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photolover82 · 4 years

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The Masked Singer Season 3 Episode 5: Group B Playoffs (Commentary and Guesses)

Hello fellow Masked Singer lovers! Welcome (or welcome back) to my commentary and guesses for the Masked Singer, this time for the Group B Playoffs, where 5 remaining masks compete for 4 spots at the Group B championships. Ok, so let’s begin with the celebrity mask who was eliminated (btw I am pissed at this one ngl)...

Disclaimer: This is a spoiler alert, don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you don’t want the show spoiled, get out of here...

Ok so now that they’re gone, the eliminated mask was

*DRUMROLL PLEASE*

THE MOUSE

Ughhhhh why Masked Singer?! Why do you keep doing this to me? Always taking away the legends who deserve to stay on the show way longer than some others... not gonna name names, but yo White Tiger I’m looking at you. Anyways, yup I was sad about this, but I knew who the mouse was since the first time I saw her.

So, the Mouse was revealed to be... *SPOILER*

DIONNE WARWICK

Wow, yeah I was not surprised, this was too easy. Even my mom knew it was her and she doesn’t really know many American celebrities. The clues totally gave it away:

Rhino sculpture= her record company is called Rhino Records

Prayer hands= her hit song I sing a little prayer for you and she is also a woman of faith

Putting on makeup= I sang a little prayer for you lyric “the moment I wake up before I put on my makeup”

Brazil nuts= she lived in Brazil for years

They asked all the masked singers what their favorite subject in school is and she said math = she does have the Dionne Warwick Institute of Economics and Entrepreneurship, a magnet school focusing on economics which she did mention had to do with why she liked math

As for her performance, her voice is so recognizable like wow. She sang “This will be an everlasting love” by Natalie Cole and it was a beautiful performance. I loved it and I am actually really sad to see her go. She really did a great job in her performance because she’s a living legend.

Anyways, now that we are done with that, let’s take a look at our remaining 4 masked singers, one of which I have figured out and one of which is stumping me and 2 that I am maintaining firm on my guesses:

1. The Taco

Performance: Like I said last week, Taco is quickly becoming my favorite performer in this group. He sang Elvis Presley’s Bossa Nova Baby and it was a perfect song for his vocal ability. He has a very old crooner voice, like a Frank Sinatra vibe. He’s also really funny and it looked like he was having fun in this performance. Never thought I would love a guy in a taco costume but here we are so I think that guy is...

TOM BERGERON

Ok so I am 100% sure on this one, I know other people think it’s Tim Allen but no it’s not him, I am positive it is Tom Bergeron because of the clues:

Whoopee Cushion= allude to America’s Funniest Home Videos (AFHV) or because Whoopi Goldberg was a main square on Hollywood Squares, which he hosted.

The female taco he met that helped him become less of a hot head= his wife, he had anger issues before meeting her and learned to meditate because of her

Gemini constellation= him and his wife got married in gemini season May 22, 1982

The circular globe with the constellation= resembles the shape of the mirrorball trophy from Dancing with the Stars which he hosts

In the package, he was dancing with the “Mrs. Taco”= allude to Dancing with the Stars perhaps.

2. The Frog

Performance: Ok so ngl I wanted him to go home. He was my least favorite performance of the night, not because he was bad per se, it was just weird what he did with the song. He sang “In Da Club” by 50 Cent and oh wow he changed it to make it sound more jazzy and the lyrics were changed to be family friendly, which is all good, but it didn’t sound natural. It sounded a bit off the music with what he was singing. It was pretty shaky in the beginning, but I started liking it a bit in the middle of it. He’s a bomb dancer tho, very talented and smooth dancer.

Alright so I think this frog is as I said last week:

BOW WOW

I feel pretty good about this one especially looking at the clues:

Typewriter with the letters “CSI” emphasized= starred in CSI: Cyber

“Frog Eat Frog world”= real saying is “dog eat dog” world so another reference to his stage name Bow Wow.

