New floats for the 2024 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade unveiled
MOONACHIE, N.J. — The 2024 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is fast approaching, and this year's fleet of floats brings old favorites along with some new designs. There are seven new floats in this year's parade.
Dora the Explorer, Wednesday Addams
There's a Disney Cruise ship float with Captain Minnie at the helm, then there's a diabolical one featuring Wednesday Addams from Netflix's "Wednesday."
"She's playing a joke on her little brother, Pugsley, and sending him down the parade route in a sheet pan of rotten vegetables," said Brendan Kennedy, director of creative production for Macy's Studios.
Dora the Explorer and her friends will be exploring the streets of Manhattan on a new float.
Movie and TV characters aren't the only ones joining the parade.
Rao's pasta sauce is featured in a float called "Pasta Knight," and another highlights the Bronx Zoo, featuring a gorilla inspired by a real-life zoo resident.
"Her name is Julia. She got to the zoo in 1981 ... Our amazing sculpting team and painters crafted her with love to look very similar to Julia to tell that story," Kennedy said.
New "PAW Patrol," "Gabby's Dollhouse" balloons for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
This year's new balloons were unveiled earlier this month at the annual Balloonfest at MetLife Stadium, where volunteers were on hand to inflate and test them out.
Newcomers include Marshall from "PAW Patrol" and Gabby from "Gabby's Dollhouse."
This year will also mark the return of Spider-Man for the first time in over 10 years, and a newly designed balloon of Goku, from the "Dragon Ball" franchise.
Behind the scenes at Macy's Studios in New Jersey
The giant floats and balloons are designed and built at the Macy's Parade Studio in Moonachie, New Jersey.
Director of production operations Kathleen Wright says the next step is getting the floats to Manhattan.
"They fold up and collapse down into smaller than the size of a city bus to make their way through the Lincoln Tunnel up to our starting line on the Upper West Side. That's one of my absolute favorite things to plan every year for the parade," Wright said.
It takes months, even years, to get these floats ready to roll.
The designers say they are already working on next year's creations.