Henry Maar

Henry J. Maar (1921-1992), known as "The Sultan of Balloons", was one of the pioneers in balloon twisting. He appeared for over a decade on episodes of the long running Bozo's Circus. While the origins of balloon twisting is impossible to prove, Emmy Award winning producer/director Joseph Maar has provided evidence that his father, Henry, may be the founder of balloon twisting.Maar, Joseph. [http://www.tmyers.com/marr.html The Story of Henry Maar] TMyers.com 6/20/06 Accessed 10/5/07] BalloonHQ columnist calls Joseph Maar's evidence "compelling" but warns that if Joseph Maar is correct then the history of balloon twisting would have to be rewritten. [Moss, Larry. [http://www.balloonhq.com/column/bhq/jul06/ Evolution of Balloon Entertaining] BalloonHQ. July 2006. Accessed 10/5/07] For example, the 1975 book by "Jolly the Clown" Petri credits "Herman Bonnert from Pennsylvania at a magician's convention in 1939" as being the first balloontwister. [Dewey, Ralph. [http://www.balloonhq.com/column/dewey/aug06/ Balloon History] BalloonHQ Column. Accessed 10/5/07]

Joseph Maar's account

Joseph Maar is the three time Emmy Award Winning Coordinating Director with ESPN who worked on several shows including "Sports Center", "Sports Century", "Pardon the Interruption", "Around the Horn" and many other shows. He is also a client of some of the largest ballooning stores in the country. His story of his father has been picked up by several sources as the story of the origins of Balloon Twisting. [ [http://balloon_animal.totallyexplained.com/ History: The Inventor and History of Balloon Twisting] Accessed 10/5/07]

According to Joseph Maar, his father had pleurisy as a child and spent several years at a TB Sanitorium in Milwaukee. To develop his lungs, the facility had Henry blow up balloons. In the 1930's Henry became a vaudeville magician. While preparing for a show in 1938 or 1939, Joseph writes, "he came back to the car to get the rest of his magic tricks only to find the vehicle had been broken into and everything was gone." With his magic tricks stolen, Maar went on stage and performed a show comprised primarily of balloon twisting. "Afterward, the agents went nuts and told him to forget the magic and to start doing the balloons. That [Henry Maar's agents said] 'everyone's doing regular magic tricks but no one is doing the balloon tricks.'"

Henry spent the next ten years performing under the stage name of "Johnny Ford" and entertaining GI's with the USO. After World War II an agent offered Maar twice his rate to wear a clown suit while performing his act. Joseph Maar states "that was the advent of a clown doing balloons." From the late 50's to mid-70's, Joseph and a 1968 article from the Waukegan Sun-TimesFact|date=November 2007 cites that his father was a regular on "Bozo's Circus" and other children's shows. Two of these episodes reside with BalloonHQ and in IMBD he is listed in the credits of the March 16, 1977 episode of "Bozo's Circus." [ [http://imdb.com/title/tt0805092/ Bozo's Circus] and [http://imdb.com/title/tt0254011/ Bozo's Circus] ]

Joseph Maar also credits his father with inventing 'face painting.' According to Joseph, his father would sometimes have trouble with his makeup during long summertime events. To cover his own need to touch up his clown make up, he would invite kids up on stage where Henry Maar would "make them up" like a clown.

Other origin stories

While Joseph Maar's story has been accepted as "compelling," it is not viewed as conclusive. Other twisters have been credited with being the originator of balloon twisting. They include:

*Val Andrews, in "Manual of Balloon Modeling, Vol. 1, An Encyclopedic Series", credits H.J. Bonnert of Scranton, PA as being the "daddy of them all."Andrew, Val. "Manual of Balloon Modeling, Vol. 1, An Encyclopedic Series" 1981, Magico Magazine, NYC quoted on [http://www.balloonhq.com/faq/history.html Balloon History] BalloonHQ. Accessed 10/5/07]
*John Shirley, in the preface to "One balloon animals; the rubber jungle / Roger's rubber jungle" by Roger Siegel, writes "probably began sometime around 1920 but did not become popular until the advent of the skinny balloons after World War II...The inventor of the one balloon animal is unknown, but his origination opened the door to a new art."
*Jim Church III writes, " Frank Zacone from Youngstown, Ohio was doing a balloon act during the 1940's and had been doing the act for some time."

References