Three new balloons are joining the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – a blue dog, a beagle in a hat and a big bug, the department store said yesterday.
Blue, the animated canine who stars in the kids’ TV show “Blue’s Clues,” will be the only female character portrayed as a giant balloon in this year’s march on Nov. 25, said parade director Jean McFaddin.
“It took until I arrived to get a girl balloon up,” said McFaddin, who took over the spectacle in 1977.
Olive Oyl, of Popeye fame, was the first lighter-than-air lady to break the gas ceiling in the early ’80s. Since then, three other inflated females, including helium hoyden Betty Boop, have joined the fun.
Blue, the fifth of her gender to float free over Gotham, will measure 41 feet high and 63 feet long from her cerulean snout to the turquoise tip of her tail.
Longtime fan favorite Snoopy will be back in a new guise after a hiatus of several years, now wearing a jester’s cap to celebrate the millennium.
“He’s a brand-new balloon,” McFaddin said.
The third addition to the puffed-up pageant of product placement is a 37-foot tall rendition of the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee.