Tim Burton's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon: B. Boy

NEW YORK — Filmmaker Tim Burton has designed a floating freak show of a balloon for this year's family-friendly Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

With pointed teeth and jagged stitching across his face, B. is the Frankenstein of balloons.

A Burton-created backstory distributed by Macy's says the balloon boy was "stitched together from rejects of old birthday party balloons." The parties were thrown for children at a London hospital. But B. wasn't allowed to join in the fun. Instead he watched the French short film "The Red Balloon" repeatedly.

B.'s only dream was to fly and make a child happy – just like in that movie.

Now B. will get his chance at November's parade through Manhattan.

Burton has directed several films, including "Edward Scissorhands," "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

Comments

[SimonBao]

08:31 AM on 10/24/2011

Do they have extremely *young* people writing these articles?

How does this author not know that Tim Burton directed "Batman," and Tim Burton included in that film a major parade scene, populated with some unattractive and ultimately malicious and toxic parade balloons?

That's the sort of thing that ought to occur to a writer to mention in the article...

[SAvolio]

08:25 AM on 10/24/2011

Tim Burton actually did not direct "The Nightmare Before Christmas." He only produced it and created the story. False information. Bad reporting. Clearly this writer does not do his research.

[jacmed]

02:24 PM on 10/23/2011

Tim Burton is a creative genius in what he does; nobody can come close! His imagination knows no bounds. I love his work; he manages to make the macabre appealing, scare us a little bit but not gross us out, and leave us with pleasant thoughts because everything turns out fine at the end!

[fixitguy331]

01:27 PM on 10/23/2011

If you think this is scary, I hear they're gonna let Quentin Tarentino decorate for Christmas.

[anniefree]

01:22 PM on 10/23/2011

A few weeks ago, I went to the Tim Burton exhibit at LOCMA in LA. While I enjoyed his work before, seeing the exhibit, an enormous body of work dating from his childhood doodles, through to more contemporary works, and costumes and props from his movies - was, quite simply, mind blowing. What a fantastic and creative imagination this guy has.

Someone else on here made a derogatory comment on being able to draw their own stick figures. Well, go ahead then, and publish them, and use them to bring joy and inspiration to millions of people. You're missing the point entirely. His work is so sublime because it does it appear so simple, like the musings of some twisted yet benign child's mind. That's what makes it so appealing to so many. It speaks to the crazy, wildly imaginative child within us all.

When I look at Tim Burton's work, I think - I could do that! And I grab some paper and colored pens and pencils, and get lost in doodling for hours. My stuff doesn't look like his, it looks like mine, and I doubt anyone would pay mega $ for it. But doing it sure makes me feel good. Talk about making art accessible.

[Calypsis4]

09:44 AM on 10/23/2011

That guy is downright weird. Almost as weird as the Wachowski brothers...er us, brother and whatever.

[jmslotnick]

08:52 AM on 10/23/2011

Tim Burton is such an eccentric and really odd ball man, this kind of balloon is no surprise. It does remind a person of cartoon characters from his Nigthmare Before Christmas and the other one which I cannot remember about a bride. I have to say that the balloon, though not a beauty is a stroke of genius just being designed and made a work of art.

[SuiginTou7]

02:55 AM on 10/24/2011

The Corpse Bride. That float could have come straight out of that movie....

[Brothaman2k]

06:42 AM on 10/23/2011

When did the goal of the parade become to scare the isht out of as many children as possible? lol

[jmslotnick]

08:44 AM on 10/23/2011

How would a huge balloon that is in a big parade possibly scare anything out of a child?
With half the junk that can be seen daily by children and is shown on tv and movies that depicts monsters, murders, etc., and which to me is far scarier, and really big balloon will be nothing.

[proudnative]

01:35 AM on 10/23/2011

A little bit creepy, but this man is a creative genius.

[lvdragonlady]

01:01 AM on 10/23/2011

LUV IT!

[Mort]

10:58 PM on 10/22/2011

And this has what to do with Thanksgiving?

[detcet]

11:12 AM on 10/23/2011

Thanks for "out of the box" creative people!

[lizandrsn]

08:28 PM on 10/22/2011

Absolute drivel.

[cookmeyer1970]

08:59 PM on 10/22/2011

No more drivel than most of the krap they have in the entertainment section. At least Burton is a talented artist and director unlike the reality stars who are routinely covered here.

[olddognewtrick]

07:18 PM on 10/22/2011

Oh my...Yes. Amazing. That's the word I was searching for...

[sindfetish]

06:48 PM on 10/22/2011

"Burton has directed several films"...hmmm, I didn't know that.....................................

[Mendez1981]

06:56 PM on 10/22/2011

Apparently he likes to work with some guy named Johnny Depp. I'll have to do some research on the matter.

[MyrtleJune]

06:08 PM on 10/22/2011

Ridiculous.