The History of Balloon Animals

There is little in my internet wanderings about balloons that doesn't begin with the ugly truth that much history begins with.

It's gross.

The first balloons, and the only for many centuries, were dried and inflated animal bladders. Intestines were used for long ones. Not much less disgusting if you ask me, but all those ancients didn't which is fine because so few ever do. Ask me that is.

If you were to ask me to apply logic with no research involved (my favorite kind) these were probably more regular toy like than the balloons we know today. Balls for playing keep away or maybe floaty toys for playing in the rivers and lakes and oceans. I don't actually know, but it seems right somehow, doesn't it?

There is some evidence that Aztecs twisted animals from their balloons and burned them in sacrifice. I found that here. Brings a whole new creepy to the clowns of today doesn't it?

In any case, the first balloons as we know them were made from rubber by a man named Michael Faraday in 1824. He was doing experiments with hydrogen. It was a year later though that the first toy balloons were on the market. A liquid rubber came with a syringe to blow them up with. Oh yeah, THAT sounds safe for the kiddies. We have a gentleman names Thomas Hancock to thank for those.

The vulcanized rubber balloons that are closest to the ones we use today at so many events came out in 1847, so really they aren't that old.

History is confliced on the first man to decide to twist the balloons into creepy hats and animals. All accounts have it around 1938 at the Pittsburgh Magicians' Convention by a H.J. Bonnert. Little did they know then.

So this is the first craft I'm attempting. One good, and possibly best reason is that it's cheap. I've now spent $1.59 on a package of long balloons at Target, and I'm about set to go. It's suggested that I get a balloon pump as well, but what's the fun if I don't blow myself light headed?

No fun at all. Tune in and see if I pass out.