The Macy’s design team spent nearly five months constructing the float: a 36-foot rendition of the Empire State Building that opens up to reveal various scenes inside. Tomorrow night, the team will spend about 90 minutes taking it apart. Before it towers over observers at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Thursday, it must be made small enough to squeeze through the Lincoln Tunnel.

On the eve of each Thanksgiving, the staff at Macy’s Parade Studio in Hoboken, N.J., must make sure that every float and balloon has been safely dismantled and deflated. Once their creations have been sufficiently shrunk, the artists can send the finished pieces on their late-night trek to Manhattan.

The team will also load a giant hot air balloon constructed to help celebrate the parade’s 80th anniversary. The vice president of the studio, John Piper, said this year’s theme is “Around the World in 80 Parades,” and that it seemed appropriate for the new balloon and the event’s director, Robin Hall, to lead Thursday’s procession.

The team will also pack away the Energizer Bunny. The giant pink rabbit will make its debut this year as a “balloonicle,” a new type of balloon that moves on its own like a car. It shouldn’t come as a shock that this one’s running on batteries.

In addition to new surprises, the designers will also send out some fresh twists to old favorites. A perennial parade icon, Snoopy, has received a makeover: He will appear in his “Flying Ace” garb, complete with pilot goggles, red scarf, and binoculars. The Pikachu balloon was also updated. It will boast flashing red cheeks this year.

The floats and balloons are escorted to Manhattan by members of the Port Authority, New Jersey state police officers, and city police officers. According to Captain John Collins, the commanding officer at the Lincoln Tunnel, more than 50 vehicles will be involved, forming a convoy that stretches to about a mile.

The rest of the year, the parade’s stars sit inside a four-story warehouse that spans about half a city block, where they are constantly revised and where new characters are created.

With high-profile characters always popping up, Mr. Piper, 50, said it’s important for the Hoboken building to appear bland.

“We don’t want people who work in the neighborhood stopping by all the time or peeking in the windows, like, ‘Are the floats ready yet?'”

The interior is a different story. The décor incorporates elements of both history and fantasy. From the gargoyle perched atop the staff refrigerator (Dinotopia float, 2001) to the models of Charlie Brown and Kermit the Frog balloons suspended above production offices, the past literally looms over employees.

“We make sure we have our old friends all over the place,” Mr. Piper said via telephone, as he stood in the team’s old-style booth with folding doors.

It took nearly half a century for the studio to amass such a collection. Before Mr. Piper’s predecessor, Manfred Bass, moved the team to Hoboken in 1969, the building had been a Tootsie Roll factory. According to Mr. Piper, “Manfred said there were still cocoa beans on the floor.”

Just in case the artists forget their purpose, there’s also a massive wooden ribbon that hangs near the top of the studio’s five-ton crane. It reads: “where the magic begins.”

To be more accurate, however, the magic begins in the workshops on the first floor. That is where the painters, sculptors, animators, engineers, and wood and metal workers comprising Mr. Piper’s full-time staff and seasonal freelancers turn what he refers to as ” jottings on a pencil and paper” or “noodling on a napkin” into the finished products on view every Thanksgiving. A balloon may take four to six months to construct, and a float typically takes three to five months, he said.

The chief marketing “bear” at Build-A-Bear Workshop, Teresa Kroll, said seeing her company’s completed float was a career highlight. “I cried tears of joy — seeing our brand so wonderfully brought to life via our float was an experience of a lifetime,” she wrote in an e-mail, adding that she sent each employee a bear as a reward for their hard work. “It takes a village to raise a bear and a Build-A-Bear Workshop float.”

Mr. Piper has a similar warm reaction when watching his creations on the big day. This Thanksgiving will be his 26th parade as a member of the design team, and his sixth as its leader. He plans to make sure each piece gets off to a good start.

“When I’m at the starting line, the balloon that’s crossing is my favorite,” he said, “until the next one comes along.”