sound production. They just can't possibly handle
42:14
Speaker 1: this equipment, and so we lip sync instead. And that's
42:18
Speaker 1: just part of the parade. Uh. And I guess he
42:20
Speaker 1: was forgiven because everybody loves John Legend. Yeah, the whole
42:23
Speaker 1: thing with live music at a parade. It works for
42:25
Speaker 1: this because it's televised, but if you've ever been to it,
42:29
Speaker 1: like a local parade where they have bands on a flatbed,
42:32
Speaker 1: it's just the worst because it sounds terrible, Well it
42:35
Speaker 1: sounds terrible. It's like, hey, do you want to hear
42:37
Speaker 1: seventeen seconds of a song? Right, because that's all you get,
42:40
Speaker 1: and you know the bands up there having a good time,
42:42
Speaker 1: but no one watching it enjoys it. So there was
42:44
Speaker 1: another great lip syncing episode in the parade that you
42:51
Speaker 1: can go watch. Just look up Melbourne Moore holding out
42:54
Speaker 1: for a hero Marvel Superheroes, and that was pretty great.
42:59
Speaker 1: And it's just weird. So Melbourne Moore is great Broadway talent.
43:02
Speaker 1: She was also a huge disco queen, right and for
43:07
Speaker 1: some reason, she's lip sinking to Bonnie Tyler's holding out
43:10
Speaker 1: for heroes. She had plenty of her own hits um
43:13
Speaker 1: but it's a cheap Midi Cassio version of holding out
43:16
Speaker 1: for hero. But then, bizarrely, chuck, have you seen this one?
43:20
Speaker 1: I did so pre Marvel like Cinematic Universe version Marvel,
43:29
Speaker 1: These puffy terrible costumes version Marvel Superheroes are all like
43:34
Speaker 1: gyrating as her backup dancers for some reason and helping
43:39
Speaker 1: her dance. And it was named by the Advocate magazine
43:43
Speaker 1: as one of the ten gayest moments in Macy's Thanksgiving
43:46
Speaker 1: Day parade history and brother is it? I love it.
43:50
Speaker 1: I love the advocate. That's that's very fun. I think
43:53
Speaker 1: you should take the most infamous one though. Well, in
43:56
Speaker 1: nine yeah this wasn't lip sincing necessarily. But in ninety
44:00
Speaker 1: four is that the one? Yeah, this is when they
44:02
Speaker 1: got the Munsters. They got Fred Gwynn and al Lewis
44:06
Speaker 1: Grandpa and and Herman Munster to recreate their characters and
44:11
Speaker 1: dress up and ride parade float um. In fact, the
44:15
Speaker 1: Munster coach, which was great, and apparently Fred Gwynn just
44:19
Speaker 1: got ripped oar and drunk. He brought a brown bag
44:22
Speaker 1: bottle of liquor on board, said it was nerve tonic
44:25
Speaker 1: to everybody, and just got hammered and was like cussing
44:29
Speaker 1: at people, and he was cussing at the hosts, and
44:31
Speaker 1: the driver of the car just had to, like I
44:33
Speaker 1: think he was the show's producer, had to just crank
44:35
Speaker 1: the music way up so no one could hear him. Yeah.
44:37
Speaker 1: Can you imagine seeing a drunk Herman Munster shouting at you,
44:41
Speaker 1: shouting curses at you. And the hosts that year were
44:44
Speaker 1: longtime hosts Lauren Green from Bonanza and Betty Watt. I
44:47
Speaker 1: know it's like the two nicest humans, right, and he
44:50
Speaker 1: apparently shouted like the mother of all exploitatives at them
44:54
Speaker 1: and over the Munster's theme song, I love that Little
44:59
Speaker 1: Great God bless Fred Quinn so Chuck. If you want
45:02
Speaker 1: to go, um under normal in a normal year, if
45:06
Speaker 1: you wanted to go, there's a few things you should
45:07
Speaker 1: remember right there. Some insider tips. Yeah, it starts at nine. Um,
45:12
Speaker 1: you should show up as early as six, they recommend.
45:16
Speaker 1: Insider tips say west side of the street on Central
45:19
Speaker 1: Park West from fifty nine is a good place. Uh.
45:23
Speaker 1: If you are sleeping in and having mimosas, you may
45:26
Speaker 1: want to go down to the toward the end of
45:28
Speaker 1: the route and catch things because they're gonna end up
45:31
Speaker 1: there later obviously. Um. It's also less energetic further down,
45:36
Speaker 1: like the highest energy stuff is closer to the beginning
45:40
Speaker 1: from that makes sense, and herman much is just gonna
45:42
Speaker 1: be plowed by the time he gets to the end
45:44
Speaker 1: of the right exactly. So it's actually a reason maybe
45:47
Speaker 1: that's what you want. Yeah. Uh, they don't sell tickets.
