Name: Fan Request: Dave & Harry's Balloon Adventure | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-03-08T16:00:09.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: Dave & Harry's Balloon Adventure | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: Dave & Harry's Balloon Adventure | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-08. Transcript available.

I uh now here's the deal uh a couple of years ago when you have a son you start
doing you're always
looking for shortcuts when you're a parent am i right you got it because you
have to conserve
you have to conserve yourself because you just don't know what kind of mayhem
they're going to
get you into so you gotta pace yourself so a few years ago trying to fly a kite
it occurred to me
there's got to be something easier than flying a kite and i put two and two
together and i said
helium balloons you you thought of that it's the same fun as flying a kite but
much much easier
and so we uh got a helium balloon went over to the party depot and by the way
if you're asking
yourselves what percentage of business does the party depot do balloon business
what what percentage
does that represent 50 is balloons at the party of their business i mean you
think about all your
celebrations your weddings your anniversaries your birthdays holidays you go
over there you get a
bunch of balloons well that's where that's where they make their money yeah
make their money on that
yeah so uh we go over there and we get a couple of uh balloons and at first
they said well you got
your 18-inch balloons and those were great and then we added more and more and
more and they'd blow
them up we'd take them home and we'd fly stuff and we'd hook things onto and it
was so great and you
spend the day uh just flying balloons and then the party depot called says
guess what we got some 34 inchers in
i'll be right there so so now we it you got to make several trips because once
those things are inflated
first of all they're a hazard to driving around because you're in your it's
like that and you can't
see anything yes so uh this was so much fun and getting to be so much fun and
we had a pulley system
and we had things hooked up and we were getting close to a thousand feet
straight up
i don't think you do that with a kite can you no no uh and and then there was
uh last spring there was
that uh uh not a problem could have been a problem but with the helicopter but
that
we were told that legally a helicopter shouldn't have been flying that low not
low legally but
nonetheless we said to ourselves let's let's stop uh with the the balloons
because when you know you
got to call somebody at the airport that's not good well uh in the meantime a
friend of mine here at work
jay johnson uh gave me a weather balloon and and this thing is like 12 feet in
diameter so over the
weekend it just seemed you kind of smells like balloon weather i said to myself
so uh me and harry we we get in the car we go over to the party depot guess
what you can now they'll
they'll they'll they'll rent you a tank of helium really really it's no it's no
and by the way the
party depot has everything you want like for a party a costume party and where
do i get roman
soldier sandals party depot they have those tiki torch lamp oil party depot
every everything yeah
so we go over there and i said really i can take my own tent and they said yes
and i said well how much
and she's about 100 pounds i don't know what that means but i thought yes so
now i got a big
torpedo like tank and i said well this thing explode and she said no it's an
inert gas i think
that's what she said i don't know but the problem if you share the shear the
nozzle off of the tank it
becomes literally a torpedo and it'll kill you if you if you drop that tank of
helium it's so highly
pressurized you snap it off it's a rocket so you got to be very careful that
would take the fun out
of a kid's birthday party saying uh so now we get the balloon and we go back to
to the launch site and
we got the crank and we got the thing to put the nozzle on and we we're ready
to go and i i said to
harry i said this would just be a test let's only fill it up about halfway so
we fill it up about halfway
and halfway on a 12 foot diameter is about like this and the the son of a takes
off like a bat out of
hell just whoa ow ow a lot of a lot of that you know so now we're thrilled i
mean we're harry is
jumping up and down and i said you know what let's crank this thing in and and
re-gas we'll re-gas it
and we'll see what we can do yeah and and by the way get ready to call guinness
oh boy
so we re-gas yeah and and somehow on the second before the second launch
attempt the dang thing
comes untethered oh so i'm standing there with a a limp string and harry's
going wow wow look at it go wow
yeah that's so uh i i realized okay uh i said harry uh we we have to let's go
well we gotta
we're watching this thing get smaller and smaller and honestly it must have
been like 40 miles away
like that it's just gone and you can just barely see this little dot and and i
said let's come on
let's get in the car and uh and he says daddy where are we going and i said we
i have to go call the faa
and and tell them that there may be and now i feel like that guy on the balloon
guy the balloon dad
i'm going to be on cnn all day balloon dad day it's dave the balloon dad saying
balloon dad yeah
yeah so i said that i i we we have to call the faa because we have to tell them
uh what we have done
because we don't want there to be trouble we don't want this to be a hazard
navigation we have to tell
them what we've done okay and harry says did you pick up all the evidence
who are you i'm telling you get over to that party depot they'll treat you
right ladies and gentlemen