What does a seven-story, 77,500-cubic-foot Tweety Bird say?

"Here, kitty kitty."

Tweety's earnest and inept nemesis Sylvester the puddytat would have sworn off birds and turned vegetarian at the sight of Dan Helmboldt's huge yellow hot air balloon at the second annual Central Wyoming Balloon Festival.

However, hundreds of children gleefully embraced the bird and woke up at 6 a.m. Sunday to watch the setup and blowup, and the chance for a brief ride up, in the towering Tweety with its 22-foot-tall eyes and cute puffy cheeks.

Tweety-meister Helmboldt of Greeley, Colo., with the assistance of volunteers, rolled out the bird and showed "fan man" Devin Schuetz how to train the fan's breeze inside the balloon.

As the balloon filled, Helmboldt fired up the propane heater above the basket and Tweety arose above the Murane Playing Fields at Casper College.

Volunteers helped steady the basket on the ground, and helped hoist several children at a time in the basket.

The volunteers would clear the area, and Helmboldt opened the valve to the propane burner to shoot a 10-foot flame into the cavernous canary.

The flame further heated the air, upwards of 300 degrees at the top of the balloon, and further swelled Tweety's not-so wittle head.

The big bird - not to be confused with the much smaller Big Bird that hangs out on Sesame Street - then began its ascent without flapping a wing, mostly because it didn't have wings.

Unlike the other balloons that had earlier inflated, launched and floated toward the Hat Six Road area, Tweety Bird was tethered by ropes to nearby vehicles and held by people holding other guiding ropes as the children waved at their parents, threw their hats and sometimes covered their ears to withstand the noise.

"It was loud; it was hot," said Caitlyn Burkett, 8, after her short ride.

Despite the roar and heat, Caitlyn can't wait for the next time. "I would like to go untethered," she said.

Garret Poste, 10, wore a grin wider than the cat that ate the canary - not that it happened here - and gushed likewise about his quick and somewhat unstable trip.

"It was a fun ride," Garret said. "It was wobbling because it was like there was nothing underneath."

Children are important to balloon festival sponsor RE/MAX The Group real estate company, said Jay Cozza, who works for the company in Denver.

Before the other balloons launched, hundreds of children released helium-filled balloons as a memorial to the sick and injured children in Wyoming.

Company founder Dave Liniger has supported children's causes for decades, especially the nonprofit Children's Miracle Network, which helps fund the Children's Hospital in Denver, Cozza said.

That hospital serves more than 1,000 Wyoming children a year.

Besides the fun of the rides and the eye-popping balloons that light the night sky and float across the land, the balloons of RE/MAX The Group serve as a powerful image for the company, Cozza said.

Liniger coined the corporate motto, "above the crowd," and started using a red, white and blue hot air balloon as its corporate image, Cozza said.

"It's a powerful image," he said. "The pilots who fly are corporate ambassadors."

Despite efforts from ad agencies to do something different, Liniger never wavered from the logo, Cozza said.

"It's now one of the top five most recognized corporate logos in the world along with Coca Cola and Nike," he said.

Reporter Tom Morton can be reached at (307) 266-0592, or at Tom.Morton@casperstartribune.net.