Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places with Improv Everywhere
Improv Everywhere is the joyful performance art troupe that pulls playful large scale pranks designed to surprise and delight unwitting public audiences. They're the ones behind the frozen people in Grand Central Station, the No Pants! subway ride, the Food Court Musical, the 80 fake uniformed Best Buy employees, the Starbuck's time loop, the McDonald's bathroom attendant prank, and others.
Improv Everywhere founder Charlie Todd and his cohort Alex Scordelis have written a book, Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places with Improv Everywhere, that reveals the behind-the-scenes stories of 13 of their pre-planned missions, along with tips on how anyone can start their own street theater prank group.
Yesterday, Improv Everywhere threw a surprise wedding reception for a random couple getting married at City Clerk's Office in Manhattan. Watch the video here.
Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places with Improv Everywhere
- Improv Everywhere: No Pants! Subway Ride - Boing Boing
- Improv Everywhere: mass twins on subway - Boing Boing
- Improv Everywhere welcomes strangers arriving at JFK airport ...
- Food Court Musical, by Improv Everywhere - Boing Boing
- Best Buy threatens blogger over someone else's parody - Boing Boing
- 207 pranksters stand still for 5 mins in Grand Central Stn - Boing ...
the latest
latest episodes
1) The (twice!) typo (?) of "Improve Everywhere" might just be the best/most appropriate type ever.
2) This wedding reception and the time they descended upon a little league game (was that them?) and turned it into an announced, "televised" event are two of the best examples of art's ability to make people's lives better . . . and as an artist, blah blah blah because
3) I'm getting a little too misty here (both in this space and my own on the other side of the screen).
Book? How about a DVD?
They have a DVD. Personally, I'd purchase that over the book -- their art is primarily audiovisual.
They pretty much always make me tear up. What the hell is that about?
These stunts could be the basis of a great surreality series.
* * *
An episode of Law & Order used the Frozen in Grand Central stunt. As I recall, evil bad guy arranged it as cover for a crime.
A recent David Pogue column had a nice write up of an Improv Everywhere event he attended.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/the-mp3-experiment/
Whoa, Stefan. That's awesome. Any clue the episode name or season? I wanna see it. :)
The problem I have with I.E. is that at they explain the pranks in minute detail at the beginning of every clip. So the enjoyment is solely for those unwitting people in attendance.
@Stefan Jones
There was an Improv Everywhere pilot made for NBC in 2007, but it never got picked up unfortunately.
I mean, I like childlike whimsy as much as the next guy, but for me the funniest part is the always the blase New Yorkers, the majority of whom don't even visibly register than anything unusual is happening.
I have watched just about all of their pranks, but my favourite by far is 'best game ever', where they go to a random little league game and take over.
Pretend to be doing [some social function] [possibly in an inappropriate place] [possibly involving unsuspecting/unprepared random people], film reaction, declare "mission" a success regardless of reaction.
#7: The episode ran last year, MAYBE late 2007. It was on "Law & Order: SVU." I believe the episode involved the lady cop being kidnapped. In fact, I think she was kidnapped during the freeze.
why has this been removed from the BoingBoing site? it's not in the archives. it's available through the search feature, but if you look through all the posts, it seems to have disappeared.
How great to make people laugh or smile....keep up the good work.!!