This weekend, This American Life will be rerunning the “Mind Games” epsisode, featuring Improv Everywhere.
About Us
Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 100 missions involving tens of thousands of undercover agents.Subscribe
Recent Missions
Mission Highlights
Spontaneous Musicals
No Pants Subway Rides
The Mp3 Experiments
Star Wars Subway Car
Who You Gonna Call?
Where's Rob?
Guerrilla Handbell Strikeforce
Surprise Wedding Reception
High Five Escalator
Welcome Back
Human Mirror
No Shirts
Best Game Ever
Frozen Grand Central
Ted's Birthday
Ben Folds Fake
Slo-Mo Home Depot
Best Buy
Aspen
Cell Phone Symphony
Suicide Jumper
Romantic Comedy Cab
Even Better Than The Real Thing
Look Up More
McDonald's Bathroom Attendant
Best Gig Ever
Synchronized Swimming
Anton Chekov
The Amazing Hypnotist Redux
Megastore
Circle Line Tours
The Moebius
Will You Marry Me?
Offshore Gambling
Surprise!
Ben Folds' Last Night in Town
[Complete Mission List]Archives
DVD
T-Shirt
Book
Legal
-
Hello!
If you’re visiting our site for the first time upon hearing our This American Life piece (which reran this weekend – original airdate was April ’05), welcome! The TAL segment mentions four of the approximately 60 missions we’ve executed over the last five years. We invite you to spend some time viewing them all on our Missions page. You can also see video clips of many missions on our DVD page.
I see in the comments below that, like last year when the it first aired, the TAL piece has given some folks a negative reaction towards us. Constructive criticism is always welcome here, but I would ask that you poke around the site and check out the other 55 things we’ve done before making up your mind. If you’re interested in debating our “Best Gig Ever” or “Ted’s Birthday” missions and/or calling us names, check out the massive discussion that took place last April complete with responses from Ghosts of Pasha themselves: Reaction to This American Life, April 2005
Also, don’t forget to visit Ghosts of Pasha’s website as well. They have tons of free mp3′s online for your downloading pleasure.
Thanks again for visiting, and we hope you enjoy our site.
Just got back from Breckenridge myself. Upon arriving back in NYC, I said to my friend, “You’re the first black guy I’ve seen in a week!”
Awesome! I want to do this too. In the radio item, less fortunate missions were mentioned, but the good ones are like pearls.
hey man!!!!
come to Columbus, Oh.
Hey planning a freeze in Columbus Ohio. Let me know if you are interested!
Hello,
I am sorry but I think some of the actions by this ‘stunt group’ are particularily cruel. Say, for example, if the ‘victim’ in the bar for whom they decided to hold an inpromptu ‘birthday party’ actually suffered from low self esteem or a psychiatric disorder…the ‘prank’ could potentially have horrific results. It also seems rather malicious and actionable… what if ‘Ted’ after having a few drinks suddenly went out, got in his car and killed someone… how ‘funny’ would the ‘prank’ seem then?
Also, as to the ‘Pasha’ hoax… I have a few friends who are musicians and have had to struggle for years to get recognition… the ‘improv’ group’s actions in pretended that the band was ‘cool’ even though they didn’t even know or have a clue in terms of what they might have been about… strikes me as incredibly mean spirtied and rather narcistic. Why don’t those folks do some community service or something to benefit the community rather than something for their own personal amusement?
I agree completely with Dave. You may claim that you’re causing scenes of “chaos and joy” but it seems to me that beneath your projects is a really meanspirited “let’sbuild people up so we can bring them down” attitude. And when you post it all online, it seems like you’re very self-congratulatory about it.
I wonder what I would have done if I had been Ted?
The band stunt was more community directed, a “mission” directed at a group of folks in a band – personal, sure, but not individually directed.