Fame Star with $19 price tag= when he was 19, wrote a song called the price of fame

Little Green Soldiers= collaborated with Soulja Boy on mixtapes

3. The Banana

Performance: Ok, so this one I really am warming up to. I like him more now than I did last week, because he was more real and I don’t know I just really enjoy when he performs. It is always fun to see him perform, but having said that, oh my gosh you guys I feel like I know who he is and I am sure about this even though last week I was confused af... this week the clues helped me get it.

I think the Banana is:

BRET MICHAELS

Ok I am so sure about this one, the body type and height match. The accent and voice matches his too and the clues really solidified it for me this time:

Snake on the computer= poisonous= his band named Poison

Cowboy Boots and Hats= he was those all of the time

Alarm clock with 2:13= 2nd letter of the alphabet is b and the 13th one is m (his initials)

6/8 on the alarm clock= June 8th is National Name Your Poison Day

4. The Kitty

Performance: Ok, like I know I love the kitty and her voice is amazing, but she’s really confusing me. I felt like last week I was sure about Sabrina Carpenter and that’s what I heard in her voice, but now I am hearing something completely different. She sang Mercy by Brett Young and I don’t feel like this is a song Sabrina would sing. I am really torn with this one, so this is just a guess that I have so far, but I have no idea:

LUCY HALE?

Ok, so hear me out. I have been going back and forth between her and Sabrina Carpenter and in this performance, she didn’t sound like Sabrina and when I looked up Lucy’s voice, it sounded very similar to this performance and the song choice made sense because of Lucy’s love of country music, but let’s look at the clues:

The sewing in the clue package looks eerily similar to her role as Katy Keene in the CW Riverdale spin-off show that just came out of the same name.

Red Riding Hood= allude to Pretty Little Liars which used red riding hood as a metaphor for the show

I mean I don’t know she is very short (5′ 2″) so fits the profile

Well, that’s it. Let me know if you agree or disagree with my guesses/what your guesses were. Also, did you guess the mouse correctly? Let me know! That's all and see you next week for the Group B championships, the last of Group B.

#TheMaskedSinger #the masked singer season 3 #dionne warwick

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Riverdale Season 5 Episode 4 Review – Chapter 80: Purgatorio

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Riverdale reinvents itself as the fifth season properly gets underway.

This RIVERDALE review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 4

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“To be honest, it doesn’t even feel like Riverdale anymore.”

You can say that again Archie.

Following three episodes originally intended for last year and a seven-year time jump, Riverdale‘s fifth season gets well and truly underway with an installment designed not so much with shaking up the status quo but reinventing it completely. To borrow the name of a Flaming Lips song — you just know NYC writer’s block-stricken Jughead listens to lots of the band’s output — suddenly everything has changed.

In the near decade since he was last home, Archie has been through hell fighting in an unnamed conflict in which he feels responsible for one of his fellow soldiers losing a leg. He has dreams that mix battle imagery with the formally idyllic existence he had in high school. (At least that’s what I think we’re supposed to feel here, even though Archie’s teen years were fraught with bear attacks and attempted murders aplenty but I digress). The point being that Archie sees Riverdale, despite its obvious flaws, as a safe haven. Always one to embrace a cliche though, he quickly learns that you can’t go home again. Riverdale is now just as dangerous as his overseas battle. It wasn’t a nightmare he had, it was a premonition.

Ordered to run Riverdale High School’s ROTC program, Archie comes home is quickly brought up to speed by Toni — pregnant and running the reborn White Wyrm out of the former space of La Bonne Nuit. Lawlessness prevails throughout town, leaving Riverdale largely empty with the exception of those who are too poor or proud to try to restart elsewhere. The city is without hope. Mayhem reigns. Is Archie Batman now? God I hope so.

Responsible for the community’s downfall is, you guessed it, Hiram Lodge. Without the influence of Hermione or Veronica to keep his worst instincts in check, Hiram has become the villain he has always longed to be. (He’s enlisted Reggie to be his right hand man, making that character the closest to his pain-in-the-ass comic book counterpart to date). Some murky dialogue vaguely explains that Hiram’s wrongdoing is connected to his long-gestating SoDale real estate development, but the specifics don’t matter. What does is that Mr. Lodge is in power like never before, and all of Riverdale is suffering as a result.

