Cult-TV Theme Watch: Balloons

A balloon is a flexible bag which, when pumped with a gas such as helium, inflates. Although we commonly associate balloons with the festivities of birthday parties or carnivals, hot-air balloons are also a notable mode of transport around the world.

In cult-television history, balloons of both types have appeared frequently. 

Regarding the former variety, the post-apocalyptic Saturday morning TV series Ark II (1976) featured an episode titled “The Balloon” in which coded messages (for help) were transported via the objects.

In 1994, an “evil” balloon appeared in the second season The X-Files episode “The Calusari.”  A pink balloon (dragged by an invisible supernatural entity…) leads a little toddler to his death at an amusement park.  The boy wanders onto the railroad tracks, and an oncoming train runs him down. 

In terms of hot-air balloons, they have proven vital in terms of storytelling.  Perhaps their most famous and memorable application was in the finale of the second V miniseries, V: The Final Battle (1984). 

There, hot-air balloons all over the world dispersed the weapon known as “the red dust” which was known to kill the alien Visitors.  The technological aliens, unable to detect a threat from hot air balloons, were taken by surprise.

In the animated series Return to the Planet of the Apes (1975), “Terror on Ice Mountain,” a hot-air balloon is utilized to carry an apocryphal book (about apes being held in cages in human society…) to the far north.

A hot-air balloon also wandered into Altrusia in the third season of Land of the Lost in 1977, titled, appropriately “Hot-Air Balloon.”  Here, an adventurer who fell into the pocket universe hoped to escape in his balloon and take Cha-ka (Philip Paley) with him as an example of the missing link. 

The hot-air balloon was also a mode of travel between provinces in the series Otherworld (1985).  The Sterling family escaped from one region to the other in the episode “Princess Metra.”

In both Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974) and Star Blazers (1979), inflatable balloon replicas of spaceships (the Enterprise and the Argo, respectively) have been utilized as decoys in battle.

Recently, Professor Doofenschmirtz on Phineas and Ferb revealed that his best friend is a balloon named Balloony.