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Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Wiki
97 PARADES AND COUNTING!
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in: Lineups, 1970s Parades

The 45th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (1971)

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The 45th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held on November 25th, 1971 in New York City, and shown to viewers live on NBC that same day from 9 a.m. to noon EST. It was hosted by Lorne Greene and Betty White. Participating celebrities included the likes of The Temptations, Tommy Tune, Lynn Anderson, Bobby Vinton, Sonny James, and Paul Lavalle.

Parade Lineup[]

Listed below are the Parade elements that appeared in the 1971 line of march. Each element is listed in their respective categories/sub-categories, with sponsors in bold.

Bold indicates a new Parade element, an underline indicates an element that was brought back after an absence, strikethrough indicates an element that was removed from the line of march, and * indicates an element that was retired following the 1971 procession.

Balloons[]

Floats[]

Specialty Units[]

Push Floats[]

Marching Bands[]

Guest Stars[]

Costumed Characters[]

Performance Groups[]

  • New Amsterdam Singers (New York City, NY)
  • Artistic Skating Union of the U.S.
  • Miller's Blackhawks Drum & Baton Corps (Dayton, OH)
  • The Radio City Rockettes

Pre-Parade Acts[]

  • Doc Severinsen
  • West Point Cadet Glee Club (West Point, NY)
  • American Ballet Theatre (New York City, NY)

Clowns[]

Trivia[]

  • During the Balloon Inflation, the night before the the parade, in blustery weather and high winds, the crew from The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company attempted to inflate the balloons. Tarps were laid out end to end, dotted with hundreds of sandbags and the deflated balloons were carefully laid out in their scheduled order of appearance. 3 of the 10 balloons (Snoopy, Smokey Bear, and Happy Dragon) managed to be inflated, but then came trouble. During inflation, Happy Dragon's head was severely damaged. Out of the three, Smokey Bear suffered the least damage. Despite surviving the night, his hat was damaged so badly that it required partial replacement and extensive repair. The worst damage of all came to Snoopy, who was mostly inflated at the time of the incident. The winds were so fierce that they wrapped him around the cab of the helium truck. Goodyear and officials from Macy's made the decision to cease inflation, removed all of the balloons for safety reasons, and declared that the 45th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade would go on without them, Despite all of the balloons not being able to fly, videotapes from the 1970 Parade were used except for Mickey Mouse and Smile, where they had to show their test flight footage.
  • 1971 marked the second parade to be shown to have a tropical storm/extreme weather that affected the parade, (the first being 1956, and some past years).

Incidents[]

  • Happy Dragon's head was severely damaged during inflation.
  • Smokey Bear's hat was damaged after inflation, and it was so badly damaged that it required parcel replacement.
  • Snoopy was wrapped around the cab of a helium truck due to the high winds.

See also[]

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