Meanwhile at Quantico, FBI trainee Betty is also haunted by her recent past. While pursuing the hilariously named Trash Bag Killer, she didn’t wait for backup — becoming the killer’s captive before he escaped in the process. Her loving partner — let’s call him Molder for now, Mad magazine style — is worried that she isn’t dealing with the trauma of her experience, as is her therapist. But soon she too is called back home to deal with what we think is a crisis but is really just a very sweet thing. More on that in a few minutes.

We catch up with New Yorker Veronica, who is married to real estate tycoon Chadwick Gekko (Chris Mason, portraying a character from Katy Keene that Reid Prebenda originated). Apparently she used to be the “she wolf of Wall Street” until she lost her mojo after being involved in a near-fatal helicopter accident with Chad. Since then, she’s been secretly working in an upscale jewelry store that let’s her take advantage of the smart business acumen she frequently demonstrated during her high school years. But when she sells a Glamorege egg that Chadwick gave to her, it’s clear that their relationship is more than just a little fractured.

Also in the Big Apple is Jughead, and he’s just full on skeezy now. With dubious facial hair and a penchant for sleeping with fans, this version of Jughead is easily the most disturbing new version of one of the series’ core four. We learn that his first book, the S.E. Hinton meets Pop Tate’s Chok’lit Shoppe pastiche The Outcasts was a mega success that made him a fleeting media darling. But now Jughead has severe writer’s block…not to mention debt collectors literally pounding at his door and toxic boyfriend tendencies we see him display briefly. Basically he sucks. If anyone can use a priority realignment it’s him. Fortunately, he too gets a call beckoning him home.

Once the gang is back together in Riverdale, for Pop Tate’s retirement party!, awww, we get an update on Cheryl. She has successfully rebuilt Thornhill and rehabilitated the Blossom family name over the past seven years…with a cost. She still feels cursed by her family’s misdeeds and spurns Toni’s attempts to reconcile and instead chooses to live as a recluse. (I mean, for at least the remainder of this episode).

Finally reunited with all of friends, Archie is determined to enlist their help in saving the soul of Riverdale. Not that any of them seem too happy to join this crusade. But the episode doesn’t dwell on their responses as it is too busy establishing a new mystery — a murderous trucker is on the loose. And our heroes are the only one who can stop him. Obviously.

This episode is a very typical one in that it bombards the viewer with new information. True, it doesn’t feel like Riverdale as we know it, but that’s a good thing. After a previous season that was a bit middling, I am more than supportive of this quasi reboot happening here. The series has been renewed for a sixth season, so it’s likely that it will find it’s new rhythm over the course of the upcoming installments and a new normal will settle in. For now though, there’s a lot of possibility here. Riverdale‘s biggest mystery right now? Where it will go next.

Riverdale Roundup

• Along with Saving Private Ryan, the nightmare that starts this episode is also a reference to the excellent Archie 1941 miniseries — which explored how World War II impacted Riverdale and its characters.

• Since Archie and Betty are now both experiencing PTSD, will their shared trauma bond them together?

• I absolutely believe that each of these characters would return to Riverdale to bid farewell to Pop Tate, given how important his shop has been in each of their lives.

• Let’s hear it for more screen time for Vanessa Morgan’s Toni Topaz! Choni forever! (That baby bump was real by the way, she gave birth to her first child last week).

• Archie reads Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, in case any of you were worried that the series’ fondness for anachronisms would be lost during the seven year time jump. Also, Archie being able to read is canon!

• Even though Katy Keene is long-cancelled, it’s nice to see that show’s title character (and her employer, Lacy’s) get referenced here.

• As an Archie comics diehard fan, I am incensed that the show has ditched his iconic whoopee hat. Yet I have a feeling by the time this season ends we will witness him throwing it back on in an effort to reclaim the artistic power that his former self possessed.

• Kevin and Fangs are established as still being together, with the former working at Riverdale High. Alice’s current whereabouts are unknown. I hope Vegas has been rehomed.

