We Cause Scenes Page #3

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and they'll be what I need

them to be in this situation. "

Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh.

Shh!

They were getting out of it,

the same thing I was.

They-they wanted to go

on an adventure, too.

They wanted

to express themselves.

They wanted to be

a part of something.

Surprise!

To do pranks, are the heart of improv.

Really called to me.

It was great to have, unknowing

people be the audience of your show.

Bingo players!

G-5-3!

G-5-3!

Mark it if you got it!

It was about let's improvise with passers-by,

the people on this subway train,

and see what scenes

we can create with them.

These people have just met

and they're playing

bingo together!

Hi, I'm Christy,

nice to meet you.

See around 66th;

friendships and bingo.

That's what the bingo dudes

are all about.

We would document this story and

we would put some photographs up

and we would share it

with our friends.

Next thing we knew it was like,

"Oh, we've done ten!

Oh, we've done twenty!"

My attitude was like, I got this idea.

This idea is great.

All I have to do, is do it.

And once I do it, I've won!

And it's already a success.

There's probably things that I

did those first couple of years

that don't really fit with

Improv Everywhere anymore.

Okay, a little closer together.

To each other.

Uh, good afternoon,

this is ah, Agent Todd.

Uh... and Agent King.

Uh, we're about to embark

on a hypnotism bit.

Um, Agent King is going to be

playing The Amazing Hypnotist.

You excited about this?

Uh, yeah, it's gonna be

pretty awesome.

Um, basically we're gonna head

down to Washington Square Park

and um, hypnotize some other

Improv Everywhere agents

who are already down there

waiting on us.

And... cause a scene.

So, uh, come along.

It's gotta be fun.

- Come along.

- Okay!

The Amazing Hypnotist was

based on an Andy Kaufman prank.

Hold your seats!

Ladies and gentlemen in just a few minutes,

The Amazing Hypnotist will be

hypnotizing volunteers from the crowd.

It's an absolutely free show. We

won't even ask for donations.

Stay where you are.

Come visit us soon.

So I had five friends who

were going to be volunteers

that would raise their hand

and I would call on them

and they would come up

and get hypnotized.

Is there anyone out here

on Washington Square Park

who would like

be hypnotized today?

You sir! Would you like

to be hypnotized today?

Yeah.

- Yeah?

- Sure.

Ken Keech was cast

to be the first person

to be hypnotized.

He would be hypnotized into

thinking he was an ostrich.

The ostrich is sort of

a silly thing

that can go first

and it's not uh...

no hard feelings with that one.

Just someone being an ostrich.

Ken.

Yellow.

Come here, come here, come here,

come here, come here.

Yellow.

How about a big hand for Ken?

The second person to be

hypnotized would be Dan Burman

who would be hypnotized into

thinking he was in a desert.

I have this crazy talent,

I can drink mass quantities of liquid

in a very short period of time.

We gave him a bunch of Gatorade,

one of them was like red Gatorade,

and he got all over his shirt.

People were still

ready to believe that hypnotism

is like automatic and-

just, you can do anything.

Today, The Amazing Hypnotist

is going to see

if the power of hypnosis is

stronger than the power of love.

We picked two people

out of the audience,

my friends Charles Roach

and Brooks Ann Camper.

And they were a couple

but seemed like they were with a

boyfriend and a girlfriend already.

The hypnotist hypnotized them

into falling in love.

Charles, Brooks Ann... Pink.

Kind of very slowly, they started

kissing and the crowd gasps.

I think that got the audience

to be like "This is real!

Like they just got two strangers

in New York City to kiss. "

Pink!

Everybody's clapping

and everything's okay.

But really, like,

that's a messed up thing to do,

to have two people who are in a

relationship, all of this, you know,

basically cheat on their significant

others in front of their face.

The next happening is we got

John Gemberling

and hypnotized him into

thinking he was a stripper.

The stripping was quick.

It was just pants and a shirt.

The rest of it was kind of like,

milking and saying "no, no, no. "

All of a sudden,

Anthony starts calling out

the code words of all

the previous volunteers.

Ken!

Yellow!

Dan!

Blue!

And at that point

when everybody was going,

Anthony and I kind of

slowly started backing up

and then we just took off

and ran.

Leaving somebody hypnotized,

that's a really edgy,

scary thing for people to be in.

Well, he ran away?

Let's go.

Let him go.

Sorry!

This guy's in boxers. These guys

are gonna pick up his clothes.

Here we go, green!

Or blue!

There was one guy

in the striped shirt,

and I could tell

he was not happy.

Call that off!

Right in front of

your damned face, right?

Were-were-

were you with them?

- What?

- Were you with them?

- The two hypnotist, were you with them?

- No, no.

Because if you were,

I'm dead serious,

we're gonna have

a real problem.

And we work with

a lot of people in this park,

and I have a lot of friends

that are cops,

and I will call one right now

if you really want it,

because you just broke up

a goddamn couple!

- So if you're with them, tell me.

- Two couples!

Right now.

Give me the phone,

give me the phone.

- I'm not with them.

- Give me the phone.

And you better stop filming.

I think he was doing the

right thing, I mean,

this had been wrong.

Yo, this is some

f***ed up sh*t.

In some ways it is

the meanest prank, I think,

that Charlie's

ever put together.

- Yo, this is f***ed up!

- It is!

Over the years, the voice

of Improv Everywhere

has been refined and it

sort of like, developed.

But I realized, I needed to think about

what kind of chaos this might cause.

And is that a good kind of chaos or is

this potentially a bad kind of chaos.

I documented The Hypnotist

prank on the website,

posted the photos and a

description of what went down

and... it got a

really good response.

Right around the same time, I got an

email forwarded from a friend of mine,

inviting me

to the first MOB Project.

A large number of people

were emailed

and they were told to show up at

the same place at the same time

and to do one specific thing.

Unlike Improv Everywhere,

it was much more about the act

of bringing people together

than it was about the activity that

was happening when you're there.

A blogger coined the term

"flash mob. "

And all of a sudden, this

types of events had a name.

I mean, they were flash mobs.

I went to the fourth mob in New

York which was at the Toys "R" Us.

And they were a lot of

MOB-ers.

I was sort of concerned

because it seemed like this is

very similar to Improv Everywhere.

The idea of a bunch of people

coming together in a public place

and doing something weird.

Very quickly, the flash mobs

that were happening in New York

were being covered by the

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