The Capital Times' Doug Moe, who has a stellar memory for things New Yorker, fondly recalls his favorite Darwin Award winners and contenders:

This is actually the 20th anniversary of my all-time favorite Darwin moment. Incredibly, the hero of the story, Larry Walters, received only "honorable mention" from the Darwin committee when it handed out its 1983 awards. But eventually George Plimpton wrote a New Yorker article about Walters, and a New York playwright wrote a play based on his exploits.

Walters was a 33-year-old California truck driver in July 1982 when he perpetrated the event that would bring him notoriety around the world. According to Plimpton's piece, which ran in the New Yorker much later, in June 1998, Walters came on his idea as a little boy at Disneyland.

"The first thing when we walked in," Walters said, "there was a lady holding what seemed like a zillion Mickey Mouse balloons, and I went, 'Wow!' I know that's when the idea developed. I mean, you get enough of those and they're going to lift you up!" Read on for the inevitable disaster.