• In case Betty’s Silence of the Lambs parallels were a tad too understated for your taste, her therapist’s name is Dr. Starling. And if someone doesn’t sing “Goodbye Horses” this season I will be very upset.

• The FBI waited seven years to dismantle the two-person (one of whom wasn’t even a real agent) Riverdale field office? Actually, given government inefficiency, this sounds just about right.

• Veronica and Chadwick’s helicopter accident happened while they were on their way to “Marsha’s Vineyard,” because apparently Riverdale 2.0 now does fake places as well as brands.

• That abandoned doll Archie found in Pickens Park is super creepy.

• Betty’s cat is named Coffee, and given her history as a pet owner, I fear for the feline.

• Towards the end of this episode, new character Tabitha Tate (Erinn Westbrook) bids farewell to drifter Lynette “Squeaky” Fields. Given that Fields’ nickname is a Manson Family reference, could Riverdale have a death cult on its hands?

• Other mysteries raised by this episode: Who is the father of Toni’s baby? How will Veronica feel about La Bonne Nuit becoming a Serpent hangout? How long have Betty and her partner been together? Will Jughead get a razor? Who is the Lonely Highway killer? How did Reggie get involved with working for Hiram? What exactly are Hiram’s SoDale plans? How long until someone punches Chadwick? Where’s Mary Andrews? How long have the Ghoulies been back in Riverdale…and Archie’s house for that matter? If Riverdale is such a cesspool, what exactly does Tom Keller do all day? I suppose we will just have to wait for answers to all of these questions and more. Until next week!

The post Riverdale Season 5 Episode 4 Review – Chapter 80: Purgatorio appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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jeaniegenlow · 5 years

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Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man, in the Tampa Bay Times

Award Winning Author – Alexandra Zayas is an award winning writer who wrote an article about my balloon business in Tampa a few years ago. It wasn’t until most recently when I figured out just how many awards she had really won!

I remember her as a kind, fun-loving reporter sitting at our kitchen table asking me questions about what I did, why I did it, and some of the more enjoyable moments in my career. I thought she was one in a million as I had just finished with a few other reporters at the time. Boy was I wrong! I did an event for a few photographers at the Tampa Bay Times this past weekend and found out that EVERYONE on their staff is fun and a pleasure to be with.

I also found out just how much of an honor it was to be written about by Alexandra. Just five days ago she won the Livingston Award which honors “outstanding achievement by professionals under the age of 35.” She is also a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, and the winner of the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting.

If you wish to share with Alexandra one of your untold stories, you can contact her at the information below. She is always looking for ideas in the greater Tampa Bay area.

Phone: (813) 226-3354 Email: [email protected] Twitter: @AlexandraZayas

Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man in the News! Tampa Bay Times

The Balloon Story she wrote was found in the Tampa Bay Times and can be read below or visited at the following link: http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/florida-artist-builds-sculptures-that-take-his-breath-away-balloon-art/1055114

LUTZ Jonathan Fudge sleeps among balloons, thousands and thousands of them, grouped by color, lined up in rows, stuffed into boxes and stacked by his bed. When their time comes, they’ll fill his apron in slots assigned to each type — opaque and clear, powder soft and squeaky, yellow and marigold.

They’ll hang out like long, skinny snakes until he needs one. He’ll dip in, pick it out, blow it up. He’ll twist it into a monkey, or a motorcycle, or a monkey riding a motorcycle flinging poo. And he’ll give it away.

Sometimes, he’ll charge a few bucks. Sometimes, he’ll charge a few thousand. Sometimes, he’ll have to split the cash with other balloon twisters who help him out.

Like the time he built a life-sized balloon statue of Ernest Hemingway, in a Key West scene, surrounded by eight palm trees, a macaw and a six-toed cat.

Or that time he built a 12-foot-high replica of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, complete with windows, a tail and periscopes shooting out the top — using just those strings of latex, the occasional pump, a little help from his friends.

And the air in his lungs.

