Comments on: Ted’s Birthday

By: Alison

Alison — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:07:08 +0000

They DID tell them what was going on xD. and if your talking about other pranks. I disagree, its more fun to know that you gave someone a crazy memory then to shatter the illusion and have them know that some people just pranked them.

By: Ted's best friend

Ted's best friend — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:57:01 +0000

I think this prank is awesome! If the guy approached didn’t like the prank, he and his buddy could always walk out of the bar going “this is totally weird’ing me out. Let’s go.”

If you didn’t tell him about the prank he’s going to go home and think that somewhere there is a doppelganger who is fool for dumping “Lauren”.. I’m kind surprised that he didn’t say that he had thrown her number away and ask for it. Or set up a lunch date for tomorrow to talk about “what went wrong.” I’d have done it just to see what was up.

Still I like the Penn Station freeze frame the best.

By: Charlie Todd

Charlie Todd — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:12:28 +0000

That’s correct. One of our members befriended “Ted” that night and they traded phone numbers. At the end of the evening Ted hugged me goodbye, expressed dismay that we were leaving his party “early” (2 AM), and thanked me for the gifts, which I privately assured him belonged to him and no one else. He gave no indication that he was the slightest bit upset about the evening.

I don’t think it’s crazy to call someone a year later and ask if they want to have another party with free drinks and hundreds of dollars in gift cards. If “Ted” had returned my call and accepted the offer, it would have become an annual Improv Everywhere event. Each September 19 we would have thrown a birthday party for this one random guy. Judging by the growth of our membership, it’s fair to say he would have received about ten thousand dollars in gift cards this past year. (We now average 2,000 people at our open call events and each person would have brought a five dollar gift card.)

So you might think there’s something wrong with calling someone one time and offering him a party (and respecting his desire to never be contacted again once it was made clear), but personally I think it was a fine thing to do. Had I known the guy thought we were “grotesque” and was haunted by the experience (something I learned on TAL two and half years after the event), then I wouldn’t have bothered to call him.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:25:25 +0000

“This American Life did not give me an opportunity to respond to the news that “Ted” did not enjoy the experience and instead edited in an earlier interview with me that made it seem like I was heartless and unapologetic”

It’s probably because you, a complete stranger, held onto someone’s number FOR A YEAR , and called him again a year later. I have feeling you fail to see what is wrong with that.

By: Rachelle Mee-Chapman

Rachelle Mee-Chapman — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:24:04 +0000

For what it’s worth, I found y’all thru that This American Life story. I thought the story did a good job of showing the broad range of human reaction to humor in general, and improv in particular — which is a fascinating, if sometimes dicey mix.

Thanks for sharing this mission with us. What a good sport “Chris” was — and fast on his feet with the comebacks.

By: mark

mark — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:30:26 +0000

I’m surprised that all of these guys stuck with the whole party– I would have leftpretty quickly if they wouldn’t leave me alone. I wouldn’t be interested in playing along with these people’s reindeer games.

By: brendo_91

brendo_91 — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:48:49 +0000

crissst – that type of audio clarity could be done with a hidden microphone. what, you think they went to the trouble of hiding cameras all through the premises and didn’t bother to wire the place up for audio too?

you can tell who is wearing a lapel because the audio’s a little more muffled – since the mics are hidden in clothing etc.

By: crissst

crissst — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:34:10 +0000

ted is not a stranger,it’s clear that he has a mic since you can hear him and his friend so good when they are alone.and the way he speaks and act, it’s obvious that he is an actor.not even a good one;).i cann’t believe that all this people get fooled with that.

By: John Evans

John Evans — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:58:12 +0000

Are you sure?

The IE folks maintain that they’re there for a guy named “Ted”. They stick to that story. They never break character. (Charlie even expresses regret at being obliged to let the guy in on the joke.)

In the face of multiple people sticking to that same viewpoint with such determination, how could it be “obvious” that Ted doesn’t exist?

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:13:14 +0000

Yeah, um, that’s ridiculous. That there is no real Ted is very obvious. These guys might have been left with questions, but whether or not there is a Ted somewhere who should have been the recipient of those gifts is probably not one of them.