Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
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50 free Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every Thanksgiving morning, millions of Americans tune in before the turkey goes in the oven to watch giant balloons sail between Manhattan's skyscrapers. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has been part of the holiday for about a century, and its history is stranger than the polished telecast suggests: live animals, runaway balloons, wartime cancellations and more than one windy disaster. This quiz covers the whole story. You will find questions on how the parade began in the 1920s, the character balloons and the people who designed and built them, the route through New York, the hosts and performers, and the films, sitcoms and songs that have borrowed the parade as a backdrop. It is pitched for a family gathering or a holiday trivia night: plenty of questions most people can get, a middle tier for anyone who watches every year, and a handful of deep cuts for true parade historians. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which silent-film cartoon star became the first character balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927?
Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat was designed by the store's own window-display artist, and character balloons soon replaced live animals as the parade's signature attraction.
Q 02What did Macy's do with its giant balloons after each Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1928 to 1932?
Released them into the sky
Macy's released them into the sky to leak slowly and drift back down over about a week, with a reward for whoever found one. A near plane crash ended the stunt.
Q 03Although it was held on Thanksgiving morning, Macy's first parade in 1924 was named after which other holiday?
Christmas
Christmas was the point: the store wanted to whet shoppers' appetites for the gift-buying season and show off its newly expanded, block-long flagship.
Q 04Which figure, crowned "King of the Kiddies" at the first Macy's Parade in 1924, still closes the procession every year?
Santa Claus
Santa Claus was enthroned above the store entrance in 1924 and has brought up the rear ever since, apart from one parade in the early 1930s that he led instead.
Q 05Which children's TV character's balloon was knifed and stomped flat by police during the windy 1997 Macy's Parade?
Barney
Barney was punctured by a lamppost and crashed onto his handlers, and officers finished the job with knives and boots as the crowd cheered.
Q 06In the first Thanksgiving episode of Friends, which Macy's Parade balloon breaks loose and drifts over New York City?
Underdog
Underdog gave the 1994 episode its title, although the real balloon of the caped cartoon dog was no longer flying in the parade when it aired.
Q 07Which 1947 holiday classic opens with the Macy's Parade, using footage shot at the real 1946 event?
Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street filmed the real 1946 parade with nine cameras at once, and its plot begins when the store's hired parade performer turns up drunk.
Q 08Which 1980s British pop star pranked the 2008 Macy's Parade by bursting into song from a cartoon float?
Rick Astley
Rick Astley interrupted the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends float with his 1987 hit, a live "rickroll" seen by millions that carried the joke into the mainstream.
Q 09Which lighter-than-air gas has kept the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons aloft since the late 1920s?
Helium
Helium was in such demand for the war effort in the 1940s that it was one reason the parade was called off for three years running.
Q 10Which marionette master, hired for Macy's window displays, designed the Thanksgiving parade's first giant balloons?
Tony Sarg
Tony Sarg, billed as America's Puppet Master, dreamed up the giant tethered animal balloons for the store, and his protégé Bil Baird built them.
Q 11Which Ohio tire maker built the giant balloons for the Macy's Parade from the 1920s until 1980?
Goodyear
Goodyear, the company behind the famous blimp, turned out the parade's balloons in Akron for more than half a century.
Q 12Which television network has been the official broadcaster of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade since 1953?
NBC
NBC has held the official rights since 1953, five years after CBS carried the parade's first network telecast.
Q 13At which Manhattan intersection, home to the Macy's flagship store, does the Thanksgiving Day Parade finish?
Herald Square
Herald Square has been the finish since 1924, and the final blocks are closed to spectators because they are reserved for the television broadcast.
Q 21Since the 1960s, what have most singers on Macy's Parade floats done instead of performing live?
Lip-synced to recordings
Most have lip-synced to recordings since 1964, because singing into a wireless microphone on a moving float kept going wrong. The microphones they hold are usually props.
