Prank News - The Art of the Prank

May 1, 2008January 15, 2019

Chaser Team APEC Breach: All Charges Dropped

Australians escape punishment over APEC prank
Monsters and Critics
April 28, 2008

Sydney – The Australian comics who breached security at a regional summit in Sydney in September by riding in a fake motorcade had all charges against them dropped Monday.

The stunt by the Chaser television comedy team was only discovered when the convoy stopped just metres short of US President George W Bush’s hotel and an Osama bin Laden imposter got out.

A judge dropped the charges, saying their action was defensible as a reasonable and honest mistake because they did not believe they would be allowed through the security checks.

The let-off was welcomed by Kim Dalton, a director of state-owned ABC Television.

‘What was undeniably the greatest moment in political satire last year, which the ABC has always been very proud of, has been found to be just that – great political satire,’ Dalton said. Continue reading “Chaser Team APEC Breach: All Charges Dropped”

April 3, 2008January 15, 2019

Borat Vindicated for Culturally Correct Humiliation

Judge Tosses Out ‘Borat’ Lawsuit by N.Y. Businessman
1010WINS
April 2, 2008

New York (AP) — A judge has tossed out a defamation lawsuit brought by a businessman shown in the movie “Borat” as he is chased down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

The 2006 hit, starring Cohen as a crass Kazakhstan journalist, can be deemed “newsworthy,” defined in its most liberal and far-reaching terms, U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska said.

New York civil rights law provides limited protection for any person whose image is used for advertising or trade purposes without his written consent, she said, and the nonconsensual use of a person’s image to depict newsworthy events or matters of public interest is exempt from the law.

The lawsuit had sought unspecified damages from the movie’s producer, Twentieth Century Fox, for Jeffrey Lemerond, who claimed he was humiliated when the Borat character tried to catch him.

In the movie, Lemerond, a Dartmouth College graduate and financial analyst, is shown running and yelling “Go away!” as Borat chases him in an attempt to hug strangers. Continue reading “Borat Vindicated for Culturally Correct Humiliation”

April 1, 2008January 15, 2019

Lies To Get You Out of the House

Submitted by Paul Krassner, written by Michael Dare for Dareland,
March 26, 2008

The true story of the biggest April Fool’s Day Prank of All Time

Lies To Get You Out of the House

None of this is my fault. At least not all my fault. There are plenty of others to blame. For instance, there’s the Bhagwan . . .

I start out 1985 at the Bodhi Tree, a multispiritual bookstore on Melrose with incense and herbal tea. I am looking for nothing in particular, which is when you stumble upon the most surprising things. I am skimming from section to section, belief system to belief system, from Asimov to Zoroaster, when there in front of me is an entire wall of books by someone I’ve never heard of. His name is Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and he is not famous yet. He has not yet moved to Oregon, started an ashram, collected Rolls-Royces and gotten thrown out of the country. But he will be equally responsible for the Biggest April Fool’s Day Prank of all time. If I had not opened a random book by Rajneesh, turned to the first page and read the first paragraph, none of this would have happened. Here is what that first page said:

Beyond the boundary of this room is the unbound, open sky. You have never seen it. I can talk with you about the sky, about the freshness, about the sea, about all that is beyond this room, but you have not seen it. You do not know about it. You just laugh; you think I am making it up. You say, “It is all fantastic. You are a dreamer.” I cannot convince you to go outside because everything that I can talk about is meaningless to you. Then I say, “The house is on fire!” This is meaningful to you; this is something that you can understand. Now I do not have to give you any explanations. I just run; you follow me. The house is not on fire, but the moment you are outside you don’t have to ask me why I lied. The meaning is there; the sky is there. Now you thank me. Any lie will do. The lie was just a device; it was just a device to bring you outside. It did not cause the outside to be there. Every religion is based on a lie device.

I immediately dig the guy. Here he is, right off the bat, admitting that he’s lying to me. I buy the book and never finish it, but I do end up carrying a phrase around in my head for days, like a hit song with a killer hook. “Lies to get you out of the house.” I write it down at the top of a piece of paper, sure that something will come.

It does. Continue reading “Lies To Get You Out of the House”

March 20, 2008January 15, 2019

1st Annual Pranks Film Festival

RE/Search Publications Presents:

The First Annual Pranks Film Festival
April 1, 2, 3 at The Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street by Valencia, San Francisco CA 94133
Tickets $10 per day for all shows.
www.pranksfilmfestival.com

The 1st Annual Pranks Film Festival is a three day celebration and tribute to the “Art of the Prank” and those pranksters that have courage enough to pull them off.

