As predicted, Balloon Boy began cashing in on his fifteen minutes of fame with an all-star interview line-up: CNN's Wolf Blitzer, NBC's Meredith Vieira, and ABC's Diane Sawyer. All segments were given from the comfort of Balloon Boy's Colorado home, surrounded by his family and punctuated by on-camera gastro-intestinal discomfort. So what's the deal: was Balloon Boy suffering from nerves, the overwhelming stress of being the pawn in his parents' publicity stunt, or is he just a weird little kid?
Answer: All of the above!
Nerves
During his Today Show segment, instead of adorably responding to Meredith Vieira's questions, Balloon Boy sunk into his father's shirt as his dad did all of the heavy lifting. Falcon feverishly stuck his tongue out and swung his head below camera view before interrupting his father's answer to say, "Mom, I need a cup" and promptly yakking into said container. As Today Show producers pulled out for a wider angle to capture Balloon Boy's next vomit in entirety, Falcon's family emitted an audible, "Eww!" In the GMA segment, Falcon jumped up mid-interview to vomit off-camera.
Publicity Stunt
During a Wolf Blitzer interview, Falcon's father, Richard Heene gently posed all of CNN's questions to his son. After Falcon was asked why he did not respond to his parents' shouts of his name while he was holed up in the attic, Balloon Boy eschewed the answers fed to him by his parents and went rogue. Sandwiched between his father, his clueless brothers, and his mother, Mayumi Heene, Falcon spilled, "You guys said, uh, we did this for the show." Blitzer followed up about the hoax but Richard Heene grew irritated, said he was "appalled" by the line of questioning, and revealed that was hesitant to even conduct CNN's interview.
Weird Little Kid
In the following homemade rap video, watch as Falcon and his brothers play the air guitar, burp into the camera, and gnaw on beef jerky during their incomprehensible song. Making things even weirder is the fact that the song was allegedly written, staged and produced by Falcon's parents.