I'm Shonda Rhimes. If you watch Grey's Anatomy or any of my TV shows, you know, I love to tell a good story. Well, now there's Sandland Audio. We've partnered I Heart Radio to launch a slate of great podcasts. You can listen to the first four right now. Katie's Grib criminal. You go Ascoli and you down and we have so much more coming your way. We can't wait for you to hear it all. Welcome to Shadowland Audio.

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Welcome to Step, you should know a production of NPR Radio's HowStuffWorks. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh, there's Chuck Jeri's out there dressed as a turkey, dressed as a pilgrim, weirdly, and that makes this, of course, stuff you should know, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

That's right. This is an episode we've wanted to do for a while. And there's a lot here. It's it's really pretty interesting. Do you watch, by the way?

I'm just curious to see if I missed one. I would just be in shambles crying. But really, I love the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for sure. I don't think I've ever watched one really shukman you.

I'm really surprised, especially in the 80s, too, that you didn't watch it back back in the day. Yeah, it's great, man. It is a very fun thing to watch. It's like full of glad tidings and a cornucopia of pumpkins and stuff. And it's great.

I mean, I feel like it's on at houses that I go to.

So it's not like I don't have never seen bits of it. Right. But I've never like, popped the popcorn and sat down and be like, I can't get my parade on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people do that weirdos. But for the most part it's meant to just kind of be seen as you see it, you know what I mean? Like you'll you'll see some of it.

And while you're making your trimmings and stuff. Yeah. Or you can sit down and watch bits of it. But if you sit down from nine to 12, I'm quite sure there are plenty of people out there who do do that. But, you know, for the most part, it seems like something you just kind of watch. You're there, you know, father and son.

And I know we talked about it at some point because I did tell the story about Emily and I going to we were in New York over Thanksgiving a couple of times. And both times we went the day before to watch the balloons being blown up.

Yeah, that's a lot of fun.

That's an event in and of itself. Inflation day is what they call it now.

Yeah, it's really a good time. And just little kiddos everywhere. And yes, I can't wait to go back with my daughter one day once. Once it's safe to do so.

Yeah. I'm one of my friends, Molly. She worked for Macy's for a very long time. OK, well, Molly has been in the parade. This is going to be her fourth time, as a matter of fact. And she said some of her best. Remember, I was texting her about it, asking her some questions, and she said some of her best memories ever were formed because everybody's just in the best mood and watching the parade and you're just marching down the street waving and everything.

She said. It's just amazingly cool.

Yeah. And I think can we go ahead and drop the fact of the episode for me since you said that? OK, so making nervous. Yeah. Which one?

Well, I never knew this, but, you know, except for the performers and, you know, the, the hosts and stuff like that, everyone you see in that parade is worked for Macy's. Yeah. Or they're a friend or a family member of a Macy's employee.

Yeah. I never knew that. And I'm sure like a straggler might get in there. But it is it is largely Macy's friends and family and employees. Yeah. So very cool. And that's actually to kind of get into the history of this. That is a a tradition from the very beginning. So like the first ever Macy's parade wasn't even a Thanksgiving parade. It was called the Macy's Christmas Parade, even though it was on Thanksgiving. Still back in 1924, there were a lot of recent immigrants to the United States from Europe who were working for Macy's, who said, hey, we've got these parades that kind of celebrate things over in Europe.

We should start doing one here. And they actually led to the first Macy's Thanksgiving or Christmas Parade in 1924. And so all the clowns and the cowboys and the people pulling the caged wild animals, they were Macy's employees.

And that's always been the case ever since then, created by immigrants to the United States. Everybody. Yes, rich American tradition.

I love it. So except for a three year break during World War Two, they have been launching this Thanksgiving Day parade for ninety six years. Yeah, it is morphed and changed over the years from sort of a small thing to a very big thing to an event, one might say, an entertainment event.

About quarter of a million people showed up on that first one. And I think what is it like three and a half million people now go in person generally? Yeah.

And we should say generally, traditionally, we've got to qualify with that, because the 20/20 parade, thanks to the pandemic, is going to be different and we'll talk about it. But like, yes, under a normal year, in the last decade or so, three and a half million New Yorkers or people show up on the streets of New York to watch this thing and then like 50 million more watch it on TV.

Amazing. So quarter of a million that first one adds read A marathon of mirth is coming to this Macy's Christmas parade. And it was about a six mile route. Yeah, in that first year. And it was it was pretty long for a while. And then they they narrowed it down. They're like, we can't go six miles anymore. This. Getting ridiculous? No, it started in Harlem and went all the way down to Harold Square where Macy's flagship store is, which is where it ends, right?

Yes, six miles. And on that first that first marathon of mirth, like I said, they had caged animals that they dragged along and they did that for the first few years. And then they realized, like actually the animals, they're scaring all the little kids. They're not delighted, like we thought. So they stopped borrowing them from the Central Park Zoo. It also wasn't much fun for the animals, I'm sure, as well. And so they replaced the animals with floats, I think, in 1927, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, and, you know, that was a good idea because they're like, what, a kid's not like our angry tigers. What do kids like? Ah, happy balloon tigers.

