The Balloons That Ate Cleveland (A Cautionary Tales Short)
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Disneyland released one million helium balloons to set a new world record, Cleveland, Ohio looked on in envy. Could it top the Magic Kingdom? What did citizens hope to gain from getting into the record books... and at what cost?
This is a special Cautionary Tales Short - a bitesize warning for history. To hear FOUR more Cautionary Tales Shorts (plus other exclusive and ad-free Pushkin content) join Pushkin+ in Apple Podcasts or at https://www.pushkin.fm/plus/ .
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin |
| 0:13.0 | Hello, Tim Haafard here. |
| 0:15.0 | I've been sitting on some great ideas for gripping caution retails. |
| 0:19.0 | Their story is full of exactly the sort of instructive downfalls and disasters that I love. |
| 0:25.0 | But I've never quite found the right place to tell them during our normal episodes. |
| 0:30.0 | So I've created five caution retails shorts. |
| 0:35.0 | You're about to hear one of these bite-sized stories right now. |
| 0:38.0 | But there are four more caution retails shorts available exclusively to Pushkin Plus subscribers. |
| 0:44.0 | To hear them, subscribe to Pushkin Plus in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin.fm. |
| 0:50.0 | You'll receive other bonus content and ad-free listening on all Pushkin shows, |
| 0:55.0 | including caution retails, revisionist history, the happiness lab, against the rules, and many others. |
| 1:01.0 | Enjoy! |
| 1:06.0 | Disneyland, the happiest place on earth. |
| 1:10.0 | December the 5th, 1985. |
| 1:14.0 | As a celebration of Walt Disney's birthday and the 30th anniversary of Disneyland's opening, |
| 1:20.0 | Disney released a world-breaking flock of helium balloons, |
| 1:25.0 | more than one million saw into the blue California sky, |
| 1:30.0 | gladdening hearts everywhere. |
| 1:35.0 | Hold my beard, Disneyland, says Cleveland. |
| 1:39.0 | A million balloons isn't cool. |
| 1:41.0 | You know what's cool? |
| 1:43.0 | Two million balloons. |
... |
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