We Cause Scenes Page #7

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guys without their pants!

That news story gave

tremendous coverage

to Improv Everywhere

and tremendous coverage

of the no-pants subway ride.

This roving band of

undercover agents,

a cross between

thespians and hooligans

has gained notoriety

for their their stunts.

Since all of this uh,

media attention,

my list has gotten bigger.

I've got about 1500 people

- on my New York City mailing

list right now. - Wow!

The net result of this

no-pants subway ride arrest

ended up being a big gain.

At this point,

I've done about

forty different projects

and had videotaped

almost all of them.

I had all of this video footage

that no one had ever seen.

And then, in April of 2006,

I joined YouTube.

All of a sudden,

I had this opportunity

to share these videos

with the world.

And I think I was at a

little bit of an advantage

when YouTube started

because I had

all of this old content

that I could start

putting out right away.

Just go up the escalator,

please.

I've gotta leave

because I'm wearing

the same clothes

you're wearing?

Yes, we'd like you to leave.

For whatever reason,

my videos on YouTube

were sort of starting

to get featured and take off.

All of a sudden,

this website SlashDot

is linking to me

and it's breaking my server

and, you know, I'm getting

so much traffic that,

you know, my website goes down.

Four different

literary agents contacted me

saying that I should

write a book

about Improv Everywhere.

And Television producers

started contacting me as well.

I saw a piece on NBC,

I believe it was, about uh...

no pants on the subway.

I saw the video.

Um, I then went to

the Improv Everywhere site

and saw the history of videos.

And then I reached out

directly to Charlie Todd.

Jason seemed very confident

that he could sell a show

at NBC or MTV.

It was the time when YouTube was blowing

up and it was like the gold rush.

Everybody was grabbing

what they could off of YouTube

and really trying to,

you know, this is it.

This is gonna be

the next thing.

I flew out to L.A. and the NBC

meeting was the first one.

We pitched them the show

and we planned to shoot

four pranks

for the pilot episode.

It went pretty well

and I remember we were

in the elevator

and my agent like, you know,

stuck his arm out

to keep the door open,

got in the elevator

and when the doors closed,

he said, "I think

they're gonna buy it. "

Everything I'd done

since graduating college,

that I was proud of,

had been Improv Everywhere.

It was just kind of

an amazing bit of news

to find out that NBC

wanted to make this.

My name is Charlie Todd,

and over six years ago,

I started a website

called Improv Everywhere.

I work out of my apartment

in New York City,

and coordinate large scale

public pranks

through my website

by recruiting normal,

everyday people

from all walks of life.

Now, I can organize

large groups of people

to do hilarious things,

anywhere at any time.

It was very different working

for a television network.

I was given creative control

over the pranks themselves,

but the larger choices

about the structure of the show

and how each prank

would be introduced,

those were really not

in my control.

So the premise here,

is that you guys

got a random person

in this bar.

The goal of what

we're doing tonight is

to give Ted

an awesome birthday party.

That being said,

it was pretty awesome

to get to work with

real equipment.

They constructed fake walls

that had two way mirrors

embedded in them.

We had robot hidden cameras

in every corner of this bar.

It was an immense leap

forward for us.

Imagine having a front-row

seat to a brand-new musical.

Only, you're not in a theatre.

You're eating lunch in a

shopping mall food court.

We had hidden cameras

positioned all around

this mall.

All the actors were wearing

hidden microphones,

and we were able to use

the mall's P.A. system

to play the song.

We're gonna turn

this little league game,

played by ten year olds,

into a major league game.

We had this huge mob of fans

show up to the game.

Then we had mascots show up,

then we'd have a JumboTron

appear on the outfield wall,

and then, the real icing

on the cake of this prank

was that the Good Year blimp

was gonna show up.

It was really awesome to see

it actually get pulled off

on such a grand scale.

This was really

the best example

of me being able

to use an actual budget

and do something

that I could not do

by myself.

The fourth idea

that I came up with

was to recreate something

we had done

called Romantic Comedy Cab.

When NBC decided that

they didn't like

one of the missions

we were going to do, we basically

had ten days to figure it out.

Right there, on the spot,

I just came up with the idea

of, well, what if we had

a couple of hundred people,

freeze in place somewhere

and call it Frozen New York.

And Jason said, "That

sounds great, let's do it!"

It's a busy afternoon

in New York's famous

Grand Central Station,

welcome to Frozen New York.

Grand Central's a great place

because you have tourists

who are taking photos,

and you also have New Yorkers

who are using this place

to commute, so it's a great

mix of people.

We met at Bryant Park,

two hundred people showed up.

Some of them were

personal friends of mine,

some of them were long time

Improv Everywhere participants.

It really worked

like a normal

Improv Everywhere prank.

Everybody was told to trickle

in at exactly 2:
10.

We would all freeze in place.

It was just really cool to see.

There was 150 of us,

we were about half the crowd.

There was a big, beautiful

thing happening

in the middle of Grand Central.

I think one couple

was frozen in a kiss.

I don't care how much

you like somebody, I mean,

to be frozen in a kiss

for five minutes

in which you're not allowed

to move,

that could be difficult.

I witnessed

Frozen Grand Central

really, like, anyone else

in the space did.

How long has this

been happening?

I don't know.

I think it's some kind

of protest.

- It's like, everybody.

- Yeah.

After five minutes, every one

simultaneously unfroze.

When that many people

in a location unfreeze,

it's like the world just

coming back to life again.

And people applauded.

When we wrapped the project,

I just remembered feeling

great about it, like, wow!

You know, that was

so successful.

It was so cool,

I can't wait

to see the footage,

I feel really good about this.

I got an email from Ben Folds.

And I was terrified

when I saw

his name on my inbox.

It was a little over

five years after

I played the prank,

but every time

I ever get interviewed,

I talk about how

I impersonated him.

It wouldn't be wrong of him

to be kind of pissed off

that I pretended to be him

in a bar one night.

I open up the email,

and as it turned out,

he liked the idea.

So a lot of people

were telling me that some guy

had posed as me in a bar, uh,

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