Yeah, especially when it's cold out. You don't want your pants to be wet. That's right. You know, uh, by the mid sort of nineteen thirties is when the Christmas parade really made the transition to the Thanksgiving parade that we know and love. And that's when pop culture started to be a thing. And people you know, Felix the Cat was a very first character balloon in 1927 and traditionally celebrities started taking part in about 1934. I think Eddie Cantor was the first big celeb who was a pretty interesting guy.

If you want to look him up, old banjo eyes, Eddie Cantor, he so not only was he the first celebrity to take part, he's also the one and only celebrity to have a balloon based on him, too.

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised by that. Or. Yeah, that that's the only one. Yeah.

You'd think Orville would have a balloon. I don't know. I'm hoping that this really tips the scales in our favor though.

And that would be amazing. Mine would be mostly beard, you know, would be cool as if they made a balloon of us as the thing with two heads. With Rosie Greer and Ray Mallon. Yeah, you remember that movie I sort of do like like Ray is like a terrible, like, horrible racist, like old rich guy who pays to have his head put on Rosie Greers body.

And they have to get along the first DPIC, I guess.

I guess maybe so parade wise. Well, this is a deep cut. The was so they shrunk, shrunk this thing down, like I said, to about 43 blocks that we see today. The balloons and the floods just got bigger and bigger. Of course, the rocket started kicking their way in in 1958 and then in 77 with the addition of Jean McFadden, who was the Macy's Day planner, the parade planner. That's when they started doing the big Broadway performances.

Yes. Jim McFadden, she was from Texas. And so, of course, everything's bigger in Texas. She injected that idea into the Macy's parade, which was already like a big deal by the time she came along. But she really blew it up and turned it into like this incredibly huge event that it is today. And she also is, we'll see, brought in sponsors, too, which definitely altered the complexion of the parade for the better in the worse, really.

Yeah, I think so, they planned the parade for about 18 months, so if you do the math there, there's about six months where there are two parades being planned at the same time, which can you imagine?

Yeah, I bet you it's pretty segmented, though. That's not too confusing. I would be totally bald, I think, if I were in charge of that.

And then last year in twenty nineteen, it was the ninety third parade. They had 26 floats, 16 giant helium character balloons in 40 heritage and novelty balloons and 11 marching bands.

Yeah, that's a lot. I mean especially up from four horsedrawn floats to, you know, what they've got now, 26 and those, those giant character balloons, those are the ones you always see. But in addition to those, there's all those other balloons you mentioned, too. Like there's a lot going on in this parade. I mean, it's a three hour parade, for Pete's sake, that over two and a half miles, it still takes three hours or so much to it.

Yeah, and it's interesting, there are a lot of balloons.

And over the years, you know, what happens is this parade acts like a time capsule. So whatever's going on in 2019, they're going to try and feature like very 2019 things. And over the years that has paid off. You know, you've got your you're timeless characters that are always there. But sometimes you're going to have characters like in 99 when they had the Ask Jeeves float or I'm sorry, the balloon. And you know, that one didn't age so well.

Ask Jeeves went away. He's retired, right?

He retired for sure. But at the same time, like, fortunately, somebody, like, videotaped that. And you can go on the Internet now and see footage of the Ask Jeeves, the balloon. You know, like it's kind of the point, though.

It's like it does transport you to ninety nine when you see something that's actually kind of was only nineteen ninety nine.

Or if you go on, if you watch the 2008 parade, you'll see Rick Astley, Rick rolling the parade like he comes out and things like never going to give you up and that is about as 2008 as it gets, you know. So like yeah, it's like these these time capsule and you can go watch an entire parade on YouTube. Right now, I'm one of my favorites. The 1980 parade.

I remember the the where's the beef balloon lady where she was great. Me and she was great. Or the I'm not going to pay a lot for this muffler lady. Yeah.

Or the time to make the doughnuts guy. Oh yeah. Or a 99. I think they also had the fight club float, which was fantastic. It was, it was just Edward Norton staring at his hand with a like chemical burn going on.

It was about all of us, by the way, although I wouldn't be surprised if the where's the beef lady might have a she was pretty big. She was very big. She was, uh. So maybe we should take a break, OK.

And really get into these balloons after this.

I'm Shonda Rhimes. If you watch Grey's Anatomy or any of my TV shows, you know, I love to tell a good story. Well, now there's Sandland Audio. We've partnered I Heart Radio to launch a slate of great podcasts. You can listen to the first four right now, Katie's crib criminal. You go Ascoli and you down and we have so much more coming your way. We can't wait for you to hear it all. Welcome to Shadowland Audio.

Listen to all the new chandeliered audio shows on Apple podcasts.

OK, so balloons, like we said, first came about to replace those poor animals from the Central Park Zoo, which was a good move, and there was a guy who really put the first stamp on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. His name is Tony Saag. And this guy is just such an amazing character.