Q 22Which children's show sent its cast to lead the 2019 Macy's Parade in honor of its 50th anniversary?
Sesame Street
Sesame Street took the place of the New York police motorcycle patrol, which has traditionally ridden at the front of the parade since 1985.
Q 23Which annual canine competition has been televised straight after the Macy's Parade since 2002?
Q 14Which rival department store staged America's oldest Thanksgiving parade in 1920, four years before Macy's first?
Gimbels
Gimbels sent about 50 costumed employees through Philadelphia in 1920 and kept sponsoring that parade until the chain was liquidated in 1986.
Q 15Which Midwestern city launched its own Thanksgiving parade in 1924, the same year Macy's first marched in New York?
Detroit
Detroit's parade was started by the Hudson's department store, whose display director had admired a holiday parade in Toronto; its first edition had ten floats.
Q 16Which video game hero's balloon hit a lamppost in 1993, the year it became gaming's first Macy's Parade character?
Sonic
Sonic was shoved by strong gusts into a lamppost at Columbus Circle on his debut, injuring a child and an off-duty police officer.
Q 17Which Dr. Seuss character's balloon knocked down a lamppost arm in 1997, leaving a Macy's Parade spectator in a coma?
The Cat in the Hat
The Cat in the Hat, six stories tall, struck the lamppost twice in gusts topping 40 mph; the injured woman was in a coma for 24 days and balloons that size were banned.
Q 18Which New York mayor ordered a balloon-safety task force after high winds wrecked the 1997 Macy's Parade?
Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani's task force brought in size limits for balloons, lampposts stripped of their arms and fitness tests for the volunteer handlers.
Q 19Macy's canceled three wartime Thanksgiving parades in the 1940s because the war effort needed which balloon material?
Rubber
Rubber was too precious to spend on balloons, so the parade went dark from 1942 to 1944 and returned in 1945.
Q 20Which dance troupe, famous for its eye-high kickline, has performed at every Macy's Parade since 1957?
The Rockettes
The Rockettes started out in 1925 as the Missouri Rockets, and at the parade they traditionally dance just before the procession itself arrives.
National Dog Show
The National Dog Show is the Kennel Club of Philadelphia's event, which dates from 1879 and was renamed when it took the Thanksgiving slot.
Q 24Which Today weatherman joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade telecast in 1995 as its ribbon-cutting host?
Al Roker
Al Roker's first absence came in 2022, when he was recovering from blood clots and the broadcast was hosted entirely by women for the first time.
Q 25Which Disney character first floated down the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route as a giant balloon in 1934?
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse joined a parade that had drawn crowds of more than a million the year before and that, one newspaper reported in 1934, took an hour to pass.
Q 26On Seinfeld, Elaine wins her boss Mr. Pitt a chance to hold the ropes of which Macy's Parade balloon?
Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker gets popped when Jerry knocks a pointy trophy out of a window above the route. The real balloon was a parade staple from 1982 to 1996.
Q 27Which Peanuts character joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1968 dressed as a World War I Flying Ace?
Snoopy
Snoopy had taken up his Flying Ace persona in the comic strip only three years earlier, forever being shot down by his imaginary rival, the Red Baron.
Q 28Which member of The Simpsons family debuted as a Macy's Parade balloon in 1990, on the day an episode joked about it?
Bart
Bart drifts past on the family's television just as Homer grumbles that passing-fad cartoon characters should never be turned into balloons.
Q 29Which Muppet, created by Jim Henson in 1955, first appeared as a Macy's Parade balloon in 1977?
Kermit
Kermit began life as a puppet cut from a discarded turquoise coat belonging to Henson's mother, with two halves of a ping-pong ball for eyes.
Q 30Macy's employees who staged the first Thanksgiving parade in 1924 were mostly immigrants from which continent?
Europe
Europe had been home for most of the store's staff, and their costumed march was such a hit that Macy's declared it an annual event.