• • •

At 23, Fudge looks back thousands of balloons ago to his very first. It was magic camp. He was 8, and a lousy magician.

The head magician, a big man named Daniel P. Fite with a Capt. Kangaroo moustache, also twisted balloons. He gave one to Fudge and told him to come back when he’d blown it up.

It took the boy a week, and it showed. The balloon was ugly, deformed. He handed it to the moustached magician.

The man ripped it in half.

Fudge’s heart sank to his stomach. But before a tear could come to his eye, Fite took one balloon in each hand, simultaneously blew them up and tied them. And with swift twists of his fingers and flicks of his wrist, turned them into two dogs.

“This guy,” Fudge says, “became my balloon hero.”

He returned to camp every year after that. And sometimes, he followed the magician to theme parks like Disney World, where they would make swords and flowers and hearts for people standing in line. At 15, he made his first tip: $5.

A year or two later, a relative asked him to talk about balloon art at the Great American Teach-In. He needed some expert advice, so he put out a message on the Internet. A woman known in the balloon world as Grandma Maxine Baird wrote him back. She had been looking to sponsor young artists. She told him she would pay his way into a face painting and balloon conference in Orlando. All he had to do was bring fudge.

So the teenaged Fudge showed up with his fudge and stepped into another world.

The hallway was lined with what looked like mannequins. They were human models, standing very still, being painted from head-to-toe. As Fudge walked past, artists begged him to stop, saying they needed another body. But he kept walking, toward a room he heard was the setting of a “balloon jam.”

Think of a jazz jam, people playing their own instruments, exploring their own creativity, synching up if they find a vibe they like. The same is true for balloon jams — you start with small pieces and build as you go.

Evidence exists that the Aztecs once made balloon animals out of the inflated bowels of real animals. But the art of rubber balloon twisting is only a half-century old. And it’s evolving exponentially. Balloon hats and toys have grown into haute-fashion costumes and sculptures bigger than buildings, made for high-paying corporate sponsors.

Some of these ideas are born at balloon jams.

“I get to the balloon room,” Fudge remembers, “there’s a couple of clowns sitting in the corner, Elmo Twist and Peaches. They’re seasoned clowns. They can’t drive at night. Elmo Twist taught me a balloon swallowing routine — for adults only.”

The room was full of such characters, people Fudge would later learn were big deals in the balloon world. He taught one how to make a snail out of a balloon. They didn’t tell him who they were, but they liked his enthusiasm for teaching. He was in.

At a later convention, one big-deal artist asked if he wanted to help create an installation. He did. It was a castle, complete with a long-haired Rapunzel and an alligator swimming in the moat.

He was still in high school, balloon-twisting at five or six restaurants a week, making $150 in one night, what he made in two weeks working at Domino’s Pizza.

• • •

Fast-forward to early this November. Fudge stared at a small toy replica of the Yellow Submarine. He was being paid to copy it into a really, really big balloon version for one of the biggest social events of the year, the Make-A-Wish Ball, where the best tables went for $20,000.

Gone were the simple days of sword balloons.

By now, he’d fulfilled even the strangest on-the-spot balloon twisting requests: a life-sized bed that floated on water, a refrigerator, a banana hammock — “that’s a banana in a hammock. I made it clear I wasn’t going to make anything else.”

He had worked for agencies and started one himself, trained artists who went on to train other artists, stood on a street corner in Okinawa, Japan, making mostly butterflies and octopuses, since those were the only Japanese words he knew.

And now he had landed the submarine gig. He teamed up with master artist John Watkins and brought in a third guy to help blow balloons.

After staring at the toy, they broke its shape into parts. The base looked like a big, yellow whoopee cushion. They started that first, and they kept building — filling balloons with enough air to create a full shape, but not enough to make it pop when twisted.

They inflated 800 balloons. They worked 77 hours.

The party’s theme was Imagine. A big sign announced “All you need is LOVE.” The LOVE was made completely of flowers. In the middle of the ballroom, a big disco ball hung from the center, projecting images of the Beatles.

“It was like a dream world,” Fudge remembers.

