March 30, 2014: Pranks and Hoaxes, produced by Wisconsin Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International, presents an interview with Joey Skaggs called Art of the Hoax – Joey Skaggs.
Listen here
Pranks That Sell
From Joe King
Why Terrifying Pranks Make the Best Advertising
by Claire Suddath
Business Week
November 1, 2013
A few weeks ago, a two-and-a-half minute video called Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise circulated online. The clip offered a behind-the-scenes look at how a team of filmmakers played a prank on unsuspecting New York City coffee shop patrons by building a fake wall, outfitting an actor with a wire and harness, and then cuing an actress to freak out in public and use her magical powers to suspend the guy in midair. The coffee shop was a real coffee shop”””sNice in Manhattan”s West Village””and the looks of horror on customers” faces were genuine. The prank was funny and fascinating, and has since been watched more than 46 million times on YouTube and discussed on both Good Morning America and CNN (TWX).
It”s also, technically speaking, a commercial. Watch the video here.
The prank and resulting video were a promotional stunt for Sony Pictures” (SNE) Carrie remake; this becomes evident when the movie”s title and release date appear at the end. It was produced by the viral marketing firm Thinkmodo, which in February made a similar promo for The Last Exorcism Part II. In that one, Thinkmodo scared hair salon customers by making the image of a possessed-looking woman appear whenever they looked in the mirror.
On the Today show, hosts Natalie Morales and Matt Lauer talked about the demon-in-the-mirror stunt and then pranked their own NBC correspondents with it. “That”s millions of dollars worth of air time for our client, and it was free,” says James Percelay, co-founder of Thinkmodo. “We figured out a way to get their name mentioned without so much as a media buy.” Continue reading “Pranks That Sell”
April Fools’ Day 2013: Pranks High and Low
Corporate sniping takes a front row in this year’s tech-foolery…
GMAIL Blue:
From TechCrunch: The hits just keep coming for The Googs. Next stop on the April Fools Google Train? “Gmail Blue.” That should explain itself, but just in case, it took Google “six years to develop the technology” to turn Gmail blue. Google turns nine tomorrow, and it might as well just go for it.
A poke at Facebook? Who”s to say?
Bing goes Google:
From ZDNet: If you wander down over to Bing today, you’re surely in for a surprise. Microsoft is swiping a jibe at Google by changing how it looks if you search for “google” in the rival search engine. It’s still regular Bing under the surface, though. And just for extra heart-ripping measure, you can either “Search” or hit the soon-to-be infamous “I’m Feeling Confused” button instead.
More on what’s happening – check these links throughout the day for more:
April Fools’ Day 2011 Prank Survey
April Fools’ Day 2011
Metro.co.uk
March 31, 2011
April Fools’ Day: Top five April Fools’ Day jokes in sport ever: For some, April Fools’ Day is all fun and high jinx, but for others it’s just those with no sense of humour playing along with the rest of the human race. At Metro we thought we’d celebrate five of the best sporting April Fools’ jokes of all time.
Top 5 YouTube pranks: To celebrate April Fools’ Day this year, we’ve had a look back at some of the best YouTube pranks to cross our jape-loving paths.
April Fools’ Day: Joke ideas to play on your work colleagues and friends: It’s April Fools’ Day and once again workers around the country will be playing a host of tricks on their colleagues and friends. If you’re short on prank ideas, read on for Metro’s guide to the best jokes to play.
April Fools’ Day movie special: Top 5 ill-advised film pranks: It”s the week of April Fools” Day and innocent pranks are very much the order of the day. We bring you our five best film pranks.
Improv Everywhere: Star Wars Subway Car
New from Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:
For our latest mission, we staged a reenactment of the first Princess Leia / Darth Vader scene from Star Wars on a New York City subway car. The white walls and sliding doors on the train reminded us of the rebel ship from the movie, and we thought it would be fun to see how people would react to a surprise appearance by the iconic characters. We spread out the actors along the train line, staging it so they would enter the right car at the right time. Enjoy the video first and then go behind-the-scenes for photos and more information.
edited by Matt Adams, music by Gustav Holst, arranged by Tyler Walker
More related links for Improv Everywhere here.