'Up' Inspires a Real-Life Floating Homage to Carl Fredricksen

Ethan Alter
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Here’s an Up-lifting story to send you into the weekend. Balloonist Simon Askey has built a life-sized, fully functional hot-air balloon that pays homage to Pixar’s Oscar-winning 2009 cartoon feature. Directed by Pete Docter–who recently won his second Academy Award for Inside Out–Up features the instantly iconic image of elderly curmudgeon and widower Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) hoisting his house aloft with the help of hundreds of helium balloons.

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(Photo: deelutfiana/Instagram)

To pay homage to Carl’s flight, Askey designed an 84,000-cubic-ft. balloon that features 600 smaller balloons sewn into its outer layer. Designated the Cameron TR-84, the balloon is currently hovering in the skies above Canberra, Australia, as part of the city’s annual Balloon Spectacular. But that won’t be its final destination: Askey told Buzzfeed that he hopes to send the Cameron TR-84 on a worldwide trip that includes a stopover in Japan.

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(Photo: lrlc82/Instagram)

Impressive as it is, it’s worth noting that Askey’s balloon is attached to an ordinary basket, as opposed to an entire house. But Carl’s engineering feat has been duplicated in real life as well. In 2011, a team of engineers working for the National Geographic Channel series, How Hard Can It Be?, attached a 16′ x 18′ house to 300 weather balloons and watched it hover in the air for nearly an hour.

Not to be outdone, in 2012 professional cluster balloonist Jonathan Trappe flew his own balloon-house across the Mexican horizon.

Now, when is someone going to build a full-sized working replica of the Omnidroid? Leaving out the “Destroy the Incredibles” program, of course.

‘Up’: Inside Pixar’s first 3-D movie: