The Cleveland BalloonFest Fiasco (1986) w/ Clare Malone
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2022
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s September 19th. In 1986, the city of Cleveland decided to stage a charity event in which they released millions of balloons into the air. It went very, very poorly.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by The New Yorker’s Clare Malone, a Cleveland native, to discuss why balloonfest went so wrong, and what to make of Cleveland’s many attempts at rehabilitating its image.
Here’s a video of Balloonfest: https://youtu.be/n0CT8zrw6lw
Be sure to check out Clare’s Ringer podcast series “Just Like Us.”
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And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now from Radiotopia.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:07.5 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:09.5 | This day, late September 1986, the city of Cleveland has a great idea. |
| 0:19.0 | On a chilly, windy day, 1.5 million balloons were released into the air above the city in an attempt to |
| 0:26.3 | break a Guinness world record, but what started out as a fundraising stunt designed to benefit |
| 0:31.9 | the United Way of Cleveland, good idea, it turned into a disaster. |
| 0:36.0 | I don't know how much more of an intro folks need for this other than to say that this event is generally |
| 0:41.5 | referred to as the Great Cleveland Balloon Disaster of 86 or the |
| 0:45.7 | doomed Cleveland Balloon Fest of 86, you know, any metaphor or synonym for a disaster gets sort of plugged in here. |
| 0:53.8 | I will add one tidbit, which is, |
| 0:55.7 | as a result of this, the Guinness Book of World Records |
| 0:57.8 | no longer recognizes events that are deemed to be, quote, |
| 1:00.9 | environmentally unsound. So amazing amazing there's a legacy from that so is this |
| 1:06.8 | political I'm not really sure is this esoteric kind of are we gonna have fun |
| 1:11.4 | talking about this absolutely here to do that and to help do that is none other than |
| 1:16.8 | Cleveland native Claire Malone staff writer at the New Yorker and host of the Ringer |
| 1:21.3 | Podcast just like us which is all about 2000's |
| 1:24.0 | tabloid culture but Claire thank you for doing this nice to have you on the show |
| 1:28.4 | it's good to be here jody thanks for asking and Claire and I were on the 538 |
| 1:32.4 | politics podcast for many many years and was |
| 1:34.5 | hoping and been trying to get you on this show and I will also say we did you a solid Claire |
| 1:38.9 | because two episodes ago we talked about the basket of deplorable's comment and really put ourselves back in the |
... |
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