Basic Trope: Flying with the use of toy balloons.
- Straight: Bob flies with 6 helium balloons.
- Exaggerated: Bob flies with a single balloon he inflated with his breath.
- Downplayed:
- Bob flies with 50 helium balloons.
- Rather than achieving full flight, Bob merely uses the balloons to glide.
- Justified:
- Bob has enough balloons to lift himself off the ground with in real life.
- Bob is a Reality Warper who modes and shapes reality to his liking.
- Bob is very light.
- It's not the balloons that lift Bob off the ground.
- The balloons are magic.
- Inverted: Balloons drag Bob down, somehow.
- Subverted: Bob is flying while holding a balloon, but then he lets go of the balloon and remains on air, indicating that he was flying with his own powers after all.
- Double Subverted: Only because Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress and needed a full minute before it can take effect on Bob.
- Parodied:
- Bob flies with a non-inflated balloon.
- Bob mistakenly inflates his balloon with a tank of sulfur hexafluoride (a heavier-than-air gas) instead of helium. It still somehow floats with him holding onto it.
- Zig Zagged: The number of balloons that lift Bob varies between episodes.
- Averted:
- Balloons don't lift Bob up.
- No balloons appear in the work.
- Enforced: The writer would like to fly with balloons herself.
- Lampshaded: "There goes Bob and his balloon plane, that balloonatic..."
- Invoked: Bob always wanted to fly with balloons.
- Exploited: Bob flies with balloons to Alice's window after he had been locked in the house.
- Defied: Bob thinks about flying with balloons, but ultimately doesn't.
- Discussed:Alice: Bob! You're flying!
Bob: Yeah, and all thanks to my balloon! - Conversed: "Why do cartoon characters need so few balloons to fly?"
- Implied: Bob needs to get to a high place and notices a pack of balloons. Later we see her in the high place with balloons flying away in the background.
- Deconstructed: Bob flies using a balloon, and realises that he has no way of controlling the direction of its flight or getting down without falling to his death.
- Reconstructed: Bob wears a parachute so that he can at least land safely when the balloon eventually bursts.
- Played For Laughs: Characters forget that balloons lift them up and accidentally go flying.
- Played For Drama: Bob accidentally lets go of his balloons while floating at great heights and plummets to his death.
Back to Balloonacy, you damn balloonatic!