Balloon Boy nine years on

It's been nine years. Balloon Boy must be 15 by now. [I looked it up. He's 16.]

You might recall that a Richard Heene claimed to have accidentally released a large homemade balloon shaped like a flying saucer. He called 9-1-1 and said that his six-year-old son might be in there. They shut down the Denver Airport and had helicopters and police cars chase the balloon for an hour. It finally came down but there was no Balloon Boy. They were afraid he might have fallen to his death.

He was later found hiding in the house.

When the Heene family appeared on CNN via satellite, Wolf Blitzer asked Falcon why he didn't come out when his parents called him. Falcon didn't have an ear piece so his father repeated the question to him.

"You guys said we did it for a show."

Richard Heene had been trying to get a reality TV show about his amateur science stuff. He had already appeared on Wife Swap and acted like a jackass.

Since then, Balloon Boy and his brothers were forced to form a heavy metal band called the Heene Boyz. Not much of a name. Just "Heene" would be a better. Balloon Boy is the cute one. He was made lead vocalist because, his father explained, he had a really high pitched voice.

I watched a couple of their videos. I guess they've given up on science. One celebrated the election of climate change denier Donald Trump even though their mother is a resident alien with a criminal record. Another song denied that the balloon incident was a hoax. Their father says he was forced to plead guilty, pay a huge fine and spend several months in jail to avoid his wife being deported. Their mother confessed because she didn't know what "hoax" meant.

I saw a video of the family on a talk show claiming that they were living off the boys' income from their band, which I suppose is possible. But careers in popular music rarely last very long. Their last video was posted two years ago. My guess is that they're washed up.

And even if they had gotten a reality show, how long could that have lasted? It would have been over in a year or two.

Heene is still trying to strike it rich marketing his inventions. One was a back scratcher---just a wooden stick you install in your house to rub your back on. That was $20. Another was a device for shaking bottles of condiments. It sold for six payments of $29.99 each. $180 to spare you the inconvenience of shaking your condiments.

I don't know if there's much more they can do on their quest for fame. The only thing left that I can think of would be for them to come clean, hire a ghostwriter and reveal the full story behind the hoax.

By the way, the penalty for manslaughter in Colorado is 2 to 6 years in prison so, even if anyone had been killed chasing the balloon, Heene would be free by now.

It's a sad story of disappointment and failure. Heene thought a reality show would be his salvation. He gave it his all. He'd do anything for self-promotion, but he was terrible at it.