By Mark Kennedy
Cher is obviously a superstar but even a superstar can be the opening act when it comes to Santa.
Organizers of this year's Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have nabbed the Oscar-, Emmy- and Grammy Award-winner for their 97th annual event. Cher will make her appearance just before the parade's end, signaled by the arrival of Santa’s sleigh, parade organizers said.
This year’s parade will feature 16 giant character balloons, 26 floats, 32 novelty and heritage inflatables, 12 marching bands, 700 clowns and eight performance groups.
It's a busy time for Cher, who is preparing to release a 25th-anniversary edition of her Grammy-winning album “Believe” and just dropped her first new album in five years, “Christmas.”
For the first time in its long history, the holiday tradition will begin at 8:30 a.m. ET, half an hour earlier than previous years, kicked off by multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-winner Jon Batiste.
There will be appearances by Bell Biv DeVoe, Brandy, Chicago, En Vogue, ENHYPEN, David Foster and Katharine McPhee, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, Jessie James Decker, Ashley Park with some Muppets from “Sesame Street,” Pentatonix, Paul Russell, Amanda Shaw and Alex Smith, and Manuel Turizo.
U.S. Olympic gymnastics silver medalist Jordan Chiles, U.S. track and field Paralympian Ezra Frech and U.S. Paralympic swimming gold medalist Jessica Long and Miss America 2023 Grace Stanke will also join the festivities.
Seven new balloon giants will join the lineup: “Beagle Scout Snoopy,” “Blue Cat & Chugs,” “Kung Fu Panda’s Po,” “Leo,” “Monkey D. Luffy,” “Pillsbury Doughboy” and “Uncle Dan.”
Broadway will be represented by performances from “& Juliet,” “Back to the Future: The Musical,” “How To Dance In Ohio,” “Shucked” and “Spamalot,” with an appearance by Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells of “Gutenberg! The Musical!"
Returning giant balloons include “Bluey,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “Paw Patrol,” “Ryan's World,” “Pikachu,” “Ronald McDonald,” "Stuart the Minion" and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
The Macy’s parade has been a traditional holiday season kickoff and spectators often line up a half-dozen deep along the route to cheer the marchers, floats, entertainers and marching bands. The parade has lately asked icons to be the last guest before Santa, with last year Mariah Carey fitting the bill.
A marching band from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the scene of one of the nation's worst school shootings, will represent Florida. Other marching bands this year will represent Alabama, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Texas.
Floats include ones from brands like Lego, “Peanuts,” “Baby Shark,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Sesame Street.”
The parade airs on NBC and streams on Peacock. Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker from “Today” will host and a Spanish language simulcast on Telemundo will be hosted by Carlos Adyan and Andrea Meza.
Former Take-Two CEO Kelly Sumner is looking for the next big game. But rather than investing hundreds of millions, his blockchain-based video game publisher Planet Digital Partners is targeting mid-level games often ignored by big publishers.
"Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Activision ($ATVI), etc., they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a game, expecting to be ... getting billions. And the kind of middle, where there's sort of really good, exciting games, isn't there," Sumner told Cheddar Friday.
Rapper Tip "T.I." Harris has already built a reputation as a musician, producer, and actor, but now he's looking to add tech investor to his credits with the launch of his new company, TechCypha. TechCypha is a "group of entertainers, entrepreneurs, executives that all want to pool our funds together for the purpose of providing technology to add culture," T.I. told Cheddar in an interview Friday.
Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's 10-year-old lifestyle and wellness brand, now counts stores in southern California, New York and London, where the Goop pop-up was recently given permanent brick-and-mortar status. Soon, an eponymous Netflix show will launch, joining a book imprint, podcast and website. But, as CCO Elise Loehnen told Cheddar, the content strategy is but one arm of the expanding business ー retail is the other.
New Age Beverages Corporation knew there was one thing missing from the cannabis-infused drink industry: Bob Marley. The company is getting ready to distribute three CBD-infused drinks bearing the name of the reggae legend. New Age Beverages CEO Brent Willis told Cheddar that combining Marley's likeness with a cannabis beverage was a natural fit.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Jan. 18, 2019.
LiveXLive is a platform that brings festivals and other live events to music enthusiasts who can't afford to attend in-person. "We set out to take the playbook from ESPN, to create the next generation MTV," founder Robert Ellin told Cheddar Thursday.
Shares of Netflix tumbled after the market close on Thursday after the streaming giant just missed analyst expectations on revenue, and forecast weaker than expected earnings and revenue for the current quarter.
Inflated housing prices and long commute times in tech hubs nationwide is "sapping the vitality" from cities, Microsoft President Brad Smith told Cheddar Thursday following the company's announcement it would invest $500 million to address affordable housing and homelessness in and around Seattle, Wash.
Marty McFly's self-lacing sneakers from "Back to the Future" are here at last. Kind of. Nike on Tuesday launched the Adapt BB, its first mass-market "smart" sneaker, that uses elastic mesh and a small internal motor with Bluetooth connectivity to allow the wearer to tighten and loosen the fit of the shoe via a smartphone app.
Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG announced at the Detroit Auto Show they will form a "broad alliance," but the reality of a partnership may present certain conflicts for both companies. "I think that this is going to be a very difficult friendship to make work because Ford ($F) is expected to make some pickup trucks for Volkswagen, which sounds good because Volkswagen needs those pickups in other markets," Nathan Bomey, business reporter at USA Today, told Cheddar Wednesday.