He has his own American Experience documentary about him. I watch that. I have not seen it. I saw a clip of it to make sure we were pronouncing his name correctly. How good I did. But is it good? Yeah, it's good. It's short and sweet. Did you see the beginning part, that little stunt he did about the the sea monster? Yeah, that was pretty great.

Yeah. I mean, that was that was a Macy's Day float. I mean, it wasn't a Macy's Day float, but that's essentially what what it was. I think it was originally. And he borrowed it. Oh. Was it really? Pretty sure it was used in the parade and he repurposed it. So so I guess for those of you, the million of you who don't know what we're talking about, this guy, Tony Saag, he was a puppeteer, a designer, and he was responsible for creating the first floats in balloons in the Macy's parade.

He was also a bit of a prankster and he took one of these a sea monster balloon from the Macy's parade and had it come ashore on Nantucket. Yeah, it was like a sea monster. It was like this early like 1930s prank. But here's this is whimsical, great guy who really kind of took this, you know, humdrum parade and turned it into like a major annual event for the first time.

Yeah, he was. You said he was a puppeteer. He is the father of American puppeteering. So very big figure in puppeteering in the United States.

And, yeah, he's he's what really? I think I think it was basically in the history of the parade. You can look at Tony Sarg and you can look at Gene McFadden is going to be in the two people that really injected the most. Yeah, I don't say enthusiasm because everyone's always been enthusiastic.

Make sure. Yeah. Magnificence. It's the Saag McFadden effect. It's a good band name. Yeah. So in nineteen twenty eight they had a little promotion. It's kind of funny to look back on these promotions over the years and little things that you try that don't necessarily work out. But this was one of them. They said, here's what we're going to do, we're going to release five balloons like release them. And they have slow release valves and they're going to just sort of float around the country and get lower and lower and lower.

And about a week later, they're going to land. And if you gather this thing up, travel to New York City and bring it back to Macy's, I guess, could you bring it back to your local Macy's, I wonder? I think you I, I don't know. Anything would be a guess.

OK, but you bring it back to Macy's and you get 100 bucks. And that ran for four years until a dangerous thing happened, which was people started using their airplanes to try and go catch these things. And they said, you know what, let's we did it for four years. Maybe we'll just kind of trim that down now.

Yeah, I think it was a either Civil Air Patrol or Tuskegee Airmen episode where we talked about like that was about the time when flying was like this cool new thing that people were trying. Right. And they were also dummies. So they would do horrible daredevil stuff like that, which, you know, it is to Macy's credit that they stop doing it rather than they're like, yeah, let's see what happens. Let's keep this going.

You ever been to that flagship store? I have. They have, like, the original escalators in there. That's all.

That's all I can think about when I in fact, sometimes I'll go to New York and I will ride that wooden escalator. Yeah. Just to do it.

It's so cool, because if you look through like the the gap between the handrail in the stairs, you can see the army of monkeys cranking the levers to make the thing go up.

No, it is really bad. The monkey poop. Yeah.

So, all right. Thanks to our buddies at Mental Floss, we know that how these balloons are done these days, they are hand drawn at first, which you might, you know, kind of assume. And it's kind of cool how they used to do it. They used to create an actual model and immerse it in water to see how much to kind of calculate how much helium they would need to float this thing. Today, you can use just math and science and computers to do all that and figure it out.

But you still start with that pencil sketch. Then you submit it to 3-D modeling software. You're going to fine tune it and then you're going to 3D print a few of these things. They probably do a bunch because I would want to take one home, but they print a couple of them to use one to use that the actual hand paint to say like here's how it's supposed to look like every part of it is painted exactly right. And then another one is a blueprint that's going to guide the cutting of the fabric in the heat, sealing of the fabric and everything like that.

So the dimensions of the balloons vary, obviously, according to what kind of character it is. But most of them are about five or six stories, about 60 feet long, about 30 feet. Wide ish, and they actually have to employ engineers and aerodynamic experts just to make sure these things do what they're supposed to do, which is float with with, you know, guidance from their human friends on the ground.

We'll talk about. But they don't want that current arm dragging along down behind them like it's gimpy or something or even worse, like flying higher than the head.

No, unless it's supposed to. Well, sure, if it's supposed to. But what kind of world is that?

Well, you know, he waves his arms about in that crazy way. He does he want to do something like that? I've been corrected for sure. But they make these balloons. It's not just one big balloon. It's a bunch of different chambers. And they do this for a few reasons. One is because one like let's say you do want that arm. Let's say it's it's the where's the beef lady high having somebody you're going to want that arm higher than the head in that case.

So more helium, less air. Right. And also if where's the beef lady which never existed, the balloon that is like let's say her leg popped or something, the whole thing wouldn't go down. They'd be able to still float her.

Yes. And that's the other reason to have it in chambers to plus, I believe it's easier to make in different parts, different components that you end up putting together, too. So where do they do this, though? They have what's called it's one of the most magical places on the planet, from what I can tell from videos. I've seen Macy's Parade studio and they used to have a Tootsie Roll factory in Hoboken, which is a pretty New Jersey sentence.

And then they moved to a different part of Jersey Moonachie.

