Category: Fact or Fiction?

A look at conspiracy theories, “official truths”, political spin, propaganda, tall tales, urban legends, magic, and illusion, all as they relate to the Art of the Prank. When truth intersects with a personal agenda, established facts are challenged, or human gullibility is preyed upon for ulterior motives, we hope that skepticism, logic, reason, and facts have a balancing effect.

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RIP Screaming Mad George 1956-2026

A heartfelt farewell to Screaming Mad George (a.k.a. Joji Tani), who left us on February 10, 2026. He was my student at SVA in 1977. I was teaching media communications, and to involve the students in the art of creating a spectacle, we took to the streets. The idea was to use a diversionary tactic to grab public attention.

The students staged a fake demonstration about a real issue in front of the New York governor’s office —  the environmental impact of the supersonic Concorde jet. In the midst of the demonstration, the protesters were attacked by New York’s legendary Sewer Monster, created by Screaming Mad George.

This was early in his extraordinally creative career designing visual effects for bizarre, macabre, and gruesomely realistic effects. Read the full story here.

Screaming Mad George as the monster in Joey Skaggs’ “Sewer Monster” Performance, 1977, New York, NY

Read his obituary here: “The Man Behind The PS1’s Oddest Game, Has Passed Away”,

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  3. “Joey Skaggs: Celebrity Sperm Bank” Film Festival Screenings in August and September 2023
  4. Join Us at New York City’s 36th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade!
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Seek and Ye Shall Find…

Yes, if you’re only looking for what you want to see.

Fashion victim in fur suit sparks Bigfoot panic in small Maine town: ‘Very convincing’, by Zoe Hussain, New York Post, September 6, 2026.

The hairy truth finally came out.

Maine cops launched an investigation after a surge of 911 calls reported spotting Bigfoot roaming around town — only to discover it was actually just a fashion victim in a “very convincing” costume.

Damariscotta cops received an “unusually high number of calls” on Tuesday about a Sasquatch-like creature wandering around the tiny mid-coast tourist destination, including during morning drop-off on the first day of school, according to NBC News and the Damariscotta Police Department.

Read whole article here.

Related posts:

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Trump Checks!

The Bank of Trump is pleased to announce a $5,000 gift to every American! Get yours on joeyskaggs.com.

Is it legal? Who’s going to stop him?
Will it raise the national debt? Who cares?

You can pay him back in November. Vote Republican! That’s the deal.


Print it, cut it out, and fill it in

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A Spectacle to Miss On Your Next Trip to Italy

A self-described Italian archeologist “makes” history, literally.
h/t Uwe

‘A sucker born every minute’: The man who duped tourists with a fake Greek amphitheater, by Julia Buckley, CNN, August 24, 2026.

Of the eight TripAdvisor reviews of the amphitheater near Arcugnano, in Italy’s northern Veneto region, all give fulsome, five-star praise.

Read the whole article here.

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It’s a Poll Measuring Contest!

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying poll?

Website behind widely shared fake election polls run by 21-year-old, by Sophie Sullivan, Anna Betts and Sam Levine, The Guardian, August 20, 2026.

Exclusive: Rahil Prakash tells the Guardian: ‘I wanted to see if fake polls could penetrate the ecosystem that easily’

A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal.

The website, Median Strategies, abruptly shut down and withdrew its polling earlier this week following questions from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. In an unsigned statement, it described a “short-term social experiment” to examine how fake polling “could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification”.

Read the whole article here.

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