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Interview: Charlie Todd, urban prankster
Mar 29, 2005
Interview with Charlie Todd, urban prankster; founder, Improv Everywhere.
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In honor of April Fool's Day coming up on Friday, an interview with Charlie Todd, an urban prankster who is out to create good experiences at unexpected times and places in the city.
Charlie will speak at the Gel 2005 conference one month from today. (Note that the price for tickets jumps Thursday night, so you have less than THREE days left to buy at regular price...)
Q - You're a prankster.
My goal is to perform pranks that are positive and uplifting, and about making someone's day, rather than humiliating someone. The prank shows on TV throughout history, and especially now, are really focused on embarrassing someone, or making them angry. What I seek to do is alter someone's reality in a positive way, or at least in an interesting way, that's not overtly about drawing out negative emotions.
A lot of my pranks are overtly positive, like "let's make a rock band's day by packing the house for their crappy gig," or "let's have two people propose marriage on the subway and create this beautiful thing for everyone who sees it." Others are less overtly about making people happy, and more just enabling people to experience something different and weird, typically in a mundane environment - like "let's get people to take their pants off in the subway." Just the experience, more than anything, gives the witnesses a story they can tell for the rest of their lives.
One thing I don't do: there's no "reveal" moment, which is a staple of what we've come to know as a prank on TV. At the end of a prank, we don't tell everyone, "It's a trick, it's all been organized, ha ha ha." We just walk away. People might figure it out on their own, or maybe they won't ever figure it out.
What's been interesting recently is that, with the improvement of search engines, people who witness them are much more likely to figure it out and then contact me. Like the rock band found out 24 hours after it was posted on the Internet. I've had three different people contact me about No Pants this year. This one girl saw it, went home, typed in "no pants subway nyc" into google, found me on the first page, blogged it, and then a few weeks later I'm searching for the same thing to see if anything wrote about it, and sure enough I found her blog.
Q - Google as intermediary.
Yes, definitely. And I think blogs have changed things, too. My popularity online has definitely risen with the rise of the blogosphere, because a lot of these things are the types of things people like to write about. Someone sees my site and they blog about it.
Q - Will more exposure risk people recognizing you and ruining the prank?
New York is so enormous, it would take a lot more exposure to risk that. But I don't always take the lead in these pranks. I'm the organizer, but in some pranks - like getting someone to play Anton Chekov, or the rock band prank, I keep a low profile.
Q - How old were you when you pulled your first prank?
I've been pulling April Fool's pranks since I was five. My father and his father were known to prank. April 1 was actually my grandfather's birthday.
Q - Who's the role model.. is there a superstar prankster?
Andy Kaufman. He opened my eyes to possibilities of pranks. I read bob Zmuda's book "Andy Kaufman Revealed!" in college, about the crazy things they did in public, most of which were mean and cruel, but just amazing, so ballsy. I'm in awe of a lot of the things he pulled off.
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Read about Charlie's most recent mission Look Up More.
