Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Wiki

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The 80th Anniversary Hot Air Balloon was a giant balloon flown in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

History with the parade[]

To coincide with the merriments of the 80th parade milestone in 2006, the Macy's Parade Studio worked together to create a brand-new special novelty balloon. Designed and painted by Joel Naprstek, the balloon features a large sphere with the parade's most used colors of red, yellow and blue. The balloon also marked the first time that a person was successfully carried in a basket underneath a giant helium balloon, an act that was deemed unsafe with the Observer balloon in the 1950s.

Parade director Robin Hall and fellow colleague Chris Meyers waved and smiled to the crowd from the brown straw basket. The balloon led the parade during its only appearance in 2006 and was retired afterwards, being later retooled and refurbished into the Wizard of Oz Hot Air balloon for the 2013 parade.

Gallery[]

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