The world of balloon entertainment, by Dale Obrochta
Kids What Zombies It seems that with the popularity of video games, Zombies are trendy this year. Kids want brain-eating Zombies instead of cute Halloween pumpkins. I have the two Zombies that I make during Halloween. The first Zombie has less twisting and more drawing, while the second has more twisting than drawing. Each year … Read more
The Manager Feels The Heat When you entertain at a pizza parlor you hear kitchen staff complain regularly about the heat in the kitchen. This past week the manager was feeling the heat so I thought I would give her an explanation on why it was as hot as Hell in the kitchen.
The Devil and Halloween All Hallows’ Eve, better known today as Halloween, is associated with trick-or-treating costumes, pumpkins, haunted houses, and ghoulish creatures of the night, both living and the nonliving. This holiday is a festive, fun time to dress up and eat candy. Yet, there is another thought that this night is about worshiping … Read more
A practical view on how to draw Halloween scary faces Over the years, I realized that you could not pick up a marker, swirl it around, and come up with an image that you like right off the back. You draw eyes and think they should be bigger or scary looking, but it is too … Read more
Didn’t make any Halloween balloons Hours are spent creating new balloon designs for the holidays, and very few people get to see these designs. Just recently, I read a Facebook posting from an entertainer who entertained at a Halloween party. When the party was over, they realized they did not make any Halloween balloons. This … Read more
Don’t Lose Your Head Halloween is the start of the busy season for entertainers. Every Park District, community organization, school, bar, you name it tries to cash in on the very popular holiday. Halloween is so popular that it rivals Christmas in sales as the second-biggest buyer holiday. This being said, you can easily lose … Read more
Pumpkins are a blank slate for an artist. They can be silly, happy, or scary it is up to you or should we say the client. Pumpkins vary in size, shape and design, which allow them to be transformed into anything. Recently, I had a request for a scary pumpkin, but they wanted it more … Read more
Putting the bite back into Halloween In this modern world we live in, we tend to fall back to the old stereotypes of Count Dracula with his black cape and pointed V-shape bangs. This year, I am looking to break the model and make a vampire girl. So I typed into the Google search box, … Read more
The ghoulish mishaps of not fully being truthful to the client can come back to haunt you in ways you never expected. In my youth, I would accept almost any entertainment job offered. The adage that “the client is always right” was what I thought I should be doing to gain more business. The focus … Read more
I love Halloween as an entertainer. It is fun because of all the options I have to be creative. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I focus on the cute balloon figures, but Halloween allows me the opportunity to explore the dark, creepy, and ghoulish side of Halloween. This is the only time of the year … Read more