The Macy’s parade started in 1924, but in 1927 its collaboration with Tony Sarg took things way up a few whimsical notches. Working with fellow puppeteer Bil Baird, a 60-foot balloon dragon, tottering Felix the Cat, hummingbird, and other buoyant wonders made their way down the Manhattan streets, and the crowds went wild.

. . . Sarg also worked on the annual Macy’s holiday window displays from 1935 to 1942, the year he died of appendicitis. He considered the balloons “giant, upside down marionettes,” and saw no limits to what they could do.  Each year of the Macy’s parade, he added new fanciful figures, ever more animated like a policeman shaking a nightstick, a 20-foot elephant, and a sea monster. That inflatable sea serpent was eventfully part of a hoax Sarg staged at his home in Nantucket, where in 1937 he had the balloon wash ashore to the delight of the locals and tourists. In 1939, Sarg was a host for the first television broadcast of the parade.

Read the article “The 1920s Puppeteer Who Invented the Thanksgiving Parade Balloon” on atlasobscura.com.