Billy's Balloon

Billy's Balloon is a silent animated short film by animator Don Hertzfeldt that has won 26 awards at various film festivals around the world. The film was made as a student film for the University of California, in Santa Barbara. Hertzfeldt uses a minimalist stick figure technique to produce very iconic characters in a nondescript world. By submitting these characters to gratuitous abuse by seemingly innocent balloons, Hertzfeldt creates a very comedic animation about the secret lives of balloons.

In the cartoon a young child (presumbably Billy) is playing with a rattle and a balloon. The balloon takes on a life of its on and ruthlessly attacks Billy, hitting him, strangling him, and lifting into the air and dropping him. The ending is remenicent of the Hitchcock film The Birds: dozens of balloons show self awareness, stalking young children and assualting them en masse. The violence might be unwatchable with more realistic characters; the iconic figuration creates a still shocking but highly comedic result. This use of iconic animation to make violence tolerable is similar to how iconic animation is used in the TV series South Park.

The film, as well as Hertzfeldt's other shorts, has developed a cult following via Youtube.com which routinely sees ripped versions of the film being posted for free viewing. Hertzfeldt has gone on record condemning such actions since he offers DVD versions of higher quality for sale on his website.