Tomorrow is one of our favorite days of the year: The annual Thanksgiving Eve inflation of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons!
This year, there are twelve giant balloons: Dora the Explorer, Kermit the Frog, Healthy Mr. Potato Head (he's wearing a jogging suit), Scooby Doo, Ronald McDonald, Pikachu w/Poke-Ball, Energizer Bunny, Flying Ace Snoopy, and JoJo's Circus will be joined by new balloons Abby Cadabby, Shrek, and Super Cute Hello Kitty! As if Hello Kitty could get more cute! There are also fifteen novelty balloons, like the Macy's Stars and Chloe the Holiday Clown and new ones like Planet Earth and "Rabbit for Macy's Parade by Jeff Koons."
The parade blow-up action is along 77th Street and 81st Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, around the American of Natural History, starting at around 3PM. You can also see float assembly starting at midnight tomorrow!
Here's the Macy*s - Thanksgiving Day Parade website. Last year, after some incidents with balloons running into spectators and lampposts, the city created new parade guidelines - balloons are grounded if winds are high. Macy's also uses anemometers to measure winds along the route. NY1 has a show tomorrow night at 8PM covering the Great Big Balloon Inflation (NY1 visited the NJ studio where the floats are made). NBC broadcasts the parade, which begins at 9AM, on Thursday. And the parade will be the only place you can see some Broadway performers.
