Balloon Boy Family Plans 'Big Announcement'

With skeptics in full throat, the balloon boy family promised a "big announcement" today. "I'd like to speak to everybody about a few things," dad Richard Heene said this morning. He scheduled a 1pm news conference, then postponed it til later in the day after soliciting reporters' questions in a box. "Absolutely no hoax," he said. So who knows, maybe the announcement of a reality show? The family has tried twice before to get one going, reports the Denver Post.

"They did approach us months ago to do a show, and we passed," a TLC spokeswoman tells the newspaper. The family also worked with the company that makes Wife Swap, on which they appeared twice, to create a show that focused just on them. "At one point in time, we had a show in development with the Heenes," says an RDF Media spokeswoman. "We are no longer in active development with the family." (More Richard Heene stories.)