Not to be confused with one of our former favorite words on the podcast. And they went from 16000 square feet and the Tootsie Roll factory to 72000 square feet in 44 foot high ceilings. So now they can build these balloons and test them indoors and their enormous magical parade studio.

Yeah, and here's another cool, little fun fact. Up until the 80s, they would repurpose the balloons sometimes, which I think is pretty cool and efficient.

Yeah, the smile balloon, the little smiley face from 1970 to just one year as smiley guy was actually made from Elsie the Cow, which was Borden's mascot, and then after that, repurposed into a hot air balloon for old Alvin and the Chipmunks and their float.

I love that fact to be pretty neat. They also have they have something kind of newer. I think it started in 2005, five maybe it's called the Blue Sky Gallery where they're like, yeah, how about you? Famous artists submit some designs for a balloon that you would make. And so there's like a Yayoi Kusama balloon, there's a cause balloon, Takashi Murakami balloon, but then the balloon of balloons and I'm not sure how many times it's flown, but it's first flying.

First flight was in 2008. Is it Keith Haring balloon? So, you know, like his little kinetic figures, of course, it's one of those a black and white kinetic figure and he's holding a red heart over his head. So I guess in that case, you would want the arm above the head. Right. And it turns out that apparently Keith Haring had for a very long time, wanted to design balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but died before he got a chance to.

Yeah, he died of complications from AIDS in 1990. And I think this is a lovely tribute. You know, in 2008, on the fiftieth anniversary of his birth to do this. I think I think that was really, really neat. And it was wrangled by his family. Yeah. His father and his siblings, which is really, really beautiful. Yeah.

And keep keep an eye out for the Keith Haring balloon because it makes another appearance later in this episode. That's right. So what you were talking about was inflation day, right, where people go and watch the balloons being inflated and it's the day before into the wee hours before the parade. And it's outside of the Museum of Natural History, right?

Yeah, it's really cool. It's I mean, don't expect to go and have just a very leisurely you know, it's pretty hectic, you know, there if you think there are a lot of kids at the parade, I felt like there even more kids at the inflation day.

But it's fun.

It's relaxed that you walk around the office the way you just said. Well, no, I mean, it's not like it's not an organized thing. That's what I meant by relax. You can just kind of wander about and how close can you get?

I mean, you get really close. We got over. We have a great picture. We recreated probably fifteen years later in front of Kermit. So we did a nineteen or whatever. I don't even know the years, but there are about ten or 15 years apart. That's cute. Yeah, it's good.

And they use up something like 350000 to 400000 cubic feet of helium. To fill all those balloons every year. Yeah, and if you listen to our helium podcast, we talked about the helium shortage, we're actually good right now. There have been three major shortages over the years. And apparently 20-20 were doing great because of the pandemic.

Oh, people aren't buying like balloons and stuff as much.

That's what this article that's what it said and said that we're like flush with helium right now. Well, yeah.

So apparently Macy's used to be the number two consumer of helium in the world after the US armed forces. But apparently that is like that was true 60 years ago or something. Since the advent of medical imaging and aeronautics, they started to kind of use a lot more helium than Macy's. But still, I mean, 400000 cubic feet of helium. It's nothing to sneeze at.

No. And I think they drop about a half a million bucks on helium every year. And I'm sure. It's a lot of money. Yeah, we should say apparently they don't ever release numbers, like every number that I found, I guess is a guesstimate, an estimate or just a straight up guess. Mark Mark Twain's three most hated lies. So that helium is actually I think 1928 is when they started using helium, which is pretty close after the the debut of balloons in the parade in the first place.

I think it was 1927 that they really started, right?

Yeah, they used air at first and had people with sticks and it was kind of like a big marionette, which makes sense with Tony Saag. But I think everyone is like, this is for the birds, man. We need to get some helium up in these things. And they use helium ever since, except for I think 1958 because of the first helium shortage. Yeah, they went with air. Yes.

And so because you have helium, that means that those balloons can float away, like if they're not held down. And so they're held by ropes on that inflation day when they're when they're blown up, they throw netting over them and then put sandbags on the net and connect the things to like sport utility vehicles, basically to keep them from floating away overnight. But then, you know, you can't just keep it under a net during the parade and drag it along the ground.

You wonder you kind of float up in the air a little bit. So they need something like 80 to 90 handlers per gigantic balloon.

That surprise me. And there's usually and this is under normal circumstances, up to 3000 balloon handlers. Again, all Macy's employees are friends and family at Macy's employees.

That's right. If you want to be a handler and you're let's say you work in the cosmetics department at Macy's, they're going to size you up and say, step on the scale. You need to wait at least one hundred and twenty five pounds to carry these things. OK, they're going to check your ID to make sure you're over 18.

Yeah, it's like being in the club, sort of they're going to make sure you're in good health and if you want to, you can go to training. But I think only the team leaders have to go to the training right. Where they're going to learn about aerodynamics and geometry and physics. They're going to practice. They've got to you know, they're going to take you out to a field with a real balloon and and practice and say, as team leader, you're going to be in charge of this thing.

