For the seventh year running, Jeff Kinney’s iconic Wimpy Kid, aka Greg Heffley, will be a helium balloon star in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan. This beloved character, who has an updated likeness in this year’s parade, will be cheered on by some 3.5 million spectators and more than 50 million TV viewers. These numbers surely will include many of Greg’s book fans –and they are legion: with Amulet Books’s November 1st release of Double Down, Kinney’s 11th Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, the series will have more than 180 million books in print worldwide, in 52 languages.
In this year’s renowned holiday parade, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary, the Wimpy Kid’s new incarnation replaces the original balloon, modeled after Kinney’s black-and-white rendition of his character, which debuted in Macy’s 2010 parade and flew until last year. In his new helium guise, Greg appears in full color, decked out in red snow boots and earmuffs, a blue puffer coat, and a green-and-yellow striped scarf. The balloon, which is 62 feet tall and 32 feet wide, portrays the famously clumsy boy clutching his diary under one arm with the other outstretched, striking a pose that suggests he’s taking a tumble.
Luckily, the bumbling protagonist will have a friend nearby to lend a hand. Kinney is expected to attend the parade to help guide the new balloon down the streets of Manhattan, where he’ll be making a tactically timed stop on his global tour to promote Double Dealings. The author, who looks forward to witnessing the colorful balloon’s debut, noted, “This will be a huge day, because I started with a pencil sketch, and we tried lots of different ideas. For the new balloon, we wanted to do something really different and dramatic. It will be extremely exhilarating to see it come to life.”