And the Yellow Submarine needed to make an entrance.

The song blared. The crowd parted. A parade of stilt-walkers and Beatles bobble-heads built up the crowd. Then the giant submarine floated in, swimming above their heads.

They didn’t realize it was made of balloons until it got closer. The people who have everything were astounded. Oohs were oohed. Ahhs were ahhed. Camera flashes twinkled. Under it all, Fudge raised and dropped his arms like waves as he held his submarine.

He wouldn’t see his work after this night. And it wouldn’t last much longer than that. But right now, in this moment, the exhausted balloon artist reminded himself to smile.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at [email protected] or (813) 226-3354.

Your Balloon Man To contact balloon artist Jonathan Fudge and his Tampa entertainment agency, which provides other types of entertainment as well, visit www.YTEevents.com or call him at (813) 310-5900.

#Balloon Decorations #Event Decorations #Entertainment #Party and Event Ideas #Wedding Entertainment

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seanskeithley · 5 years

Text

Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man, in the Tampa Bay Times

If you wish to share with Alexandra one of your untold stories, you can contact her at the information below. She is always looking for ideas in the greater Tampa Bay area.

Phone: (813) 226-3354 Email: [email protected] Twitter: @AlexandraZayas

Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man in the News! Tampa Bay Times

Sometimes, he’ll charge a few bucks. Sometimes, he’ll charge a few thousand. Sometimes, he’ll have to split the cash with other balloon twisters who help him out.

Like the time he built a life-sized balloon statue of Ernest Hemingway, in a Key West scene, surrounded by eight palm trees, a macaw and a six-toed cat.

And the air in his lungs.

• • •

At 23, Fudge looks back thousands of balloons ago to his very first. It was magic camp. He was 8, and a lousy magician.

The head magician, a big man named Daniel P. Fite with a Capt. Kangaroo moustache, also twisted balloons. He gave one to Fudge and told him to come back when he’d blown it up.

It took the boy a week, and it showed. The balloon was ugly, deformed. He handed it to the moustached magician.

The man ripped it in half.

“This guy,” Fudge says, “became my balloon hero.”

So the teenaged Fudge showed up with his fudge and stepped into another world.

Some of these ideas are born at balloon jams.

At a later convention, one big-deal artist asked if he wanted to help create an installation. He did. It was a castle, complete with a long-haired Rapunzel and an alligator swimming in the moat.

He was still in high school, balloon-twisting at five or six restaurants a week, making $150 in one night, what he made in two weeks working at Domino’s Pizza.

• • •

Gone were the simple days of sword balloons.

And now he had landed the submarine gig. He teamed up with master artist John Watkins and brought in a third guy to help blow balloons.

They inflated 800 balloons. They worked 77 hours.

“It was like a dream world,” Fudge remembers.

And the Yellow Submarine needed to make an entrance.

The song blared. The crowd parted. A parade of stilt-walkers and Beatles bobble-heads built up the crowd. Then the giant submarine floated in, swimming above their heads.

He wouldn’t see his work after this night. And it wouldn’t last much longer than that. But right now, in this moment, the exhausted balloon artist reminded himself to smile.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at [email protected] or (813) 226-3354.

#Balloon Decorations #Event Decorations #Entertainment #Party and Event Ideas #Wedding Entertainment

0 notes

darrencpritt · 5 years

Text

Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man, in the Tampa Bay Times

If you wish to share with Alexandra one of your untold stories, you can contact her at the information below. She is always looking for ideas in the greater Tampa Bay area.

Phone: (813) 226-3354 Email: [email protected] Twitter: @AlexandraZayas

Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man in the News! Tampa Bay Times

Sometimes, he’ll charge a few bucks. Sometimes, he’ll charge a few thousand. Sometimes, he’ll have to split the cash with other balloon twisters who help him out.

Like the time he built a life-sized balloon statue of Ernest Hemingway, in a Key West scene, surrounded by eight palm trees, a macaw and a six-toed cat.

And the air in his lungs.

• • •

At 23, Fudge looks back thousands of balloons ago to his very first. It was magic camp. He was 8, and a lousy magician.