You're going to be a pilot and a captain and two drivers. Right. And I think the pilot is the person walking backwards that you see on TV kind of guiding it along with a rope, right?

Yeah. Yeah. But while they're managing the balloon, in that sense, they're not actually the leader. They they take their orders from the leader leader. Right. And there's also apparently a NYPD representative or a cop basically who's also trained in balloon handling that marches along with everyone. I love that too. But they're like highly trained in balloon handling. The NYPD is generally, from what I understand. So should we take a break?

Yeah, I think we should take a break and maybe talk about some of the foibles over the years, because those are always fun. It is fun.

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All righty, so we talked about foibles, everyone watching this thing on TV and in person loves to see a well timed, well honed parade that goes off without a hitch. But sometimes it's kind of fun to see a balloon going a little crazy. Oh, yeah, because because of the wind, it adds a little excitement. It adds a little something else, a little air of the of the what is going to happen now maybe. And I don't think people root for that.

But when it happens, it's always kind of fun. It's thrilling. It is.

And in fact, if you want to see a crowd react, how a crowd reacts to an out-of-control giant character balloon in New York City. Yeah, go look up, Barney the balloon, 1997 Macy's Parade and just thank me later. That crowd is screaming and thrilled.

It could be in 1927 or it could be in York. Could be Cloverfield heaven. It could be. But they're like they're clearly it's that kind of scared where you're you're it's like roller coaster. It sounds like it's a thrill delay. Several hundred thousand people on the same roller coaster right then. Yeah, but that was this one year in 1997 is a particularly bad year. There have been people who have been, you know, seriously injured when balloons go wrong.

One of the first injuries came in 1993 when an off duty police captain was injured by a streetlight that fell on him when a Sonic the Hedgehog balloon ran amok and knocked the streetlight over onto the cop. And I think he broke his shoulder. Something horrid like that.

Yeah, there. That seems to be sort of a and it's not common because it doesn't happen that much, but seems like lampposts and street lights. Yeah. Which really goes to show you how big and heavy these things really are. Yeah. In ninety seven like you were talking about, besides Barney there, big wind gust that you're about 40 miles an hour, but there was a cat in the hat balloon hit a lamp post and it knocked, it knocked this decorative arm to the ground and actually put a woman in a coma for about a month.

Yeah. And if you think that is interesting, the same lady, her name was Kathleen Korona. She recovered and she went on to be the same lady who's remembering that that Yankees pitcher, Cory Lidle, crashed his plane into a building in 2010.

Yeah, that was her apartment. I know.

So that's man that woman has thrown a specific New York string of bad luck. I know.

And it was a cat in the hat. So, like, I don't know how many lives. Does she have the great you know, she's she's on at least three now, the third one, I think I might move, she may have by this time in 2005, there was a big incident with Eminem's balloon that yet again hit a streetlamp and knocked it onto a pair of sisters who were injured. And then we said before that the Keith Haring balloon was going to make another appearance, and it did in that 2008 parade because it sideswiped the NBC broadcast.

And apparently I haven't seen it, but it scared Al Roker and Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer quite, quite badly for a second there. Hmm. There's a network, the urban legend is that it knocked the broadcast off the air. But that's not true.

Not true because of these accidents. You know, they're always trying to make it safer.

Giuliani, when he was mayor there, he appointed a task force to review the 97 Cat in the Hat balloon accident. And in 98, there were some rules that came out that said, you know what, if it's if the winds are twenty three miles an hour or higher or if it's gusting 34 or higher, then you can't fly these things.

Yeah. So think about that. There was a big enough incident. Again, a woman was put in a coma, but it was a big enough incident that the administration of New York City got involved and appointed a task force to figure out how to make this work. This is a few things. If you step back and think about it, one like these, these balloons can pose a danger to some extent if if they go wrong and they can under certain circumstances.

But to the Thanksgiving parade is so beloved that they're like, we're not going to stop this. So we need to figure out what to do to make it less, to make it safer.

New York's not a nanny state. No, which is funny because Mayor Bloomberg, who who created the soda tax, which is like the pinnacle of the nanny state in some people's eyes, he still wouldn't change things. He appointed his own task force after that Eminem's incident. And they still were like, we can just figure out of how how high each balloon should fly. That's another thing we should do. So New York has taken steps. The city of New York has taken steps to ensure that that parade keeps going on regardless.

And one of the things that they do that I saw, they have contractors that come through the night before and they take streetlights in the arm. The posts that go over the street that hold the street lights, they take those down on the parade route, two and a half mile stretch of New York overnight. They take down all of those arms and they take down other street lights, street lamps. They trim trees that might get in the way. And from what I saw in those incidents, where at least with the Eminem balloon, if not also the cat in the hat balloon, they got out, they went out of the way.

I think they the the handlers didn't keep them in line because of the gusts. And they went out of, like their normal route onto a street lamp that that hadn't been taken down.

Should have gone to that training, I guess. So those are balloons. You've also got your floats.