But finding a guy sitting alone in a bar … a bunch of people casting a spell of illusion onto someone – I dunno. Though you might have hit upon a new agent for your improv missions, you might as easily have collectively stepped onto fragile, crystaline structures of a person trying to maintain a sense of self in world that inundates us with faked interest in our personal well being. Or this imposition could have triggered anything in between – maybe ‘Ted’ walks out or maybe he starts to throw punces.
Who’s to know. But I agree with the previous writer about this group’s narcissitic mentality here.
Just listened to the show. My thoughts: Your group approaches (the Starbucks, the subway, etc) are pure improv/street art genius, and do indeed bring some needed magic and fun into life. But your approach to picking random people to approach and mess with – because that is what you’re doing – crosses a line. Causing effects in social life is one thing, but causing effect in personal lives is something very different.
Yep, the mean spirited comment comes closest to my feeling, too. Wow; I absolutely LOVED the Starbuck’s stunt and the other group “missions” but the Ghost of Pasha and Ted trips. . .no. They’re just plain cruel. Yes, performance art is very cool if conceptualized and done well. But this–even though I get what you’re doing and even understand that you’re inviting comments to add to the effect and to study it further, it’s still mean. You are like a particularly ugly sort of high school bully who never grew up but only got more intricate in the ways he uses to humiliate those whom he probably in truth fears most.
Andy and Deb add good points, IMO.
There must be a way for the improv group to filter your creative plans in a way that reasonably excludes picking out individuals “to mess with,” and refraining from doing missions that could result in individual humiliation.
But maybe you have all already reflected on those PAST missions, and have consciously put in place a method for filtering out the missions that ‘should be done’ from all the brainstormed ones that you ‘could’ do.
If you have 35 or more agents as willing participants, then you’ve clearly created a strong force for creating unexpected fun, or unexpected…
I heard about Improv Everywhere about an hour ago on NPR. “How cool!” was my first response. I couldn’t help but think back to my days as a communication arts student in college and recall all the zany stunts we pulled on people in the name of “pushing social boundaries” and other hilarious-yet-serious motivations.
I’ll never forget approaching an older woman in a grocery store, crying out, “Mrs. Tanner!” and attempting to give her a hug. Then, when she resisted, I explained how we had been neighbors when I was litttle. I’d go over to her house and bake cookies, she taught me to crochet, and I just had the fondest memories of her. She insisted she wasn’t her, but by the end of our encounter she patted my hand.
I never told her it wasn’t “real.” Was I “mean spirited”, as some here have accused IE of being? Nope. Could she have been scarred for life? Potentially. She could have actually had a neighbor girl who was brutally murdered, or she might have been going through a rough time in her life.
All I know is, I helped break up the everydayness and brought a smile to her face.
Narcissistic? Only as much as Candid Camera, which was my “second response.” They actually make money off of their gags, and AFAIK, IE doesn’t.
I heard the “Mind Games” episode on This American Life today. I am thoroughly delighted and horrified simultaneously! It almost makes me wish I lived in New York…Kudos!
I think most of these “missions” are hilarious. The only problem is that in a lot of cases, the objects of your pranks aren’t given the option of not participating. Some people’s time is very precious, and they would rather not waste it by dealing with one of your pranks.
However, I think there’s some middle ground. Just giving Ted $250 isn’t enough. You just assume that is fair compensation, but that’s *your* decision, not his. If I had been you all, I would have still done the prank, but then offered to let him take part in a future one, or allowed to write his own reactions to it on the website.
You basically assume that his evening out with his friends is only worth $250…and his “performance” is free. You can’t make that assessment.
I feel like I should add that I still think what you all are doing is fantasic and brilliant. I hope you continue far into the future.
interesting thought… all of the people who have posted comments here as of yet… what if they didn’t hear the TAL presentation? what if they only read what was posted on this website? TAL seemed to cast IE in a negative light, IE seems to cast most of its missions in a positive light…
the question of whether the glass is half-empty or half-full seems to depend on whether you’re drinking or pouring.
