Rectangular_businessman A funny short from Don Hertzfeldt, which has all the common elements present in most of his works : An apparently innocent beginning, a very simplistic, but very appealing art style, and lots, lots of black humor, with many twisted jokes contained in a very short time.The result is pretty effective, and well done. Even when this doesn't have the same level of complexity of "Everything Will Be OK" or "I Am So Proud Of You", this is a pretty good gag short, that serves to show how through animation even the most harmless thing, such as a balloon could be turned into something scary.Also, it's hilarious.

Polaris_DiB Getting back to the tongue-in-cheek humor of Don Hertzfeldt's stick figures is this roughly six minute short of anarchy and carnage! from balloons.This is, technically, the least complicated of Hertzfeldt's works (and discussing "complication" in shorts about stick figures still feels to me very silly, but anyone who's familiar with Hertzfeldt's other works will understand exactly what I'm saying). However, it's one of the most funny and absurd.Narratively, balloons revolt. At first it just seems like one balloon is fed up with the simpleness and mundanity of a single human child, but soon it just shows that balloons as a whole have a bone (or vacuous interior) for picking on all the innocents and undefended.And that's that. Sit back and laugh.--PolarisDiB

rbverhoef 'Billy's Balloon' is sort of brilliant. It is also quite sadistic, but the more sadistic it gets the more you will probably laugh. Just do not take it too seriously. It shows how a balloon is hurting a child, Billy I guess, by lifting him up and dropping him to the floor. You might think this joke will grow old in about a minute, but this animated short, around five minutes long, invents new little things to keep us laughing.The simple looking animation is perfect. It makes the sadistic events a little colder but at the same time it helps you realize easier that it is just an animated short. Animator Don Hertzfeldt has done a terrific job here. For something a little more disturbing, but equally good, I can recommend his 'Rejected'.

the dude-3 Animation in all its glory! As an animation student myself, and having made quite a few short stick-figure deaths and such to amuse myself during class, I can fully appreciate the brilliance of "Billy's Balloon." Luckily, I hadn't read anything about what was going to happen and was pleasantly surprised as the mayhem of Billy's balloon started and every time I thought the joke was getting old, a whole other element was thrown in. A great short film which I will hopefully find again someday.