These floats really started when in 1969, like the big spectacle floats when float designer Manfred Barsa got on board. Yeah, this is another big, big moment. It was man for Bass was like, you know what? We can only make these things so big because they have to travel from New Jersey to New York and we're not putting them on a barge. We're going through the Lincoln Tunnel. Yeah.

So he said, how about this? How about we figure out how to collapse these things and fold them down and then fold them right back up so we can get them through the Lincoln Tunnel and then we can just pop them right back up. And that collapse ability is what really changed the game in the 1970s when these floats, you know, got to be really, really big and, you know, takes three to five months to build them up to 100000 dollars to build them.

And it kind of goes the way of the balloons as far as the sort of starting out with the sketch and then eventually a little 3-D model.

Yeah, they start out with architectural drawings from the sketch and then make the models and then they start building and they make them out of like these things are like welded metal structures. They're like really sturdy. And they have to be because like the Santa Claus float, the one the current incarnation that was designed by a guy named Joel Nangle, Joel Naparstek, I think Naparstek it's an amazing float, like it's for small houses, snow covered roofs with Santo's reindeer, you know, swooping down the roofs.

Insana is on the top of the sleigh, which, you know, in in in reality is like three stories up. And I guess it's enough to keep saying, is Boufal Ajello, you know, intact?

That certainly made you've also obviously got tons of costuming in. Going on, they've got about 5000 costumes in their costume house, they're led by Kimberly Montgomery and the costumes are estimated to be about worth two million bucks, just the Claus's each Mrs. and Mr. Santa Claus. Yeah, they cost about 20 grand each. And they reside in the little specially made cedar chest all year long. And they add about 700 new costumes a year and then end up dressing about 40, 200 individuals a year in costumes, which is mind boggling.

Yeah, and they do it in like a couple of hours. It's just four hours. That's you really got to be on your game. I've been on movie sets. That's yeah. That's very impressive.

And then there's one other thing that a lot of people don't think about. All of those costumes have to be washed and laundered. Sure. After the parade, which I would not want to be on the wardrobe team just for that, you know, have actually said that stuff out or maybe they have in-house.

So, you know, so remember Tony Saag, the amazing puppeteer, sorry, the father of American puppetry. Thank you. He was, from what I could tell, the first parade host. I don't know if that's supported by the facts or not, but I saw it mentioned in a couple of places and I traced it back to one site that said it. And I can't find out if he was or not, but I believe he was, if not the first parade host, one of the early parade hosts, because the pretty in pretty short order within, you know, less than a decade, that parade started to be broadcast, at least locally on the radio, I think in starting in the 30s.

And then very quickly after that, it was broadcast in the 40s and CBS picked it up and started broadcasting it nationally in the late 40s, early 50s. And then NBC picked it up. And when you have a broadcast, you need to have a host. And so from what I saw, Tony Sarg was was the first host. And then eventually as the parade got bigger and bigger, he was supplanted by more nationally recognized figures.

Yeah. And for many years it was kind of kid friendly stuff, not that they ever like, you know, went blue and, you know, Richard Pryor doing it or anything like that.

But kid friendly meaning like Captain Kangaroo and stuff like that, they did have Andy Kaufman like on one of the.

Yeah. One of the floats ones. But he was ironically very kid friendly at times. You're right. That isn't a dirty comedy. It's true, man. But that changed, I think in the 50s, Jackie Gleason, who was certainly not kid friendly, he was a host. And then basically it kind of just became like, you know, let's get his biggest celebrity in here as we can. And they got bigger and bigger, which, of course, you know, there's a lot of eyeballs on this thing in person and at home.

And so they said, you know what we should do? We should probably try it like this and cost us a lot of money. We should probably offset some of these costs by allowing people to sponsor. Yeah. Some of these balloons. So they did that. And selling sponsorships has become a great way to alleviate those costs.

Yeah. And we should also say that they are like adamant that that they're like this is not we have never said that. So it's like but it's all out there. A bunch of people have done a bunch of number crunching and stuff and reported that it costs about four and a half million dollars to put on the parade and that they have something like nine million dollars in balloons and floats and studio space and costumes. And then again, like you said, about a half a million dollars worth of helium.

So that's a that's a bunch of cash. And when Jim McFadden came in and said, wait a minute, you guys aren't selling sponsorships, let's get sponsors in here. In the late 70s, that really changed everything. And so now from I think CBS News, if not Bloomberg, somebody reported that the rumor is companies pay about 200 grand to sponsor a new balloon, which I have to say these are like national, sometimes global companies. That seems low to me.

Don't you think so? Sure.

When you look at, like, advertising for the big game, yeah. 50 million people plus another three and a half million in person. Everybody's in a really good mood, all looking at the same thing. That just seems like a bit of a deal to me, which makes me wonder if it's way more than that in reality. And then CBS News also said that it supposedly drops to 90 grand after that initial year because, you know, you don't have the cost of designing and building it.

It's just, you know, it's been in storage for years and they just have to fill it up again. Yeah.

And there have been a lot of celebrity appearances over the years. Some, I think a little more. Some make sense. Some don't make as much sense.

