The April Fools’ Day Parade Committee and staff wish to thank all the people who made the parade this year the most successful ever. We had a record turnout, both in floats and costumed participants, as well as the cheering onlookers along the parade route.

A special thank you to students from the School of Visual Arts, Parsons the New School for Design and Cooper Union for your wonderful floats, and the students of Fashion Institute of Technology for your brilliant costume designs.

The after-parade party in Union Square also broke all records. The crowd, not unexpectedly, crowned George W. Bush as the King of Fools. The only negative mark was the arrest of three revelers who burned the presidential effigy. However, they were released without charges, so all ended well.

We’ll see you all next year!

Related links:

Pranks.com is one year old today!

Many, many thanks to all the supporters, contributors, readers, and friends who have made it such a great success!

images: party balloons, zombies

Courtesy of Joey Skaggs at pranks.com:

Click, print, cut & mail to: Governor Eliot Spitzer, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224 or any other deserving soul, for that matter:

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

So you wanna be on TV?

Magic Molehill Productions and CBS TV are soliciting pranksters for a new reality TV show, tentatively called “Pranksters”. Here’s the casting call as seen on Backstage.com on November 8, 2007:

Casting Call: ‘Pranksters’

Magic Molehill Productions is casting Pranksters, a reality show in which comedians compete for a chance at their prank show. Lynne Spillman, casting dir., Cydney Kaplan, coord. Shoot starts Summer 2008 in L.A. Seeking–Comedian Pranksters: males and females, 18+, any ethnicity, pranks should be innovative, hilarious, and represent your comedic point of view.

Send application and three pranks (on DVD or as email attachment) by Nov. 13 to Pranksters, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #1380, L.A., CA 90028 or email to pranksterstv@gmail.com

I was contacted by one of the casting producers and asked to apply as a contestant for the show. They asked me to submit three pranks on DVD for consideration. Apparently, after an international search, they will narrow it down to eight pranksters who will be in competition with each other to perform a prank a week for eight weeks on camera. Supposedly a panel of “experts” will judge the “quality” of the prank. The prize is an unspecified amount of money and the possibility of your own show on CBS. All contestants have to be in LA for two months. Accommodations and an unspecified stipend are provided. They wanted to know if I am interested.

I asked, “Do you know who I am and what my work is about?” I immediately began thinking about how to hoax them. I contacted my friend Dino D’Annibale to see if he would be willing to play me on the show for two months. Dino agreed to do it. (more…)

I’m a graduate of the School of Visual Arts and have taught there on and off over the years. Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Silas Rhodes was always supportive of my work and I will be eternally grateful for all of his good will. I can only imagine how many other similarly odd souls he deeply touched and positively affected throughout his life. I am honored to have known him. His vision and dedication will live on through the generosity of his spirit. JS

Silas H. Rhodes Dies at 91; Built School of Visual Arts
By Randy Kennedy
The New York Times
June 30, 1007

Silas H. Rhodes, co-founder of a trade school for cartoonists and illustrators in Manhattan that he built into the School of Visual Arts, one of the nation’s most important colleges for art and design, died on Wednesday at his home in Katonah, N.Y. He was 91.

Mr. Rhodes, who remained active as chairman of the school’s board, died in his sleep after spending a full day at his office, said his son David, who is the school’s president. (more…)

I’m very happy that archivist Ethan Persoff has created The Realist Archive Project, and will be republishing all 146 issues of Paul Krassner’s “classic and uncompromising” magazine The Realist. It’s great that his work will be back in circulation and available to the public.

I’ve known Paul since the 1960’s. He’s been a good friend and supporter of my work. He’s even been a participant. He came on my Hippie Bus Tour to Queens, was at my Vietnamese Christmas Nativity Burning in Central Park, and was kind enough to pose with my Grotesque Statues of Liberty in the East Village for the back cover of the jacket sleave of his book, How a Satirical Editor Became a Yippie Conspirator in Ten Easy Years. Paul has always been thoughtful, courageous and funny. Happily, he’s also a contributor to this site.

Four issues of The Realist will be posted every month until the archive is complete.

Thanks Mark Frauenfelder for the heads up and for the wonderful post about The Realist’s influence on Boing Boing.

Clement Eloy, an innovative French designer, whose site feeladdicted.com has some interesting product concepts, has created the Hotdoll for your horny hound.

