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…)

Just Say No… to The Yes Men
by Richard Morrison
OpenMarket, staff Weblog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
July 13, 2007

This week DC played host to the anti-corporate shenanigans of The Yes Men, self-proclaimed “culture jammers” who get off on impersonating corporate and government spokespeople and proceeding to make ridiculous and/or horrifying public statements. The general idea behind culture jamming is to use a mainstream medium to communicate a subversive message. A more specific (and jargon-filled) definition comes to us courtesy of our good friend Wikipedia:

Culture jamming is the act of transforming mass media to produce commentary about itself, using the original medium’s communication method. It is a form of public activism which is generally in opposition to commercialism, and the vectors of corporate image. The aim of culture jamming is to create a contrast between corporate or mass media images and the realities or perceived negative side of the corporation or media. This is done symbolically, with the “detournement” of pop iconography.

That’s quite a mouthful. In any event, The Yes Men employ culture jamming techniques to spread their message. Unfortunately, their message seems to consist mostly of anti-capitalist, anti-trade, anti-corporate ideology. Which brings us to the events of this week.

They had contacted CEI and several other free market think tanks, claiming to be documentary filmmakers retained by the ad agency Hill & Knowlton to make an updated version of Milton Friedman’s landmark series “Free to Choose.” Supposedly, a wealthy private donor had commissioned the new series, and hired H&K to produce it. Several of the groups, taking them at their word, leapt at the chance to talk about how economic freedom leads to an open, prosperous society, and scheduled interviews. By Monday evening, however, troubling details began to emerge. (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…)

From the Museum of Hoaxes:

The Viagra Oyster Email Hoax

George May had a clever idea: Let oysters soak in a solution of Viagra for a while, and then sell them as Viagra Oysters. Of course, Pfizer is objecting to this use of its drug, and food-safety officials don’t like the idea of selling purposefully contaminated oysters. But still, May is confident he’s got a successful product on his hands, and his idea has received quite a lot of media attention. So it pleased him, but didn’t surprise him, when he received the following email from Google’s corporate offices:

“Congratulations! The Viagra oyster story is the fastest growing internet story since 9/11 with over 700,000 links in 24 hours.”

Except, of course, Google doesn’t send out congratulatory letters of this kind. If they did, they’d constantly be congratulating whoever was the latest internet-celebrity-of-the-day. The email was the work of a prankster who forged the “from” field. Or was it? Perhaps May cooked up the email himself to gain a little more media attention for himself. He’s denying this allegation, but it seems plausible to me since he’s the one benefitting from the hoax — and because his first reaction on receiving the email was to call the media and tell them about it.

Jon Stewart’s parody news show may make him “the most trusted name in fake news,” but these days it “comes at us from every quarter of the media,” writes journalism professor Robert Love — “not just as satire but disguised as the real thing, secretly paid for by folks who want to remain in the shadows. And though much of it is clever, it’s not all funny.” Love recounts some of the memorable frauds that have filled newspaper pages in the past: the New York Sun’s Great Moon Hoax of 1835, Mark Twain’s “petrified man,” and H.L. Mencken’s fabricated 75th anniversary of the bathtub. More recently, he notes, video news releases and pundits-for-hire like Armstrong Williams have ushered in an era where new technologies make it “easier to deliver the news and also easier to fake it,” while “falling circulation, diminishing news budgets, and dismantled staffs” have given “third-party players — government, industry, politicians, you name ‘em — sleeker weapons and greater power to turn the authority of the press to their own ends: to disseminate propaganda, disinformation, advertising, politically strategic misinformation — to in effect use the media to distort reality.”

   Originally from Center for Media and Democracy - Publishers of PR Watch on April 21, 2007