Yes, I think you guys are cruel (in a sort of trans-ironic postmodern way), but what bugs me the most is that you guys are mediocre (even more so than that band you mocked). This kind of stuff has been done for years (dadists…situationists…fluxus..& so on).Frankly…you art is trite. Also you sounded so coy & phoney on the radio show. You must know that the band prank was mockery; it was like making the cheerleader ask out the dork & then confessing that it was all a joke. Your art is already played out; it’s like a sort of postmodern empty irony that has lost the true irony! Please go work at StarBucks…and maybe when you are a wage slave some improve group will visit you and made your little life a little better.
Wow, you people are intellectual bullies who pick on your average bloke who’s just trying to exist in this fucked-up world. Someone who is culturally and artistically aware would just consider your group lite-weights. If you geezers invaded a true punk, mod, garage, or hip hop club acting like bourgoise twats like you did with that band, you would’ve left your teeth behind!
i love the whole idea of your ensemble
guerilla art is what we are left with, after the art world has corrupted everything else.
go team.
I don’t understand why This American Life put so much negative spin on their Improv Everywhere segment. When this show first aired last year, I wrote to them and expressed disappointment about what they did and asked them why they did it. They didn’t respond, so I still don’t understand why they decided to tilt the whole IE segment toward the moon instead of the sun!
IE is not a mean-spirited group. I had read about the two missions TAL spun negatively prior to hearing the radio show, and the TAL spin came as a complete surprise. Although I have no connection with IE, I know someone who participated in the Ghost of Pasha event. The first hand account I heard–months before the radio show aired–was a positive one that backed up the old belief that if you expend energy to become a better audience, you will get a better show. It’s like Newton’s third law– action/reaction. Television producers use this behavior principle by hiring audience warm-up guys to work the crowd and get them pumped up before taping a show.
What I heard at the time was that the audience energy pushed Pasha to perform their best, and everyone enjoyed the concert. Nobody made fun of anybody, even though their attendance was planned to surprise the band. What might have been a deadly dull Sunday night concert with a handful of attendees turned into a happening and resulted in a lot of publicity for the band. The TAL reported “trauma” suffered by a band member? I just don’t get it. Pasha and IE seem to be on good terms now, and I can’t imagine a performer being traumatized by a good gig.
TAL primed their audience for the IE segment with dark, ominous music. One of TAL’s classic comical segments is a story about a burning squirrel, so they fully understand that we can either laugh or be outraged at just about anything if they cue us with sound effects and then tell us what they want to tell us in the style they want us to hear.
Who knows why TAL made the choice they did, but it shows that reporters and producers can serve up a story any way they want to manipulate our reactions. Listeners believe what they hear. TAL is an entertainment program and their objective is to manipulate listeners’ feelings. I just don’t understand why they didn’t have more fun with this segment.
Rather than jump on the “shame on you” bandwagon, people should read the original accounts on this site. They’re very funny and are clearly not mean spirited.
Somerset, who led you to believe that the things IE does are intended to be postmodern trans-ironic art? You found your way to the website after listening to the radio show, and I wonder if you were looking for more information, or just looking for a place to rant. Check out the FAQ (http://improveverywhere.com/faq.php), especially the “Why do you do this?” question and you’ll get a better idea of what IE is about.
To other readers/TAL listeners who think that IE has been cruel: I’ve taken part in several of IE’s more recent missions, and though I wasn’t there for the ones that are being so heavily debated here, I can tell you that I’m fairly positive that there was no intention to bully anyone. Every participant I’ve ever encountered in an IE event has been solely focused on creating as interesting, unique and enjoyable an experience as possible. There’s always the possibility that some people (observers) will be offended just because they weren’t “in” on the joke, but most people just go with it and they end up having a great time and a great story to tell.
If this website seems self-congratualtory, well, it IS a website designed to promote and document the things IE does. Why shouldn’t they express the fact that they’re excited and proud about these things? If you read the FAQ, you’ll also know that they make no money off of this, and they pay for it themselves. The ONLY reason they do it is because they love to do it.
Other than that, I just want to back up what Jacey wrote – take a look at the writeups of some of the other events.