“Get a little tail for your dog” was the tag line for the Cathouse for Dogs, a hoax I perpetrated in 1976. Given the enormous public response (in some cases outcry), and based on the volume of serious inquiries I received at the time, I bet there’s a real market for this product. At any rate, it’s safer, cleaner and more affordable. Plus, your dog doesn’t have to share unless he wants to.

Thank you: jokestarter.com

Here’s a review of the Saul Steinberg: Illuminations retrospective currently at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, on exhibit April 6 through June 24, 2007 posted by Heather Goss in the DCist. Steinberg (1914-1999) was an incisive satirist and artist who’s illustrations and drawings were featured in dozens of books and in countless New Yorker magazines. -JS

Saul Steinberg @ Smithsonian American Art Museum
By DCist contributor Sriram Gopal

An exhibit designed as career retrospective must be a daunting proposition, especially when focused on a prolific artist whose output ranged over sixty years. Too many pieces, and the exhibit becomes bloated. Too few, and the audience does not get an accurate cross section of the artist’s work. Thankfully, the curators of Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, threaded this needle. In doing so, they have mounted a captivating and wholly satisfying exhibition of one of the most insightful American artists of the 20th century.

Steinberg (1914-1999) is best known for his illustrations that appeared in The New Yorker, many of which are included in this collection. The exhibit includes over 100 drawings as well as collages and sculptural assemblages. A native of Romania who became a U.S. citizen in 1942, he described his work as occupying the space “between perception and understanding.” His proclamation that the 20th century was “an immense prank” sums up his somewhat cynical outlook. (more…)

Artist Ellen Moynihan and three artist friends, in a clever and bold juxtiposition of reality, took interior decorating to new lows — the New York subway system. They transformed an F train into a comfortable replica of a living room.

The New York Post covered the story:

RAILROAD APARTMENT: HOME DECORATORS AMBUSH F TRAIN
By Jeremy Olshan, Transit Reporter
New York Post

April 7, 2007 — Interior decorators hijacked an F train yesterday morning, transforming Car 5929 into a cozy living room with curtains, flowers, throw pillows and rugs.

The four artists behind this guerrilla installation, dubbed “No Train Like Home,” boarded the F in Coney Island at 7:38 a.m. carrying brown paper shopping bags filled with decorations and lots of double-sided tape.

As soon as the doors closed, the foursome started covering up every ad in the car with Andy Warhol prints and images of bookshelves.

They left the subway maps alone… For more of this story and more photos, check out The New York Post.

Franco and Eva Mattes are, in their own words, “a couple of restless European con-artists who use non-conventional communication tactics to obtain the largest visibility with the minimal effort.”

Their current work, involves a synthetic performance in the 3D online digital world of Second Life.

A past project called Nikeground, or, as their Web site says, “The Hardly Believable Nike Ground Trick,” was a “hyper-real theatrical performance”. (more…)

Here’s an example of how a carefully placed falsified document can foment a conspiracy theory. But remember, conspiracy theories are generally neither completely true nor completely false. That’s what gives them legs. The links here show the story from two opposing points of view:

Rove personally connected to email scandal
by www.dailykos.com · March 31, 2007

Land of the lost: Left-wing blogs get punked
by MichelleMalkin.com · April 04, 2007

There are lots of links to follow to piece the story together.

Post Script: Later in the day after this post was published, Pranks.com received this comment from Josiah at Coptix:

Thanks Josiah! -JS

Update to this story:
From AAP (Australia AP) via NEWS.com.au
April 16, 2007:

Judge Leo Hart today jailed Barnett for 15 months, with 12 months suspended for 15 months.

He said it was a “bizarre” case and that Barnett had the dual aim of getting recognition for his work and sending an anti-terrorism message.

“You’re an artist and believe yourself to be a good artist,” Judge Hart said.

“You believed that you had not been given the recognition that your work deserved and you sought to rectify this.”

Judge Hart said Barnett’s motives were not malicious but his behaviour was stupid and reckless.

He ordered Barnett to pay $6319 compensation to the police.

Original post:
From AAP via The Herald Sun
April 4, 2007:

A frustrated artist who wanted recognition for his work has pleaded guilty to creating a bomb hoax outside the National Gallery of Victoria.

Colin Douglas Barnett, 46, of suburban Cranbourne North, today pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court to one count each of creating a bomb hoax and causing a public nuisance, and two counts of making a false report to police. (more…)

Check out the work of artist Banksy and this video from London’s Channel 4 News about his efforts on the West Bank wall separating Israel from Palestine.

First saw this video on Hearing Test.