Watch Mom and Dad overact while their innocent children throw up.
ICHARD HEENE, patriarch of the weather-balloon hoax family, has gotten his wish for a reality show based on his deliberately staged misadventures. TLC has just announced that "Jerk Parents and Balloons Plus Jail Time" will begin airing "as soon as the parents are sentenced in family court."
Billed as "not for the squeamish," "Jerk Parents" will follow the family as Richard and Mayumi Heene each write memoirs in jail, while the Heene children are placed in various foster homes and proceed to "experience difficulties adjusting to life without Mom and Dad telling them to hide in the attic while a hoax is being perpetrated."
TLC reports that little Falcon Heene, the asthmatic boy at the center of his parents' hoax, "has already vomited three more times" just since learning his ordeal would be played out on national television.
"He is such a little trooper," stated a spokeswoman for TLC. "All we have to do is say 'Action' and he starts hurling. I don't even think Ron Howard himself could do that when he played Opie Taylor on the old Andy Griffith show."
Other scenarios being floated for "Jerk Parents" are the brutal custody battles upon Mom and Dad's release from prison, grandparent tugs of war in mud pits, and the children's strategies to avoid weather balloons that seem to follow them wherever they go.
"It's kind of like a child's imaginary little friends," explained the spokeswoman, "except they're real and they're not your friends. We're very excited."
© 10.20.09 Kate Heidel