Yeah, I love the ones that don't make sense. I didn't get what didn't make sense though about Miami Vice. That's when I didn't get so to me I picked this.

It's Miami Vice in New York in the fall, almost winter time. It's the Big Apple float, which makes sense, but it's also Miami Vice on the Big Apple float and then the speakers blaring, Glenn Fries, you belong to the city. That's like one of the least holiday theme songs anyone's ever recorded. But it's a Miami based song. I know, but it just doesn't make any sense. Like just have Philip Michael Thomas on there waving at people.

You know, everybody loves Tub's Ricoh Tub's. Why have you belong to the city like a real downer, like like song playing in the in the Thanksgiving parade? It just struck me as weird. Right. And it was the Miami Vice theme. Would that be better?

Much better. It's upbeat. It's energetic.

OK, can you imagine you belong to the city, just dragging you down on a nice, you know, Thursday, Thanksgiving morning while you're standing out there, you'd be like, get on with that. Keep going.

I don't know. I mean, I'm living in a river of darkness under the neon lights. Exactly. Don't ask me. Yeah.

What else? 1979, there was a Buck Rogers himself. Mr. Gil Gerard. Yeah. On the ocean spray cranberry float. You're right. I'll put somebody up there.

Andy Kaufman on the rocking line float. So to fax one, Andy Kaufman was the first celebrity to ever ride the rocking line. So instead of a rocking horse is a rocking line. Yeah, OK. He was late, so they actually had somebody fill in. I don't remember who until he made it, you know, on to the parade route. And then three, that is one of the oldest floats still in the parade. So when you see the rocking lying on the on the parade, you can be like Andy Kaufman once stood there.

I know there was I think like five or six years ago, there was a a bit of a kerfuffle with the rock band Kiss. Hmm. You know, the parade is they can't they can't sing life.

You know, that's just not how parades work. You give me lip synching. Yeah. And depending on how things are going in the weather and the wind and the sound, sometimes a lip synching is better than others. But I think the deal with KISS was they got really kind of mad afterward because they thought they were going to be on the Gibson guitar float, which was this makes sense, huge kiss worthy float because KISS does the big, big thing, OK?

And they're like Paul Stanley got to play Gibson guitar up there. He's like going to play Gibson Guitars and never have I'm not going to play a Gibson. So they said, all right, well, you can't be on the Gibson float, but we got to float for you and they put them on. I mean, you can look it up from 2014.

It was it was a little underwhelming for kiss, but the ocean spray cranberry float now, it was just a just sort of a flatbed with rails and it was not not the most impressive float, but at least have bales of hay on there now.

No bales of hay. It's it's worth watching. Interesting camerawork cutting way to the things that are not Kice while they're playing. It was they were pretty, pretty upset about the whole thing.

You mentioned lip synching. I mean, like this parade is well known for bad lip synching. There's a great one. If you go watch again that 1980 parade, one of the guys from Little House on the Prairie, Dean Butler, is doing a horrible lip synching job to don't fence me in. And it's definitely worth watching, I think he said the starts of the forty eight forty mark, just go check it out. And then I guess John Legend was on and you know, he's well known as a very, very talented musician.

Sure. And he felt compelled actually tweet out an apology saying like, hey, I'm sorry, I know I was lip synching. I actually don't lip sync at my concerts. But these floats are not set up for concert quality sound production. They just can't possibly handle this equipment. And so we Lip-Sync instead. And that's just part of the parade. And I guess he was forgiven because everybody loves John Legend.

Yeah, the whole thing with live music and a parade, it works for this because it's televised. But if you've ever been to it like a local parade where they have bands on a flatbed, it's just the worst because it sounds terrible.

Well, it sounds terrible. It's like, hey, do you want to hear 17 seconds of the song? Right. Because that's all you get. You know, the bands up there having a good time, but no one watching it enjoys it.

No. So there was another great lip synching episode in the 1989 parade that you can go watch. Just look up Melba Moore holding out for a hero Marvel superheroes. Yeah, that was pretty great. And it's just it's weird. So Melba Moore is great Broadway talent. She was also a huge disco queen. Right. And for some reason, she's lip synching to Bonnie Tyler's holding out for a hero. She had plenty of her own hits, but it's a cheap midi Casio version of holding out for a hero.

But then bizarrely, Chuck, have you seen this one?

I did. So pre Marvel like Cinematic Universe version Marvel these Buffy Terrible Costumes version 1989 Marvel superheroes are all like gyrating as her backup dancers for some reason and hoping her dance. And it was named by The Advocate magazine as one of the ten gayest moments in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade history. I love it, brother. Is it? I love it. I love the advocate. That's that's very fun.

I think you should take the most infamous one, though. Well, in 1980, yeah. This wasn't lip synching necessarily, but in nineteen sixty four. Is that the one. Yeah. This is when they got The Munsters. They got Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis, Grandpa and Herman Munster to recreate their characters and dress up and ride a parade float. In fact the Munster coach, which was great and apparently Fred Gwynne just got rip roaring drunk. He brought a brown bag, bottle of liquor on board, said it was nerve tonic to everybody and just got hammered and was like cussing at people.

