The following article first appeared in the January/February 1997 issue of the Magic Menu. The Magic Menu is a bi-monthly magazine for restaurant entertainers. For subscription info, contact jsisti@ibm.net.
In my recent travels, a number of people have come up to me and informed me that they read this column. It was a lot of fun to hear from people and to get suggestions for columns that you'd all like to see. I've decided this time around to try something a little different. A few people asked for unusual sculpture ideas. John Holmes from Dallas, TX has a housefly on one of his videos (Beasts and Bugs). I liked the idea, but found a way to improve it.
My version of the housefly requires seven balloons. They are one six-inch green heart, two six-inch clear hearts, and four black 260's. While this figure uses several balloons, it doesn't take long to make, and the reactions make it well worth the materials used. As I said, the requests were for unusual sculptures, so I'm going to assume anyone reading this has the basic balloon skills needed to follow this. If not, most basic balloon books will bring you to the level you need to try these directions.
The body is simply a partially inflated 260 with three sections. The 260 is inflated about half way. Each section is divided by a pair of pinch twists. To make it, twist a one-inch bubble followed by two half-inch bubbles. Pinch twist each of those half inch bubbles. Then repeat this process two more times.
End the body by twisting another one-inch bubble and breaking off the remainder of the balloon and tying the tail section.
The legs are made from the remaining 260's. Put just a puff of air into each and tie them. The balloon is essentially uninflated at this stage, but the puff of air will make the balloon just stiff enough to make it look more realistic than a completely uninflated balloon. (For the photo, a piece of wire was placed into each leg.)
Slide one leg between each section of the body.
The wings are made with the two clear hearts. Inflate each heart just enough that the balloon starts to take on the heart shape.
Twist a small bubble in one lobe of each heart.
Then twist these bubbles together. Tie the nozzles of the hearts together. The two hearts together form the complete set of wings.
To attach the wings to the body, twist the bubbles in the hearts into the rear leg joint of the body. Then reposition the small heart bubbles so they fit between the remainders of the hearts. Twist the nozzles of the hearts into the body at the first leg joint.
Make the eyes with the green heart balloon. Inflate the balloon so that it's about four inches in diameter. Twist this in half and attach to the body at the front legs.
Flies in food goes over real well in restaurants. Unfortunately, waiters seem to get real tired of being called over to see flies in everyone's soup.
I hope to hear from more people with ideas and suggestions for future columns. Please let me know if you like the idea of having sculpture instructions or if you'd rather get more bits of business that you can use when making and giving out balloons. E-mail me at moss@fooledya.com with those ideas.