The head magician, a big man named Daniel P. Fite with a Capt. Kangaroo moustache, also twisted balloons. He gave one to Fudge and told him to come back when he’d blown it up.

It took the boy a week, and it showed. The balloon was ugly, deformed. He handed it to the moustached magician.

The man ripped it in half.

“This guy,” Fudge says, “became my balloon hero.”

So the teenaged Fudge showed up with his fudge and stepped into another world.

Some of these ideas are born at balloon jams.

At a later convention, one big-deal artist asked if he wanted to help create an installation. He did. It was a castle, complete with a long-haired Rapunzel and an alligator swimming in the moat.

He was still in high school, balloon-twisting at five or six restaurants a week, making $150 in one night, what he made in two weeks working at Domino’s Pizza.

• • •

Gone were the simple days of sword balloons.

And now he had landed the submarine gig. He teamed up with master artist John Watkins and brought in a third guy to help blow balloons.

They inflated 800 balloons. They worked 77 hours.

“It was like a dream world,” Fudge remembers.

And the Yellow Submarine needed to make an entrance.

The song blared. The crowd parted. A parade of stilt-walkers and Beatles bobble-heads built up the crowd. Then the giant submarine floated in, swimming above their heads.

He wouldn’t see his work after this night. And it wouldn’t last much longer than that. But right now, in this moment, the exhausted balloon artist reminded himself to smile.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at [email protected] or (813) 226-3354.

Your Balloon Man To contact balloon artist Jonathan Fudge and his Tampa entertainment agency, which provides other types of entertainment as well, visit http://www.YTEevents.com or call him at (813) 310-5900.

#Balloon Decorations #Event Decorations #Entertainment #Party and Event Ideas #Wedding Entertainment

0 notes

yteeventsblog · 5 years

Text

Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man, in the Tampa Bay Times

If you wish to share with Alexandra one of your untold stories, you can contact her at the information below. She is always looking for ideas in the greater Tampa Bay area.

Phone: (813) 226-3354 Email: [email protected] Twitter: @AlexandraZayas

Mr. Fudge, Your Balloon Man in the News! Tampa Bay Times

Sometimes, he’ll charge a few bucks. Sometimes, he’ll charge a few thousand. Sometimes, he’ll have to split the cash with other balloon twisters who help him out.

Like the time he built a life-sized balloon statue of Ernest Hemingway, in a Key West scene, surrounded by eight palm trees, a macaw and a six-toed cat.

And the air in his lungs.

• • •

At 23, Fudge looks back thousands of balloons ago to his very first. It was magic camp. He was 8, and a lousy magician.

The head magician, a big man named Daniel P. Fite with a Capt. Kangaroo moustache, also twisted balloons. He gave one to Fudge and told him to come back when he’d blown it up.

It took the boy a week, and it showed. The balloon was ugly, deformed. He handed it to the moustached magician.

The man ripped it in half.

“This guy,” Fudge says, “became my balloon hero.”

So the teenaged Fudge showed up with his fudge and stepped into another world.

Some of these ideas are born at balloon jams.

At a later convention, one big-deal artist asked if he wanted to help create an installation. He did. It was a castle, complete with a long-haired Rapunzel and an alligator swimming in the moat.

He was still in high school, balloon-twisting at five or six restaurants a week, making $150 in one night, what he made in two weeks working at Domino’s Pizza.

• • •

Gone were the simple days of sword balloons.

And now he had landed the submarine gig. He teamed up with master artist John Watkins and brought in a third guy to help blow balloons.

They inflated 800 balloons. They worked 77 hours.

“It was like a dream world,” Fudge remembers.

And the Yellow Submarine needed to make an entrance.

The song blared. The crowd parted. A parade of stilt-walkers and Beatles bobble-heads built up the crowd. Then the giant submarine floated in, swimming above their heads.

He wouldn’t see his work after this night. And it wouldn’t last much longer than that. But right now, in this moment, the exhausted balloon artist reminded himself to smile.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at [email protected] or (813) 226-3354.

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