Sad Balloon Boy Saga Continues: Pukes Twice on Live TV

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by Steve Krakauer | 9:59 am, October 16th, 2009

» 6 comments

As expected, Balloon Boy’s comment on CNN’s Larry King Live last night (“we did this for a show”) has caused a media frenzy – although not nearly as much of a frenzy as the whole Balloon incident that started this thing.

The parents of six-year-old Falcon Heene thought it would be a good idea to go on the full morning show circuit, but to prove just how good an idea it really was, Balloon Boy puked live on air during two interviews.

Good Morning America‘s appearance brought a new wrinkle to the story – home video footage of father Richard Heene releasing the balloon, after a countdown. He says he found out after his other son thought Falcon was on board. With this new info, Richard was still not understanding all these ‘hoax’ questions. “To have people say that, I think, is extremely pathetic,” he said to Diane Sawyer.

But the really disturbing part of the story came about a few minutes later, when Balloon Boy said, “Mom I feel like I’m going to vomit,” started to get sick and ran off to the bathroom. Sawyer asked if a parent wanted to go with him, since they didn’t seem to be in any hurry at all. He was back in front of the camera, with a new shirt, in minutes.

This pretty much sums up a lot that’s wrong with the situation post-empty-balloon-landing. It occurred before Falcon had thrown up:

Falcon: Mom…
One parent: Shh.
Sawyer: You seemed angry.
Richard: Yeah, well. I’m sorry for yelling at you by the way

Later the family were on NBC’s Today show, and, once again, Falcon was throwing up in his father’s lap (this time it was on camera, as the picture above shows).

Meredith Vieira asked the family about the comment on CNN last night. “Absolutely not, absolutely not, now I’m started to get ticked off, because I’m repetitively getting asked this the last couple of interviews. What do I have to gain out of this? I’m not selling anything.”

Yes, you are. You’re a reality show family, looking for more fame. You’re selling your family, your lifestyle, your odd inventions. And your son, the new bizarro world star “Balloon Boy,” is literally sick after all this.

(One note – the authorities have said they have changed their mind and will question Richard Heene further today. Sounds like a good call.)

>>> NEXT: See the full interviews from NBC, ABC and, why not, CBS too:

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"balloon boy", Balloon Boy Show, Falcon Heene, Good Morning America, Richard Heene, Today Show

ImNotBlue

The most compelling wrinkle to the whole “hoax” theory was that the helium, even in that quantity, wouldn’t have had the power to lift much more than something like 6-8 pounds. If that’s the case, even acting partly as a balloon, partly as a kite, I doubt it would have had the strength needed to lift a 6 year old off the ground.

Anybody hear or see anything about this? A scientist’s report, perhaps?

Someone call the Mythbusters…
libra blue

Steve, I can see how shows like “Good Morning America” and the “Today Show” would waste valuable airtime on stupid reality show stories like this, but I was surprised that supposedly respectable news organizations like CNN and FNC would waste so much time covering this obvious hoax.

Not only did Wolf Blitzer waste valuable time “grilling” the family on LKL, but Anderson continued discussing this non-story for quite awhile on 360. This family and the news media are no different than the mindless average American who has become addicted to these stupid reality shows.
LVK

I have to agree with ImNotBlue–someone call Discovery channel and get this on mythbusters asap. although, that might end up giving the whole thing even MORE attention, because then whatever the result was the family would make a statement about it, news would pick it up, more people would comment and try to disprove, etc.

second thought, changed my mind. someone just get that poor kid off camera on to a doctor. oh, and maybe someone can see if this is a healthy environment for the kids in general.
ImNotBlue

You know what… I remembered that the Mythbusters ALREADY DID this episode!

Pilot Number 3
“Adam Savage went up in the MythBusters’ rig, which was a lawn chair with 16 plastic weather balloons attached, and went up to the maximum height that could be obtained with the safety ropes attached, 75 feet (23 m).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MythBusters_special_episodes#Pilot_3_.E2.80.93_.22Larry.27s_Lawn_Chair_Balloon.2C_Poppy_Seed_Drug_Test.2C_Goldfinger.22

Average weight of a 6-year-old… about 50lbs. Let’s imagine Adam is 200lbs (I’d bet less, but over estimate for effect). It took 16 weather balloons to lift him… that means one balloon would be able to lift about 12.5 lbs. It would thusly take 4 weather balloons to lift the boy… so I guess the question is what the homemade balloon, as big as 4 balloons? Doubtful.

IMO, things aren’t looking good for this story…
sarainitaly

I felt bad that I was so skeptical when I first heard the story… I didn’t want to dismiss their panic if they were in fact panicked. But, after seeing them on numerous interviews, learning that they are reality tv wannabes, and that they dragged their barfing kid all over town….my guess it was a hoax.

How sad. The kid is probably throwing up because he caught pneumonia from sitting in a garage for hours.
Ben Linus

Oh, boy. I love how Meredith Vieira just kept on with the interview, grilling the dad about the possibility of a hoax, while the kid is puking. Jeez, if O’Reilly had done that, the news media would have went nuts.