Balloon

**Balloon**, labeled **The Misunderstood** is a male contestant on Inanimate Insanity, and was the team captain for Team Chickenleg. He returned to compete in Inanimate Insanity II as a member of The Grand Slams.

## Personality

### Inanimate Insanity

In the first season of Inanimate Insanity, Balloon is shown to be the most manipulative and spiteful character, as well as the most hated of the objects. Balloon was extremely unkind to members of Team Chickenleg, as he was the team captain. Balloon rendered others useless, and made extremely rude remarks about them to the point that he could make outbursts of profanity. For example in Episode 2 (A Lemony Lesson) after Pickle decided to choose Taco to enter OJ the team, Balloon insisted that they "chose some useful to the team", but Pickle decided to choose Taco anyway, possibly ignoring Balloon. Not long after, Pepper suggests that they choose Salt, but Balloon insists that Salt isn't useful either, though says this in a profane language, before deciding that they choose Bomb, and that he has lots of exploding fun, possibly provoking Bomb as well, making Taco giggle. Later on, Taco suggests to MePhone4 that the name of Balloon's team were to be named Team Chickenleg, annoying Balloon. As well as being manipulative, Balloon was also quite childish, as shown in Episode 2 - he was easily angry at MePhone4 for asking Lightbulb to pick the members of her team first, and that Balloon had to pick the team after. Balloon also show's his childishness by complaining about the tree being "rigged" though it obviously wasn't. Balloon was quite violent in some occasions, calling Taco the "useless one" before kicking her into Team Chickenleg's lemon trees. He kicks Taco a second time after saying that "she sucks". Balloon complains various times throughout the season, using one of his famous phrases quite frequently - "Oh, come on!", and adds on to Taco's uselessness, saying that "his team's doomed". Pickle suggests to Balloon that he should be nicer to Taco, though Balloon insists that it was Pickle himself that chose Taco, and uses more profane language abut Taco. **Balloon** was overall depicted as manipulative, spiteful, the most hated, unkind, childish, and mildly violent. He has barely shown any kindness throughout the first season.

### Inanimate Insanity 2

Balloon makes a return to the season 2 of Inanimate Insanity as being quite helpful. He is seen like this in Episode 2 when he asks Cheesy if there was anything he could help him and the Grand Slams. Cheesy asks Balloon if he never knew that he wasn't very popular due to his mean behavior in Season 1. Balloon "knows that he was a bit bossy, but wasn't evil or anything" and asks the team to give him a chance. Balloon helps the team with the rocket, showing his kindness to the team. sarcastically realizes that **Balloon** helped the team with what they needed in order to go further ahead than the other team. Balloon is also very charitable, making an attempt to save Box from sinking after being knocked into the pool by Toilet in Episode 3. Despite showing his true nature of goodness, Balloon still finds it hard to make friends after his behavior to other people in Season 1. Though his campmates from Season 1 do not trust him and don't realize that Balloon has changed into a different person (only for the contestants who didn't join Season 2 except OJ), but despite that, he has managed to make new friends like Suitcase and Box. He has also befriended campmates from the first season like Baseball. Compared to his behavior in the first season, his behavior from the second season shows a massive difference in character traits. Balloon attemps to explain to OJ in Rain On Your Charade that he was playing a character. **"The Winning One"** So he says that he has seemed to act like more of a kind person.

## Hacking

In mid-September of 2011, Balloon's voice actor, Nate Groth, hacked into AnimationEpic's channel and deleted the current episodes at the time, which were the original 1 through 5.5 (along with various other II-related videos - The Taco Show, Nickel's Tips On Conserving Water, etc.). Due to this, the voice actor has been fired and his lines are re-used frequently. Fans and contestants show major dislikes towards Balloon for this. Adam, the creator of the show, confirmed that Balloon's elimination was mostly because of the hacking. However, according to the credits from Breaking The Ice, the original voice actor was rehired, which explains his new lines.

## Voice Actors

* Nate Groth (US/UK/AU/CAN) (Season 1 until Episode 5)
* **Ben Cross** (US/UK/AU/CAN) (Let 'Er R.I.P. - present)

* Marco Bonomo (Italy)
* Sasha D. (Vietnam)
* Dallas Nick (Season 2 until seen upcoming Episode 15 November, 9!)
* Cary Huang (2021)

## Trivia

* **Running Gag:**Balloon has been popped in Episodes 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 16, 19, 22, 24 and 26. In this case, he is similar to Bubble from *Battle for Dream Island*.
* **Running Gag:**Balloon is known for his catchprase "Oh, come on!" which he says in almost every episode he competes in.
* Balloon has the highest voice of all characters.
	+ This is probably because he has helium inside of him.
	+ He's also one of the two male characters to have a high-pitched voice, the other is Cherries.
* Balloon is one of the characters with the most enemies of all characters in Season 1, making him one of the most hated characters.
* Bow makes a reference to Balloon in Crappy Anniversary, by saying his catchphrase.
* Balloon was originally going to be a girl, but this was changed due to creative differences between Adam and Nate. This was also seen in The Inanimate Insanity Secrets video on YouTube by Taylor Grodin.
* Originally, Balloon was not going to be in Season 2, but he was added in to develop a new personality.
* Balloon is the only S1 contestant who was on Team Chickenleg to compete on S2.
	+ Coincidentally, he was the team captain of Team Chickenleg.
	+ Balloon got only 10 votes in season 1. Although if rejoin votes don't count, Balloon would have no votes in season 1, making him similar to Pencil from BFDI.
		- Balloon got his first ever elimination viewer vote in Tri Your Best, along with 162 other votes in the same episode.
* Balloon's voice slightly changes in Let 'Er R.I.P. and Theft and Battery.
* Balloon owns a standard wristwatch, shown in Theft and Battery.
* Balloon is the only member of OJ's alliance to be in season 2.
* Balloon was not seen in the last scene of Journey Through Memory Lane.
* Balloon holds the record of the most deaths at 9 deaths.
* Balloon is the only character to have a major personality change.
* Balloon is one of the two contestants who swore, the other is Pickle, if not counting one of the trees who appeared in A Lemony Lesson.
	+ Both of Balloon's eliminations were contestant votes.
* Balloon is the highest-ranking male returnee in Season 1.
	+ Unless Paintbrush is a male.
* Balloon was still running in the same contests as Nickel in Season 1, same thing in Season 2.
* Balloon is one of the two contestants who was eliminated through contestants elimination the two times they got eliminated, the other being Paper.
* Balloon was planned to receive 3rd place, with a final 3 of Balloon, Salt and Knife. Due to complications at the time with his previous voice actor, Balloon was voted out via a contestant vote early into season 1.