It’s the 99th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Gone is Popeye. Gone, too, his beloved Olive Oyl.
Down Central Park West, between the cheering grandparents and children, will float a giant leering Labubu and the Demogorgon — one based on the insanely popular collectible plush toy, the other a demon with a fang-crusted orifice that flaps open and closed.
There have always been confetti, marching bands and Santa, but today’s parade is not the parade of yesteryear — deliberately. New characters like the animal sidekicks from the wildly popular “KPop Demon Hunters” movie on Netflix, and giant versions of Labubu purse charms whose fame might be over by the time the parade reaches Columbus Circle, flew in to replace fixtures from another generation’s childhood.
“We incorporate brand-new elements that are speaking to the moment,” said Will Coss, the parade’s executive producer since 2021. He oversaw the inclusion of new elements this year, like the new float bearing the Demogorgon, a monster from the Netflix show “Stranger Things,” and a Lego float designed so Lego enthusiasts can replicate it at home in miniature. Popeye, who made his parade debut in 1939 and last made his way down the avenues in 1980, is on hiatus. He spent the day at his home — a Macy’s warehouse in New Jersey.
There was an anticipatory hush on Central Park West as Tom Turkey flapped forward and the parade started, and a subdued cheer slowly built into a roar. Behind him, people craned their necks for balloon Mario, and around him autumnal cheerleaders tossed pompoms. A marching band from Northern Arizona University played a festive Lady Gaga medley.
Along the sidewalks on either side of the avenue, and in Central Park, hundreds of people had climbed onto a ridge for a better view. “Happy Thanksgiving!” yelled a marcher dressed as a fat turkey, tossing his wattle to the side.
With his piercing “gobble, gobble, gobble!” ringing down Columbus Avenue, Tommy Johnson, 66, a retired Connecticut municipal worker, hawked his wares: stuffed fuzzy turkey hats, $10 each. He had driven in from his home in New Haven at 2:30 a.m. with 100 hats, and with just a half-hour before the parade kicked off, he had sold all but four.
He has made this journey for the past 15 years, he said. His family, waiting at home in Connecticut for him to come back for Thanksgiving dinner, doesn’t approve. “They know I’m crazy,” he said. “But it’s Thanksgiving. Everyone eats turkey. Why not wear it on your head?”
SpongeBob SquarePants floated by, the Wimpy Kid followed, and behind him, Spider-Man. Nowhere in sight yet was the “Stranger Things” float, which would feature the snapping Demogorgon. But at least two people will see nothing of it: Paul Andrejco and Michael Bush are the puppeteers who will spend the roughly 43 blocks of the parade squeezed inside the float, manipulating the monster’s arms and legs via a series of linked rods and a contraption similar to bicycle handlebars. “It has its own sort of life, its own inner anatomy,” said Mr. Andrejco, whose company Puppet Heap worked with Macy’s to design the creature, in an interview before the parade.
To prepare, the puppeteers worked on their core muscles and their stamina, doing test runs with the demon at the 72,000-square-foot Macy’s studio in Moonachie, N.J., he said. The puppeteers will tap in and out for each other inside the demon during the parade’s long trek from West 77th Street to Herald Square. “Puppeteering is physical work,” Mr. Andrejco said.
Sarah Maslin Nir is a Times reporter covering anything and everything New York … and sometimes beyond.
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