The Festival will screen films about the masters like Alan Abel, John Law, The Cacophany Society and the Billboard Liberation Front and short docs from the newest infiltrators and prankster, like the Yes Men, Harmon Leon and Joey Skaggs. This is a festival that is both humorous and political.

Check the schedule here. Benefit for RE/Search Publications and Todd Blair of SRL.

Editor’s note: Video about Joey Skaggs will be screened on April 3 at 5pm.

March 6, 2008January 15, 2019

Announcing: New York City’s 23rd Annual April Fools’ Day Parade

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The New York April Fools” Committee Is Proud to Announce:

The 23rd Annual April Fools” Day Parade will march down Fifth Avenue from 59th Street beginning at 12 noon, Tuesday, April 1st, 2008. The parade route has changed temporarily due to construction in Washington Square Park. This year the parade will detour east across Fourteenth Street to Union Square where the post-parade festivities will begin.

The New York April Fools” Day Parade was created in 1986 to remedy a glaring omission in the long list of New York”s annual ethnic and holiday parades. These events fail to recognize the importance of April 1st, the day designated to commemorate the perennial folly of mankind. In an attempt to bridge that gap and bring people back in touch with their inherent foolishness, the parade annually crowns a King of Fools from parading look-alikes.

The parade will be led by President George Bush and his entire cabinet. They will be given a 60-second lead and then pursued by an outraged lynch mob. This will be followed by a Macy”s Day Parade-size helium balloon of a B52 Bomber Equipped with Nuclear Missiles flying overhead as the April Fools” Day Parade Marching Band plays Woody Guthrie”s “So Long, It”s Been Good to Know You.” The Parade”s Grand Marshall will be Ralph Nader, appropriately dressed as The Jester.

The public is encouraged to participate, in or out of costume, with or without floats, and may join the procession at any point along the parade route. Floats can be no wider than 10 feet and no longer than 25 feet. They can be self-propelled, towed, pushed or pulled. Customized bicycles, tricycles, baby carriages and aerial balloons are welcome. The Parade Committee assumes no liability for damages caused by satire. All participants are costumed look-alikes. Parade floats and marchers must be at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue no later than 11:30 a.m.

This year”s floats will be led Mardi Gras-style by Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, and instead of beads his Loan Shark Cronies will toss out loans you can”t refuse to the crowd; Michael Vick will be taking bets on his Dog Fight Float with caged, snarling pit bulls; a Chinese Dry-Cleaning Float will feature Roy Pearson screaming, “Where are my pants? I”m going to sue!”; an Archeological Dig Float designed by James Cameron will feature Jesus and Mary”s Bones; a Tourette”s Syndrome Float will feature radio personality Don Imus, political pundit Ann Coulter, the Reverend Louis Farrakhan, radio talk show host Bill Cunningham, and Dog the Bounty Hunter“”all shouting obscenities at the crowd; and a Mayflower Hotel Suite Float featuring New York Governor Eliot “Dickhead” Spitzer surrounded by hookers while promising “I will work hard to win back your trust”.

Marching celebrity fool look-alikes will include Senator Larry Craig insisting, “I”m not gay!”; Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore insisting, “I am gay”; Cheney Aide Scooter Libby pleading “Pardon me, pardon me!”; disruptive political protestor Andrew Meyer surrounded by cops screaming, “Don”t tase me, bro”; ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asserting, “To the best of my recollection, I don”t remember anything”; baseball great Roger Clemens protesting, “I never used steroids!”; ex-cop Drew Peterson calling for his missing wife to “Come home, just come home”; contagious TB world traveler Andrew Speaker coughing on the crowd; and a dazed Britney Spears looking for the Halloween Parade.

Color commentary will be provided by ex-Philadephia TV newscaster Alicia Lane in a thong bikini. Security this year will be provided by mercenaries courtesy of Blackwater.

As the parade ends in Union Square, the party begins, featuring live music, food, concessions & entertainment. The Chinese Government will be sponsoring a Food and Drug Concession and a Chinese Pet Food Booth. The USDA will be giving away free hamburgers. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and the CIA will provide free demonstrations of Waterboarding. Sex offender Deb LaFave will run a Day Care Center for paraders” children. And OJ Simpson and his posse will hawk his sports memorabilia to raise money for next year”s parade.

We are grateful to the New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Eliot Spitzer, and private funders for their support of this year”s parade.

The King or Queen of Fools will be chosen based on the loudest cheers of the crowd at Union Square. The winner will reign through March 31, 2009.

For information: Joey Skaggs, Committee Chair, 212-254-7878
34 East 11th Street, Suite 2A, New York, New York 10003