Improv Everywhere
Improv Everywhere (abbreviated IE) is an unorthodox comedy group based in New York City, formed in 2001 by Charlie Todd. Its slogan is "We Cause Scenes," which the group lives up to by executing non-demeaning pranks in public places. The events ("missions") organized by the group are often considered flash mobs, but the group's website insists that they have nothing to do with flash mobbing and that IE was created years before flash mobbing gained popularity.
Background
Many of the group's longtime participants met through the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. The owners of the theatre, The Upright Citizens Brigade, had a television series from 1998-2000 on Comedy Central. While primarily a sketch comedy show, the UCB often filmed their characters in public places with hidden cameras and showed the footage under the end credits. Both the UCB's show and their teachings on improv have been influential to Improv Everywhere. Todd himself currently teaches at the UCB.
Missions and pranks
While some missions are executed by long-time members of IE, many missions are open to the public. IE has organized and carried out over 70 missions, from synchronized swimming in a park fountain to repeating a short sequence of events in a Starbucks café every five minutes for an hour to flooding a Best Buy store with members dressed exactly like the staff. All share a certain modus operandi: The missions are benevolent, aiming to give the observers ("civilians") a laugh and an experience. Members ("agents") play their roles entirely straight, not breaking character or betraying that they are acting.
The group's most popular stunt is the annual No Pants event, which involves a large number of people riding a subway in the attire described, all claiming to have forgotten their pants by accident. The situation is solved by the lucky appearance of a pants vendor. This and several other missions have received national media attention. This event created controversy on 22 January 2006, when the New York City Police Department arrested eight members of the group while on the subway. According to the group, over 160 people participated in the city-wide event. The eight unlucky ones were riding the 6 train and were taken into custody and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. After appearing in court, these charges were dismissed. [3] The event was repeated again in 2007, this time with over 300 participants and no police intervention. [4]
Another more complex mission, done on 21 May 2005 involved the IE team staging a fake U2 street concert on a rooftop in New York hours before the real U2 were scheduled to perform at Madison Square Garden. The team was successful in that they were able to draw an enormous crowd, most of which thought that the people on the rooftop were actually U2. However, just like at the filming of the band's Where the Streets Have No Name video in 1987, the police eventually shut the performance down, but not before IE was able to exhaust their four-song repertoire and get most of the way through an encore repeat of "Vertigo". The mission ended on a high note, with the crowd (even those who had realized that this was a prank) shouting "one more song!," and then "let them play!" when the police officers arrived. This mission was number 23 on the VH1 countdown of the "40 Greatest Pranks." [5]
During the Best Buy Invasion mission, an 80-person IE team entered a Best Buy store dressed in blue shirts and khaki pants -- the uniform colors of Best Buy employees -- and answered questions for customers (though denying being an employee of Best Buy if asked). Charlie Todd used this mission at an interview as an example of their missions being legal, as he says that the employees did call the cops, but when they arrived they just said that they couldn't do anything.
Todd was interviewed on an episode of This American Life in 2005. While touching briefly on the "No Pants" and "The Moebius" stunts, the show focused on "Best Gig Ever" and "Ted's Birthday", and how they created unintended reactions. Improv Everywhere was also featured in the pilot episode for This American Life's television show on Showtime. [6]
Notable missions
- No Pants - Agents remove their pants, revealing their undershorts, and ride the subway across New York and back. If they are asked why they are not wearing pants the agents simply said that they "forgot" them. This mission is repeated every year, in earlier years they had people who "just happened" to be selling pants meet up with the pantless agents near the end of the mission. No Pants 2006 caught the attention of the New York Police, who detained some of the agents. Summary: 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
- The MP3 Experiment - A large number of participants are invited to download an MP3 onto their portable MP3 player without listening to it ahead of time. The participants were then gathered and all told to push play at the same time, and the MP3 turns out to be a mix of music to dance to, voice instructions, and games. IE has run four official MP3 Experiments so far, and has instructions and materials to assist others in running their own MP3 experiment. Summary: Original, 2.0, III, Four
- Anton Chekov - An agent pretended to be Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, and gave a reading at a New York bookstore, and later signed books. The real Anton Chekov has been dead for over a century, but few people realized, and many happily had him sign copies of The Cherry Orchard. Summary
- Even Better than the Real Thing - Agents staged a fake U2 concert on top of an apartment building right before a real U2 concert at Madison Square Garden. They drew a substantial crowd before local police caught on and detained them. The agents were charged with "unreasonable noise" by the amused arresting officers. Summary
- The Moebius - A small team of agents sat in a coffee shop and acted out a series of actions, repeating every five minutes for an hour. This skit was the subject of an interview on the radio show This American Life. Summary
- Abercrombie & Fitch - The group parodied the lifestyle brand Abercrombie & Fitch's ads featuring bare-chested male models by having 111 "agents" enter the A&F store in New York City and remove their shirts. This drew mixed, but mostly amused, reactions from customers and staff, but store security quickly ejected the IE members.[1]
- Best Buy - A group of 80 employee look-alikes dressed in blue polo shirts and khaki pants caused confusion at the two-story Best Buy on 23rd Street in New York. [2]
- Frozen Grand Central - 207 IE Agents freeze in time on cue in New York's Grand Central Station. This mission became very popular, resulting in similar instances all around the world. Their YouTube video has over 9 million views.
- Food Court: The Musical - 16 IE agents created a spontaneous musical in a food court in a Los Angeles mall. Using wireless microphones and the mall's PA system, both their voices and the music was amplified throughout the food court.
- Best Game Ever - At least 14 IE Agents assembled at a Little League Baseball game in Hermosa Beach to give 10 year old little leaguers the best game ever. The mission included the use of a JumboTron, free concessions, a PA announcer, Jim Gray from NBC Sports, and the GoodYear Blimp.