Zoey's Balloon

Zoey's Balloon
Season 3, Episode 9
Production Information
Director	Steve Hoefer
Writer	George Doty IV
Prod code	311
Airdate	March 11, 2007
Episode Chronology
Previous	Wrestling
Next	Chase's Grandma

Zoey's Balloon is the ninth episode of Season 3 and the 35th overall episode in the Nickelodeon TV series Zoey 101. The episode originally aired on March 11, 2007.

Plot

For a psychology class assignment, Zoey and her friends must write down a secret and tie it to a balloon. However, Zoey’s balloon gets stuck in a tree, and someone finds it, learning her secret. Soon after, a mysterious person begins blackmailing her.

The blackmailer’s first demand forces Zoey to wear a banana suit and walk around campus. Quinn attempts to lift fingerprints from the blackmail note but is unsuccessful. When Zoey checks zoeysballoon.com, the website where she receives messages from the blackmailer, she learns she must go to the café, stand on a table, and dance to the Macalana, a 1990s dance that Quinn describes as “a big zit on the face of the ‘90s.”

Quinn realizes she can track the source of the website and discovers that Firewire created it. However, he refuses to reveal who hired him. To make him talk, Zoey and her friends destroy one of his Galaxy Wars collectibles, prompting him to confess that Rebecca, Chase’s ex-girlfriend, is behind the blackmail. Rebecca warns Zoey that if she tells anyone, she will expose her secret.

Zoey, feeling trapped, tells her roommates that she plans to leave PCA if Rebecca follows through with her threat. Determined to help, Quinn and Lola devise a plan. When Zoey arrives at the café, she refuses to comply with Rebecca’s latest demand. As Rebecca begins to reveal the secret, Zoey’s friends step in and share their own embarrassing secrets from their balloons to support her.

Finally, Zoey reveals her balloon secret: she was the little girl on the Golden Tone suntan lotion bottle, showing her butt in the famous logo when she was four years old. With nothing left to blackmail Zoey over, Rebecca storms off in frustration. The episode ends with Zoey and her friends celebrating by dancing the Macalana together.

Trivia

• Paul Butcher (Dustin Brooks) does not appear in this episode.
• The working title for this episode was "Balloon Note".
• In reality, Rebecca’s blackmailing of Zoey could have led to expulsion and harassment charges. While this is never confirmed, her absence from future episodes suggests she may have faced consequences off-screen.
• The URL zoeysballoon.com redirects to iCarly.com.
• In production order, this is the 11th episode of Season 3.
• On the door to Firewire's room, it is revealed that PCA has a Pokémon Club.
• Quinn's secret about having an extra toe on her right foot was first revealed in the Season 1 episode Webcam.
• The Macalana is an obvious parody of the Macarena.
• Dan Schneider provides the voice for the website zoeysballoon.com.
• The sunscreen Zoey mentions, Golden Tone, is a parody of the sunscreen brand Copper Tone.
• The balloon secrets revealed, in order, are:
  • Chase Matthews: He was the flower girl at his uncle's wedding when he was 5.
  • Lola Martinez:
    • She's been afraid of people in costumes since a bad experience as a child when a hot dog guy fell over and rolled toward her. (revealed in class)
    • The first time she wore a bra, she couldn't figure out how to get it off, so her mom had to help her. (revealed to the group)
  • Michael Barret: Every year, when his parents drop him off at PCA, he cries for two hours.
  • Quinn Pensky: She has six toes on her right foot.
  • Stacey Dillsen: Every dog she ever owned bit her and ran away.
  • Firewire: He wishes he was Ryan Seacrest.
  • Ms. Dangl: She never got her degree in teaching.
  • Zoey Brooks: When she was four years old, she was the girl on the Golden Tone suntan lotion bottles, revealing her bare butt.
• Logan appears in two scenes but has no spoken lines in this episode.
• The music that plays in the scene where Zoey tells Quinn and Lola that someone is blackmailing her is also heard in the montage of Zoey getting ready to leave in Goodbye Zoey.
• Galaxy Wars is a parody of Star Wars and Princess Oblangata is a parody of Princess Leia. Quinn says "You're her only hope" to Firewire, which is a reference to Han Solo being Leia's only hope of being rescued.
• Moral: Blackmailing people is wrong.

Goofs

• Ms. Dangl admits she never got her degree in teaching. However, in Welcome to PCA, Zoey's dad says PCA has some of the greatest teachers in the country.
• Lola admits in this episode that she has been afraid of people in big costumes ever since she was little. However, in Quinn's Alpaca, she appears unfazed when Mark wears an anteater suit.
• When Michael trades his pink balloon to Zoey, he receives a blue balloon in exchange. However, just before the balloons are released, his balloon is suddenly yellow.
• When Zoey is apparently writing "I'm not telling you my secret", it is clear that she just scribbled on the page for a second.
• After Quinn uses a nerve pinch on Firewire, she and Lola drag him from his dorm room into theirs. Since Firewire lives in a different building, they would have been visible while transporting him, and the girls could have gotten in trouble if anyone reported them.
• Zoey’s balloon is shown flying into the sky along with the others, making it unlikely that it would get stuck in a low tree.

Watch Episode

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Cast

Main

• Jamie Lynn Spears as Zoey Brooks
• Sean Flynn as Chase Matthews
• Victoria Justice as Lola Martinez
• Christopher Massey as Michael Barret
• Erin Sanders as Quinn Pensky
• Matthew Underwood as Logan Reese

Co-starring

• Abby Wilde as Stacey Dillsen
• Daniella Monet as Rebecca
• Allen Evangelista as Firewire
• Andi Matheny as Ms. Dangl
• Mia Stone-Molloy as Five-Year-Old Lola