NEW YORK — If you are going to be a clown in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, you cannot just go out there and fool around. There are rules.
No smoking or drinking while in costume. No sitting on the floats. No accosting the celebrities.
At a one-day training session recently — called ‘‘Clown U.’’ — about 300 Macy’s employees and other clown wannabes were repeatedly warned not to do ‘‘anything that might show up on David Letterman’s outtakes.’’
But once they had taken a good-behavior oath — and survived a chaotic mass warm-up — it was fun times for the amateurs as professional clowns from the Big Apple Circus and veteran Macy’s promenaders rehearsed them in basic parade routines and forwarded tips like ‘‘conserve your confetti,’’ ‘’wear layers’’ and ‘‘go to the bathroom before you put your costume on.’’
The schooling took place at the circus’ big top at Lincoln Center and several adjacent tents left over from Fashion Week.
The trainees will be among nearly 1,000 volunteer clowns in the parade. They are be divided into Keystone Kops, billiard balls, wooden soldiers, and 25 more teams, each costumed appropriately and assigned to a balloon or float.
For example, clowns dressed as cupcakes will be with the Pillsbury Doughboy balloon. Sailor clowns accompany SpongeBob SquarePants.
The cupcakes’ captain, Susan Mazursky of Scotch Plains, N.J., who was dressed as a cherry pie, is a vice president of strategic planning for Macy’s and is headed for her 23d parade. She once was costumed as a stick of butter, she said.
‘‘It’s unbelievably rewarding,’’ Mazursky said. ‘‘Only the clowns, really, get to interact with the people who are watching the parade. Everybody else is just marching straight ahead but we get to go over and say ‘Hi’ and ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ to the kids, lead people in a cheer.’’