Blog Posts
From Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere:
For our latest mission, we converted a New York City subway car into a late night talk show set. Host Pat Cassels (CollegeHumor) interviewed random commuters from his desk as bandleader Evan Gregory (The Gregory Brothers) kept the car rocking.
Created and Directed by Charlie Todd / Music by Tyler Walker
For photos and more info click here.
“Forget the Big Bang Theory, Let’s Just Go Out With a Big Bang!”
For three decades, New York City’s Annual April Fools’ Day Parade has offered the public an opportunity to express, in a comical way, its outrage against the foolishness of mankind. Thousands of participants in look-alike costumes with satirical floats creatively mock the thoughtless, corrupt and selfish acts of the past year. Kicking off at noon on Monday, April 1, the parade will march down 5th Avenue from 59th Street to Washington Square Park where revelers will party like there’s no tomorrow. It will conclude with the annual crowning of the King of Fools.
PRESS RELEASE:
New York, New York — The 28th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade will begin at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street at 12 noon, Monday, April 1, 2013. Rain or shine, the parade will march down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park for the climactic selection of the King or Queen of Fools from the costumed marching look-alikes.
The New York April Fools’ Day Parade was created in 1986 to remedy a glaring omission in the long list of New York’s ethnic and holiday parades. These events fail to recognize the importance of April 1st, the day designated to commemorate the folly of mankind. In an attempt to bridge this gap and bring people back in touch with their inherent foolishness, the parade annually crowns a King or Queen of Fools from parading look-alikes. (more…)
From Hermann Josef Hack:
Just back from Paris and Cologne, where the BREAD ARMY conquered the streets with bread tanks in a peaceful invasion. The tanks were airdropped by parachutes made of tents. Passers-by were surprised getting confronted with them in the shopping malls and tourist hot spots. The BREAD ARMY critizises the waste of food by the wealthy nations, also water trading and the monopoly of food management causing millions of lives in the poor regions of our planet.
Related links:
Joey Skaggs will be infiltrating the Advertising Week EU Festival in London Tuesday, March 19, 2013. His presentation, introduced by PR guru Mark Borkowski, will be at 1:00pm at BAFTA.
He’ll talk about the art of the prank and the use of public relations and advertising strategies to rock the status quo. Skaggs, using multi-media examples of his work, will pull back the curtain on techniques he has used for decades to access the mass media, repeatedly throwing a monkey wrench into the propaganda machine.
What: Advertising Week EU
When: Tuesday, March 19, 1:00 pm
Where: BAFTA in London
Read more:
From ZeroZeroKappaKappa collective:
Spoof campaign poster for Cardinal Turkson appears in pre-conclave Rome
Reuters
March 1, 2013
Spoof “vote for Turkson” posters have popped up in Rome along walls still plastered with campaign posters from Italy’s general election on Sunday and Monday. Campaigning for the papacy is officially forbidden and even suggesting one is a candidate is usually enough to end any cardinal’s chances of ascending to the throne of Saint Peter.
Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson is the Irish bookmakers’ favorite to replace Pope Benedict, putting a non-European in pole position to lead the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church for the first time in more than a millennium. (more…)
CIA whistleblower Kiriakou gets posh send-off to prison
by David Montgomery
Washington Post
February 21, 2013
John Kiriakou stood in the ninth-floor banquet hall of the Hay-Adams hotel Thursday night and took in the spectacular view of the White House and the Washington Monument. He recalled briefing two presidents during his career with the CIA. “It’s ironic,” he said, spreading his arms as if to embrace the tableau. “This really is the reason I came to Washington 30 years ago in the first place.”
But next Thursday he will check into the Federal Correctional Institution in Loretto, Pa., to begin a 30-month sentence for divulging information that prosecutors said could harm his country.
Kiriakou, 48, seemed unbowed and almost content at the prospect of prison as he basked in the well wishes of about 100 supporters, who gathered for a posh send-off at the luxury hotel. The guests wore orange jumpsuits and other mock prison garb and serenaded Kiriakou with a reworked version of the protest anthem “Have You Been to Jail for Justice?”
“I’m proud of my career,” said Kiriakou, who lives in Arlington County. “I still love the CIA — crazy as that may sound. . . . I wear my conviction as a badge of honor.” (more…)
From Linda: Hilarious street performance…
Produced by actor/comedian/jackass Gary Lee Mahmoud of Panhandler Party Productions, LLC. More credits and info here
From Fresh Juice Party:
California Group Mails Chocolate Corpses for Valentines
Instead of sending a chocolate heart this Valentine’s, send the entire mutilated body! The limited edition FUBAR comes in both white and milk chocolate and is decorated to depict an American soldier’s corpse returning from war. FUBARs are packaged in refrigerated, flag-wrapped coffins, equipped with hidden sound devices which play the FUBAR Memorial Theme Music when opened. The group has posted this music video that demonstrates these features for those who will not be receiving one of their own.
Who will the lucky recipients be? (more…)
Police say Mont. TV zombie hoax likely linked to others
Michael Beall, Great Falls (Mont.), Tribune
USA Today
February 13, 2013
Fake emergency alert warned of dead bodies walking the streets and attacking the living.
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Zombies weren’t walking the streets here Monday, but a false alert that aired on two local TV stations went through the same channels on which true emergencies are aired, raising questions and concerns of how the hoax occurred.
