Everything you need, no --want, to know about Balloon Boy

First the Facts:
1. His family was on ABC's wife swap.

2. He barfed on "Good Morning America" and the "Today" show.

3. As of 1:30 pm (10.16.09), 89% of people who took TV Guide's online poll thinks the whole thing was a hoax.


Breaking News, as it happens: Thursday, October 15, around 11:00am, local time, KUSA (NBC station in Denver) and the local cops got a call from the Balloon Boy's dad, reports B&C. That basically began the non-stop coverage of the Balloon Crisis. Even WTEN, the local ABC station in Albany, NY simulcasted CNN's coverage during the afternoon. Denver Post TV Critic, Joanne Ostrow, has this write up about how local channels covered the Balloon Crisis, adding this:

Terrific visuals of what looked like a flying Mylar muffin kept viewers glued to screens through a day of frantic coverage centered on 6-year-old Falcon Heene and the family's loosed balloon

This whole thing gave KUSA's website a major boost, number wise; here's what KUSA general manager Mark Cornetta had to say:

To put things in perspective, our normal traffic on a day without any major breaking news or weather is usually anywhere from 750,000 to a million page views a day, and about 150,000 unique visitors. Yesterday, we had 4.6 million page views and 939,000 visitors. And between the hours of 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. alone, we had 722,000 unique visitors and 3.8 million page views.

Finally, at 6:07pm ET, the boy was found hiding in a box (nope, in a press conference taking place as I type this the police officer says he wasn't in a box) in the attic. This is when people knew that it was ok to start poking fun at the boy's adventure (because he was safe), and some people began to question if it a publicity stunt for the father (he says it wasn't), or the family's Wife Swap appearance. A DJ from, 96.1 Kiss FM, Scott Ehrenberger tweeted this:

Yo Balloon Boy, Ima let you finish, but Anne Frank had the best attic hideout of all time

There's also this webpage with some funny images on it, about the whole Balloon Crisis. We also learned more about the father, CBS6 reports:

He also happens to be one-half of a weather-investigative team with a former on-air weather personality at CBS 6.

That part of the story here.

Later Thursday, the family gave an interview with CNN's Wolfe Blitzer, in which the Balloon Boy was quoted as saying this: "we did this for the show", which raised many questions.

Want some Barf with that cereal?
Then, this morning on TV the family went on all three morning shows, but only barfed during two of the interviews. I still don't know how the family was in three places at once!

Now, TMZ (the most trusted name in news, I know...JK) has the 911 call, listen to it here.

The cops don't think it was a hoax And, around 2pm ET, Friday afternoon, a press conference began with Jim Alderden, Sheriff of Larimer County in Colorado. Addressing the aspect of it being a hoax, the sheriff had this to say:

It's very evident that this boy is very hyperactive, to say the least, and, you know, the suggestion to us that perhaps this boy had been coached or coaxed by his parents to hide and remain still in this attic for five hours during the duration of this event, just seems inconceivable