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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Lifestyle
Alex Needham and Lanre Bakare in New York

Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade - live

Performers prepare for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.
Performers prepare for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. Photograph: EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS

And here’s Mickey Mouse…

In other news, the Nut Mobile has arrived.

Updated

More amazing old parade pics are flooding in. Here’s a LS Lowry-style uncle Sam.

Megan Trainor’s here with the Goldie Blox float. We wrote about GB yesterday:

Goldie Blox was developed to encourage girls to become more involved in science, technology, engineering and math. According to the company, just 14% of the world’s engineers are women. “Parade floats are engineering marvels in and of themselves,” she said. “I think ours is the first in history to actually celebrate engineering.”

Oh, and Megan Trainor created her own Thanksgiving Carols on Kimmel earlier in the week:

Now a marching band is banging out Get Lucky. It’s the song of the summer kids!

The cast of Sesame Street are singing about getting stronger everyday and being friends. Apparently, the Cookie Monster will start to share his cookies from now on.

Ronald McDonald has been spotted and he’s terrifying Oliver Laughland.

Updated

A dream:

OBJECTION! Apparently, NBC really have made a massive faux pas.

Dora The Explorer are here and apparently they show the value of community service. Now Becky G is performing in a MASSIVE coat. I wonder if she related to Gina G?

The marching bands really have gone up a notch now. The pace at which they’re marching and playing is frankly... scary.

SNOOPY HAS BEEN SPOTTED. And Oliver Laughland has sent this Vine:

Updated

Commenter Peter Morgan 573 (what happened to the other 572?) has pitched in:

Then there’s pre-Thanksgiving glory days, which has appeared in a few places this year but that I came to through Old Photos Reveal Weird Thanksgiving Traditions from 100 Years Ago. Supposedly Macy’s parade may have played a part in cleaning up Thanksgiving.

Good to know.

Oh, and now Good Charlotte are singing a song.

Lucy Hale is now gamely belting out a number, although her gigantic coat reveals how chilly it is out in windswept New York.

And she’s just got cut off by an ad break. Oh well.

We’ve got Mo’ne Davis in the parade, to Erin’s genuine excitement, the kick-ass Little League baseball pitcher. Even a giant turkey flapping its wings and two people perched precariously on top can’t upstage her.

And she’s not the only star here:

Someone’s offering a pro tip on Twitter:

Someone makes a fair point:

The Radio City Rockettes are on, high kicking to Let it Snow. “This is what they do, they kick,” says Erin. “And they’ve been kicking since the 1930s.”

Vanity Fair has tried to lift the lid on what it takes to get one of those massive balloons down the parade route. It doesn’t sound that easy:

... it takes a team of 50 to 90 volunteers to steer each cartoon animal down the 2.5 mile path while navigating sudden weather gusts, enduring the piped-in pop music of neighboring floats, and dodging unforeseen obstacles ... all on live television.

Yeah, “the piped-in pop music” ... and Sting.

Fancy watching those famous inflatables being blown up? Knock yourself out:

What’s this? Snoopy flies?

Meanwhile, another fan is making screengrabs which give a flavour of the event if you’re not watching.

Reader HarryButtz has commented:

For most Americans, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is background noise. It’s something you put on the TV while you prepare the turkey. Occassionally, you’ll glance at the screen in hopes of seeing a balloon go rogue or somebody fall off a float.

Hopefully at least one of those will happen before the end of the parade. Now the screen is full of pirates! It’s the cast of Pan Live (er, I think).

Here are some more thoughts on the Thanksgiving parade from the UK:

Flattered, if slightly mystified, that @LegaliseDrugsUK have just tweeted this live blog. Do they know something we don’t? For the record, we are on nothing stronger than tea.

Excitement hit the Guardian US office as Jimmy Nail joins Sting at the end of a beer-soaked performance of Show Some Respect. Erin: “Is that Clive Owen?”

Possibly a sarcastic tweet from my colleague Erin:

There’s a hashtag #whyimthankful. The first one has an eloquent simplicity

Funny Or Die and comedy bods Captain Hippo have given their take on the parade. They’ve replaced balloons of your favourite cartoon characters with balloons of Thanksgiving day items such as, er, a bed full of coats and cousins (AKA “a stranger who is automatically your friend”).

There’s a routine from The Last Ship to come. That’s Sting-penned musical which he’s joining in December, some say in a bid to shore up ticket sales.

Meanwhile, here are the exciting Thanksgiving scenes in the office, starring Lanre, Erin and Lauren.

It’s the cast of Side Show, which is a musical about conjoined twins, to which we gave a three-star review the other week. I wonder if the two women playing the twins get on, or if they’ve ever had a storming row?

Our man on the ground Oliver Laughland has just sent this through.

We’ve gone to a commercial break now, but just before we did viewers were treated to a teaser shot of the frankly scary looking Ronald McDonald balloon…

The crowds are being treated to a rendition of I’ve Decided To Marry You by the cast of A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder.

For those wanting even more pictures of that 1940s Superman balloon, here’s one from CBS.

The cast of Honeymoon in Vegas are giving it plenty of razzle dazzle on the TV – they even threw in a pair of Elvis impersonators.

Somewhat less irreverently/cynically, there’s an infographic about the history of the parade here. It started in 1924 and the first balloon was of Felix the Cat.

There’s footage of the 1940 parade here:

Updated

We’re in a commercial break. Buzzfeed have obliged with a Thanksgiving Day Parade drinking game. Times when you should drink include “You feel really bored”, “Haha people on TV appear cold” and “Who the hell is that”. I think this drinking game might guarantee that you’ve passed out by noon.

And the parade is officially open! The ribbon has been cut, and there’s a gigantic inflatable Thomas the Tank Engine bearing down Central Park West.

Forthcoming attractions include Kiss and Meghan Trainor, Miss USA and the Harlem Globetrotters, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If that doesn’t keep you glued to the TV, I don’t know what will.

Meanwhile, Santa is topping the bill. Surely this is a sitting target for anyone who wants to stage a demo ...

The Thanksiving day parade gets under way.
The Thanksiving day parade gets under way. Photograph: EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS

Updated

Al Roker is now on. It’s probably time to fess up that neither Lanre or I had ever heard of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade before yesterday, so this is very much the view of a fascinated outsider.

The parade has started with the cast of On the Town giving us a quick burst of New York, New York (It’s a Wonderful Town). Musicals trivia - the words were changed from “helluva town” to “wonderful” for the film. Our performers are fearlessly singing “hell”.

Happy Thanksgiving

We’re about to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, along with 3.5 million people lining the streets of New York and another 50 million viewers watching it on TV at home as they peel the potatoes for dinner.

This year could be a turbulent one – protestors described as “anarchists” in the New York Post, but who are most likely people protesting against the Ferguson verdict, have vowed to disrupt the parade, organising under the hashtag #stoptheparade. Here’s a picture from a few minutes ago:

Our Oliver Laughland is on the ground – Lanre and I are watching it on TV from the Guardian’s New York office. Do add your thoughts in the comment thread or tweet us: @alexneedham74, @lanre_bakare and @oliverlaughland.

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