45:50
Speaker 1: If you see people in seats at the end of
45:52
Speaker 1: the route that is reserved for Macy's friends and family. Uh,
45:56
Speaker 1: you know, bring your kids, but don't bring your strollers
45:59
Speaker 1: because they're just a nice mayor. You can bring a
46:01
Speaker 1: blanket if you want to sit on the curb. You
46:03
Speaker 1: don't have to burn it afterwards. Um, but Gene mcfatten said,
46:07
Speaker 1: you know what you do is bring plastic garbage bag
46:10
Speaker 1: because you can wear it as a raincoat, as a
46:13
Speaker 1: wind breaker. You can sit on the curb with it.
46:15
Speaker 1: You don't have to burn it. And uh at the
46:18
Speaker 1: end you can pick up a little trash and be
46:20
Speaker 1: a good New York citizens. Yeah. I thought that was
46:21
Speaker 1: pretty great. Totally. So for this year's parade. For parade,
46:26
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic, they're actually not going to have
46:29
Speaker 1: the parade wine two and a half miles through New
46:32
Speaker 1: York in front of three and a half million people
46:34
Speaker 1: packed cheek to jowl on the street. Um. Instead, it's
46:38
Speaker 1: gonna be TV only that's not gonna be anybody watching
46:41
Speaker 1: the parade in person. And the whole thing is going
46:43
Speaker 1: to just be shot and take place in front of
46:46
Speaker 1: that Macy's Harald Square flagship store. And apparently they're all
46:49
Speaker 1: gonna socially distanced to wear masks and it's gonna be
46:52
Speaker 1: pandemic riffic, but the show is still gonna go on. Yeah.
46:55
Speaker 1: I thought this was a good compromise. And uh, while
47:00
Speaker 1: you won't be able to go in person, I think
47:01
Speaker 1: people on Thanksgiving Day that love to watch it in
47:04
Speaker 1: full or have it on in the background, it'll still
47:07
Speaker 1: be there. That comfort food will still be there on
47:09
Speaker 1: your television. And hats off to them for figuring this out. Yeah,
47:13
Speaker 1: I agreed. So that's the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. You
47:17
Speaker 1: got anything else? I got nothing else. If you want
47:20
Speaker 1: to know more about it, go on to YouTube and
47:21
Speaker 1: watch old parades and then watch the one this Thanksgiving.
47:25
Speaker 1: It's gonna be. Since I said that, it's time for
47:27
Speaker 1: listener mail, I'm gonna call this Australian voting. Okay, hey guys,
47:35
Speaker 1: I was just listening to the Voter Suppression podcast. I
47:39
Speaker 1: thought i'd touch base. Where is that from? Is that
47:42
Speaker 1: from like a Wallabies corner accent? I don't know. It's
47:47
Speaker 1: a good one, yeah, totally. I'm just trying to to
47:49
Speaker 1: put my finger on it. The system we have in
47:52
Speaker 1: Australia works super well. Voting is compulsory, it's on a
47:56
Speaker 1: Saturday there's always a sausage sizzle going on, so you
47:59
Speaker 1: can get to snack as well. It's great. So this
48:02
Speaker 1: stops voter for old everyone is accounted for and well fed.
48:05
Speaker 1: And for people who say it should be a person's
48:08
Speaker 1: democratic right not to vote. If they don't want to,
48:11
Speaker 1: then they have the option of putting in a dummy
48:13
Speaker 1: vote or just getting a fine of about two hundred dollars.
48:16
Speaker 1: Most people in Australia are amazed at how silly the
48:19
Speaker 1: U S system is. It is and the US does
48:23
Speaker 1: have good podcasts. So there's something. I just went into
48:26
Speaker 1: something weird at the end there. I'm not sure what
48:28
Speaker 1: that was. Uh, and that is from Jackie Jackie, that's great. Um, yeah,
48:35
Speaker 1: I was really I didn't realize that other countries have
48:37
Speaker 1: compulsory voting where you're eighteen, you're automatically registered just from
48:42
Speaker 1: turning eighteen and then you have to vote in every
48:44
Speaker 1: election from that point on. I love it, and um,
48:49
Speaker 1: thank you for Jackie in Yeah, it feels so weird too,
48:53
Speaker 1: for to do the opposite of trying to not to
48:56
Speaker 1: get people to not vote, you know, doing the opposite.
48:59
Speaker 1: That seems right. Yeah, I agree, And as it turns
49:01
Speaker 1: out Jackie is a is a pretty prominent Australian artist,
49:06
Speaker 1: Is that right? Oh? Well, thanks for listening Jackie. Hopefully
49:08
Speaker 1: we've had some influence in your art and that it
49:11
Speaker 1: wasn't one of your darker periods. If you want to
49:15
Speaker 1: be like Jackie and get in touch with us from
49:17
Speaker 1: your home country, uh that Chuck might do an accent
49:21
Speaker 1: of we would love that. You can send us an
49:23
Speaker 1: email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
49:30
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How
49:32
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
49:35
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
49:37
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.