And he was cussing at the hostess. And the driver of the car just had to, like I think he was the show's producer, had to just crank the music way up so no one could hear him. Yeah.

Can you imagine seeing a drunk Herman Munster shouting at you, curses at and the host that year where longtime host Lorne Greene from Bonanza and Betty White.

I know it's like the two nicest humans. Right? And he he apparently shouted like the mother of all expletives at them and over the The Munsters theme song.

I love that. That's great. God bless Fred Gwynne. So, Chuck, if you want to go under normal in a normal year, if you wanted to go, there's a few things you should remember, right? There's some insider tips. Yeah.

It starts at 9:00. You should show up as early as 6:00. They recommend insider tips, say, west side of the street on Central Park West from 59 to 70, 5th is a good place. Yeah, if you are sleeping in and have mimosas, you may want to go down to the toward the end of the route and catch things because they're going to end up there later.

Obviously, it's also less energetic further down, like the highest energy stuff is close to shore beginning from that.

That makes sense. And erm much just going to be plowed by the time he gets to the end of the year. Exactly. So it's actually a reasonable guess what you want. Yeah.

They don't sell tickets. If you see people in seats at the end of the route that is reserved for Macy's friends and family, you know, bring your kids but don't bring your strollers because they're just a nightmare. You can bring a blanket if you want to sit on the curb. You have to burn it afterward. But Jean MacFadden said, you know, what you do is bring a plastic garbage bag because you can wear it as a raincoat, as a windbreaker.

You can sit on the curb with it, you know, to burn it. And at the end, you can pick up little trash and be a good New York citizen. Yeah, I thought that was pretty great. Totally. So for this year's pre for the 2020 parade, because of the pandemic, they're actually not going to have the parade within two and a half miles through New York in front of three and a half million people packed cheek to jowl on the street.

Instead, it's going to be TV only. It's not going to be anybody watching the parade in person. And the whole thing's going to just be shot and take place in front of that Macy's Herald Square flagship store. And apparently they're all going to socially distance to wear masks and it's going to be pandemic Refik. But the show's still going to go on. Yeah, I thought this was a good compromise.

And while you won't be able to go in person, I think people on Thanksgiving Day that love to watch it in full or have it on in the background, it'll still be there. That comfort food will still be there on your television. And hats off to them for figuring this out.

Yeah, agreed. So that's the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. You got anything else and nothing else? If you want to know more about it, go on to YouTube and watch old parades and then watch the one this Thanksgiving. It's going to be the ninety fourth since I said that. It's time for listener mail.

I'm going to call this Australian voting. OK.

Hey guys, I was just listening to the voter suppression podcast. I thought I'd touch base I.

Where is that from. Is that from like a wallaby's corner accent.

I don't know. It's a good one. Yeah, totally. I'm just trying to put my finger on it. The system we have in Australia works super well. Voting is compulsory. It's on a Saturday. There's always a sausage sizzle going on so you can get to snack as well. It's great. So this stops voter fraud.

Everyone is accounted for and well-fed.

And for people who say it should be a person's democratic right not to vote if they don't want to, then they have the option of putting in a dummy vote or just getting a fine of about two hundred dollars.

Most people in Australia are amazed at how silly the US system is. It is for the US does have good podcast. So there's something that is went into something weird at the end there. I'm not sure what that was. Yeah, and that is from Jackie. Jackie, that's great. Um, yeah. I was really I didn't realise that other countries have compulsory voting where you're eighteen, you're automatically registered just from turning 18 and then you have to vote in every election from that point on.

I love it. And, um, thank you for Jackie in. Yeah. It feels so weird to for to do the opposite of trying not to get people to not vote, you know, doing the opposite of that seems right.

Yeah, I agree. And as it turns out, Jackie is a is a pretty prominent Australian artist.

Is that right? Oh, well, thanks for listening, Jackie. Hopefully we've had some influence in your art and that it wasn't one of your darker periods. If you want to be like Jackie and get in touch with us from your home country that Chuck might do an accent of, we would love that. You can send us an email to stuff, podcast it I heart radio dot com.

Stuff you should know is a production of radios HowStuffWorks for more podcasts, My Heart Radio is at the radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor and NBC News senior business correspondent and host of the podcast Modern Rules from NBC Think and I heart radio ties are complicated a year ago, but now Complicated doesn't seem to cover it. Sometimes it feels like we're now being asked to play a game where the rules have changed, but we don't know what those new rules are.

So I want to try and figure it out together.

The new season of my podcast, Modern Rules, is back with more probing conversation, because how else can we meet the demands of these crazy times unless we're at the very least trying to get smarter from sex and dating during covid to the dangers of misinformation campaigns?

We're talking about all of it.

And so what I see coming is, however this ends, that next phase will be a really exciting beginning for sex and relationships. I think it's going to lead to an actual like a post covid sexual revolution.

Join me, Stephanie Rule for the second season of Modern Rules. Listen on the radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.