richard heene

All's well that ends well... unless you're the parents of Balloon Boy. On December 23, 2009, Richard and Mayumi Heene faced the Larimer County Court Judge Stephen Schapanski. Balloon Boy father Richard Heene was given jail time. It wasn't unexpected because Heene had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant and who took blame today as the brains of the hoax.

To be frank, I think they got off easy. These parents did a horrible thing to their child. Oh yes, they inflicted a hoax on the public, but they manipulated their son to create celebrity.

In case you've forgotten, the scheme was to make the world believe that six-year-old Falcon Heene was flying off into danger in a run-away hot air balloon. The media chased the balloon and the story and Falcon was never actually in the balloon. He was hiding in the garage. It was all an attempt by his parents to get TV attention.

As far as well-orchestrated publicity stunts go, Balloon Boy, aka Falcon Heene (yes, that's his real name) takes the cake.

Playing into the public's fear of child loss and endangerment, the storm-chasing Heene family first reported their six-year-old boy Falcon as trapped in a homemade helium balloon, floating at altitudes nearing 7,000 ft -- thereby setting off a frenzy of media coverage intensely focused on the supposed flight of this very young boy and a distraught family eagerly awaiting his rescue.

But the story gets better: It was all a hoax, a carefully schemed sham created by Falcon's parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene -- who captivated a global, news-hungry audience only for sheer thrill ... and maybe a potential reality show deal in the process.

All this talk about the Heene Family and Balloon Boy and their hoax to get a reality show (and their appearances on Wife Swap) got me to thinking about something: would we watch a Heene Family reality show?

I'm sure that they are going to get some sort of deal from someone for a show, and there's a good chance they wouldn't have gotten it if it wasn't for this hoax, so maybe they'll have the last laugh. I think all of us, if asked, would say "there's no way I'll watch a show with that family!" but here you can vote anonymously. So tell me: would you watch it?

I was thinking the other day that someone has to write a folk song about the Heene family and Balloon Boy. I'm sure someone is working on one right now.

But a few years ago, Heene and others wrote a couple of theme songs for the TV shows he was pitching to networks, The Contractor and The Psyience Detective (Heene's site is The Science Detective). TMZ has both theme songs.

The Heenes have a big TV connection. Not only did they appear on Wife Swap twice and pitch the above shows, but Richard also asked Jimmy Kimmel for $25,000 a few years ago and lied to Extreme Makeover's producer last month.