…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
WNPR News presents “April Fool’s! Exploring Pranks and Practical Jokes“, an hour long radio talk show broadcast April 1, 2014 at 1:00 pm & 8:00 pm EST.
Show features Jeff Pinsker, president of Klutz and VP of Scholastic, Inc.; Martin Wainwright, author of The “Guardian” Book of April Fool”s Day; Tom Mabe, a professional prankster living in Kentucky; and Joey Skaggs, multimedia artist in New York City called The World”s Greatest Hoaxer.
Listen here.
Submitted by Emerson Dameron:
American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi examines gurus and gullibility. In the process, he goes undercover as Kumaré, an enlightened spiritual leader from the East who develops a following in the West. His documentary The True Story of a False Prophet premiers in the US this summer. Read more here.
Movie Trailer:
Continue reading “Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet”
The Artiness of Naughtiness
BBC Radio
April 1, 2011
Toby Amies discovers how tricksters have turned the poking of fun into an art form.
Produced by Rob Alexander and hosted by Toby Amies, this 30:00 radio show is now available here for listening.
There are pranksters who have been determined to show us our folly all year round and most have philosophical, political and artistic reason to do so… Toby investigates this reasoning behind pranking – discovering why people will risk consequences as serious as prison to make a point or get a laugh. Sometime the motivation behind a prank is not always only a good laugh at someone else”s expense. It can be a very serious business.
Update, April 3, 2011: You can now listen to this 30:00 radio show here on Joey Skaggs’ website.
This radio show, produced by Rob Alexander, hosted by Toby Amies and featuring Joey Skaggs, among others, aired on BBC Radio Friday, April 1 at 11:30 a.m. UK time. You can listen to it on the BBC Radio site until April 7, 2011.
The Artiness of Naughtiness
Friday 1 April, 2011 at 11:30am on BBC Radio 4
Toby Amies discovers how tricksters have turned the poking of fun into an art form.
What have Jonathon Swift, Orson Welles, Marcel Duchamp, Yoko Ono, Malcolm Mclaren, Jeremy Beadle, and Sacha Baron Cohen got in common? Toby Amies discovers how tricksters and pranksters have turned the poking of fun into an art form.
Pranking is such a part of society, we’ve got a specially sanctioned day of misrule in the calendar. Mark Twain described the 1st of April as “the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year”. But for some people April Fool’s day is just not enough; generally opposed to the status quo, they are determined to alter our relationship with reality by forcing us to question its veracity.
There are pranksters who have been determined to show us our folly all year round and most have philosophical, political and artistic reason to do so.
Toby investigates this reasoning behind pranking – discovering why people will risk consequences as serious as prison to make a point or get a laugh. Sometime the motivation behind a prank is not always only a good laugh at someone else’s expense. It can be a very serious business.
Toby draws a wobbly line from the court jester to the hoaxes of Swift and Welles to Yves Klein to the playful Marxism[!] of Debord and the Situationsists, through to the commercial modern pranking industry and the work of Sacha Baron Cohen, Improv Everywhere, Jeremy Beadle and America’s king of the prank, Joey Skaggs.
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4
The Art of the Prank
by Spencer Morgan
Maxim.com
June 29, 2009
From coast to coast, intrepid bands of merrymakers are staging hoaxes, stunts, and practical jokes like never before. Welcome to the Golden Age of the Prank.
This is for participants only,” announces a heavily bundled Charlie Todd through his trusty gray bullhorn. “If you didn”t come to take your pants off today, you”re in the wrong spot.” It”s a frigid January afternoon in New York City”s Foley Square, and hundreds of fearless pranksters are braving the elements to get together and shed their trousers for the eighth annual “No Pants! Subway Ride.”
Todd, a baby-faced 30-year-old from Columbia, South Carolina, is the mastermind behind this gathering, and on his command the assembled crowd scatters for the nearest subway entrances”¦and collectively drops trou. Even in a city like New York, riding the subway sans pants is a guaranteed eye-opener, and today is no exception: Straphangers stare, chuckle, even take photos. Around 1,200 men and women have come out clad in boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs, and bloomers, not just in New York, but in 21 cities across the globe. (“Three hundred take to the subway””shameless and pantless,” the Toronto Sun would inform its readers soberly the next day.) The mission ends with a group of agents celebrating in Union Square, making snow angels, still pantless. Improv Everywhere has struck again. Mission accomplished. Continue reading “Maxim Declares the Golden Age of the Prank”