The hoax reached around 10 stations in Montana, Michigan, California, Utah and New Mexico, said Greg MacDonald, the CEO of Montana Broadcasters Association.
The alert featured a scrolling warning for various Montana counties and a voice-over claimed there were “dead bodies rising from the grave and attacking the living” and urged people to use caution.
“Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are extremely dangerous,” it said.
MacDonald said the FBI and the FCC are investigating the cases, and initial findings have officials believing the hoax originated somewhere overseas. (more…)
From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:
On Sunday, January 13th, 2013 tens of thousands of people took off their pants on subways in 60 cities in 25 countries around the world. In New York, our 12th Annual No Pants Subway Ride had over 4,000 participants, spread out over six meeting points and ten subway lines. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.
If you’re unfamiliar with this event, you might want to first read our history of The No Pants Subway Ride. Since this is the 12th year we’ve done this, there’s not too much to report other than it was another awesome time.
Created and Produced by Charlie Todd / Video produced by Deverge / music by Tyler Walker
From Weaponry to Symphony: An Artist Makes Music from Confiscated Guns
by Andri Antoniades
TakePart.com
December 2, 2012
Mexican artist Pedro Reyes transforms ‘agents of death’ into ‘instruments of life.’
Mexican artist Pedro Reyes transformed 6,700 used weapons into an orchestra of musical instruments as an act of protest against gun violence and a firearms industry he says is killing his people.
As part of a project Reyes calls Imagine, he worked with six musicians over several weeks to reimagine the weapons into objects that could create beautiful sounds. Together, they took the weapons apart and re-welded them into a variety of playable instruments that include wood, strings, and percussion.
Reyes writes on his website that the process of turning these “agents of death into instruments of life” was painful, albeit personally transformative. “It’s important to consider that many lives were taken with these weapons; as if a sort of exorcism was taking place the music expelled the demons they held, as well as being a requiem for lives lost.”
Hackers’ Westboro Baptist Church Blitz Continues: UG Nazi, Jester, Anonymous Take Down Twitter Accounts, Sites
by Dominique Mosbergen
The Huffington Post
December 20, 2012
The online offensive against the Westboro Baptist Church continues to gain momentum.
The Twitter accounts of two prominent members of the hate-mongering group were apparently infiltrated this week by members of the infamous hacker collective UG Nazi.
On Monday, Wired.com confirmed that 15-year-old whiz kid “Cosmo the God,” a prolific member of the UG Nazi “hacktivist” group, had successfully carried out a takeover of @DearShirley, the Twitter account opened by WBC spokeswoman Shirley Lynn Phelps-Roper.
The Washington Post details the hijacking of Phelps-Roper’s account:
Phelps-Roper apparently sent her last authentic tweet hours after the Sandy Hook tragedy, announcing that the controversial group planned to picket outside the funerals of Newtown victims. Cosmo broke into the account on Monday morning, changing Phelps-Roper’s background to an illustration that said “pray for Newtown” and editing her profile information.
Read the rest of this article here.
Update: Checkout Joey Skaggs’ Facebook Page to see the event invitation and photos.
‘Santa Claus’ At United Nations: Prankster Joey Skaggs Demands Nuclear Disarmament
by Michael McLaughlin
The Huffington Post
November 14, 2012
Joey Skaggs, dressed as Santa Claus, worries that a nuclear apocalypse is a serious threat overlooked by the mainstream media.
NEW YORK — Doesn’t it seem like the holiday protest season starts earlier and earlier every year?
A protesting Santa on an adult-sized tricycle pedaled up First Avenue Tuesday, dragging an 8-foot missile to the United Nations. His message to world leaders: “Peace on Earth — Or Else.”
Nobody ran for cover. The comically fake bomb was a dud. And this St. Nick was the legendary media prankster Joey Skaggs, accompanied by six performance artists serving as elves.
Given that New York suffered the worst hurricane in its history just two weeks ago, perhaps it’s little surprise that this Santa and his giant toy explosive were overlooked.
Skaggs didn’t care. He just wanted to kick off the holiday season with a not-so-gentile reminder about “the absurdity of nuclear Holocaust and the direction we’re going with North Korea, Iran and Israel.
“Everyone wants a missile,” Skaggs told The Huffington Post.
“If you don’t do it now, when do you do it?,” he said, “after the Holocaust?”
From Paul:
Drone Crashes On UC San Diego Campus, Revealed As ‘New Media Art Project’
by Tyler Kingkade
The Huffington Post
December 7, 2012
Students at the University of California-San Diego were surprised when an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, commonly referred to as a drone, crashed in the middle of campus — or at least they thought that’s what happened.
A photo of a drone crashed in front of the UCSD library was released by the UC Center for Drone Policy and Ethics on Tuesday. The group released the photo along with a statement saying the “origin and manufacturer of the crashed drone remains unclear,” and that the group was going to hold a public town hall to discuss it.
However, NBC San Diego reports the UC Center for Drone Policy and Ethics isn’t real:
Welcome to the Art of the Prank, produced and edited by Joey Skaggs. Here you will find insights, information, news and discussions about art, pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming & reality hacking around the world - past, present and future - mainstream and counter culture. You are invited to contribute to its development. May your journey be filled with more than your expectations.
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