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