FEATURE: "Balloon Land," Ub Iwerks' Despairing Existential Nightmare

At some point in 1935, Ub Iwerks, the cartoonist who created the "Skeleton Dance" for Walt Disney, let loose of his restraint, traveled past the boundaries of decorum, and glimpsed madness on the other side.  In the black cathedral of the movie house, parents and children bore witness to his testimony, which Iwerks named "Balloon Land."

It stands as the most disturbing cartoon I've ever seen.

Laughter and cheers herald the frivolity found in Balloon Land, a city in the clouds.  Balloons fly past the camera, and already something is profoundly wrong.  From where did these balloons come?  Where are they going?  Is there even a "where" to which they can go?  Clouds suggest the upper troposphere, but the insomnia-inducing face on the nearest balloon suggests heights that beggar sanity.

Behold the crazed rictus grin of true knowledge.

The two heroes, only just inflated, immediately conjure images of codependency, as the boy insists on breaching the wall of Balloon Land, and the girl tearfully bends to his will.  Between his alpha posturing and her subservience, it is only a matter of time before their relationship explodes into a passive-aggressive hail of hate, alcoholism, and adultery.

Upon leaving, they cross paths with a monstrosity that recalls the perverse bestiary of Hieronymus Bosch.  His name is the Pincushion Man.  Shockingly, the sharpest pin in the villain's arsenal is located between his legs.  This must be incidental.  Surely Iwerks could not be so demented as to arm the Pincushion Man with a needle-point phallus.  Or could he?

As if to remove any sense of doubt, the Pincushion Man eagerly grips his rigid penis and cackles, while the children offer only mild concern.  Innocent as newborns, unable to fully grasp the depravity of the madman that advances, they nonetheless possess enough natural instinct to choose flight over fight.

The Pincushion Man chases them into Balloon Land, and his first act inside, naturally, is murder.  As the doorkeeper pops, the brief theater of existence closes its curtains to him forever.  However, the Pincushion Man is not sated.  For this is only the appetizer.  The main course is Balloon Land itself, and it has a sweet savour.

Imagine the horror of a balloon centipede as he sees his segmented body popped, bit by bit, while the lunatic laughter of a demon rings in his ears.  Eventually, only his head remains, and as he recognizes his imminent mortality, the Pincushion Man lobs one final needle, shattering the pathetic creature's mind, in what is at once tragedy and hideous mercy.

The children alert the sole authority in Balloon Land.  Nameless, blameless, the man's idiot face holds the shock of every ruler who ignored the wisdom of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli.  Improbably, his balloon-skin sweats as fear hits him, most likely for the first time since he walked in on his parents making love. 

Nevertheless, he declares war, sounds the alarms, and his soldiers begin inflating pawns for the battle to come.  While the leader of Balloon Land is surprised, he is not ill-prepared, and the cheerful smiles of the newly-drafted warriors hold no inkling of the awful chaos to come.  They walk forward with the same thoughtless optimism of lambs herded to the slaughterhouse, of Isaac following Abraham up the mountain.

And yet, unbelievably, they triumph, by lobbing glue at the Pincushion Man, who cannot cut with all the pins in the (balloon) world.  The makeshift missiles send him rolling towards the edge of Balloon Land itself, and, in truth, there is only Balloon Land.  There is no Pin Land, no home for the fiend.  No pin father who ever hugged him.  No pin mother who ever cradled him while cicadas buzzed in the cool spring night.

As he falls, we are left to wonder where Balloon Land is.  Is it only a few miles above, like Aristophanes' Cloud Cuckoo Land?  Or wholly unbound, like Barrie's Neverland?  How far does Pincushion Man have to fall?  Most horrifyingly, what if there is no land below?  What if there is only falling...and falling...and falling, until the villain's mind snaps?  Until he claws out his own eyes to spare himself the sight of space illimitable?

So it ends, the children smiling, order in all of its transience restored, any lessons about the fragility of existence discarded as bliss washes over the ignorant masses. The terror fades away, like a candle quietly put out by an explorer afraid to see the vistas of knowledge for which he once searched.  For "Balloon Land" is a mirror to life, and life is a nightmare.