For our latest mission, we surprised a random couple sitting on a bench in Central Park with a fancy dinner and a private concert by a wind quintet.

Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below.

Shot by: Matt Adams, Keith Haskel, Caleb Heller
Photography: Katie Sokoler (photo credit for all photos on this page.)
Props: Cody Lindquist
Actors: Jesse Good, Perry Silver
Musicians: Brad Balliett (basoon), Julietta Curenton (flute), Alicia Lee (clarinet), Alma Liebrecht (horn), Carl Oswald (oboe)
Piece: Serenade No. 10 in B-flat Major by Mozart (arr. for wind quintet by R. Ostermeyer)
Video music: Mozart Serenade in E flat as interpreted by Tyler Walker

pre-mission meeting point

We all met up at the entrance to the park on 5th Avenue and 72nd Street to get organized. Once all of our props and instruments were accounted for, we headed down to a staging area near the Conservatory Water, a peaceful pond with remote-controlled sailboats.

Agent Lindquist preps the food

We hid a microphone underneath the tablecloth

It was my job to pick the couple we would surprise. The couple above looked to be the perfect choice– they had been sitting on the bench for a long time and didn’t appear to be moving anywhere any time soon, they were clearly a couple based on their body language, and the bench they were on was facing away from our staging area, so they wouldn’t see us coming.

Agents Silver and Good make their move with the table

The couple smiles as Agent Silver brings over some sparkling cider

I figured that in a big city like New York, everyone’s first reaction would be to think the offer of dinner was some type of scam. To try to put the couple at ease the agents referred to everything as “complimentary” and “free.” The couple was definitely confused at first, but by the time they were being served drinks they were all smiles.

Agent Silver serves the couple

Although the video doesn’t show it, we gave the couple plenty of breathing room and allowed them to have long stretches of time alone to drink and eat.

Agent Silver tops off their glasses as a kid looks on

The couple was presented a food spread with fruits, cheeses, and meats. After it looked like they had finished eating, their entire table was cleared and they were given two tickets “for tonight’s show.”

Agent Good, now dressed as an usher, approaches

Agent Good tears tickets and hands out programs

Agent Silver sets up music stands

Behind the couple, our agents unfolded a banner showing a panoramic view of Carnegie Hall

The ensemble takes to their stage

The performance begins

Front row seats

It was a really humid day

Lots of folks stopped to watch and listen

The couple applauds at the end

Onlookers also applaud

The ensemble bows and exits

After the performance, the ensemble exited the “stage” and the couple was left alone smiling on the bench. A bit later, our usher returned to offer them a pair of tickets to any performance at the real Carnegie Hall. They thanked him for the entire experience, calling the music “very pretty.”

Mission Accomplished

- Agent Sokoler’s Flickr Set

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For our latest mission we filled a New York park with eight sets of identical quadruplets, creating a surreal experience for anyone who happened to be walking through the park.

This mission is a sequel to our Human Mirror mission from 2008 where we had fifteen pairs of identical twins on the same subway car.

Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below.

UPDATE: There is a very important update to this project that you should read after you’ve seen the video.

Shot by: Cameron Sun and Charlie Todd
Photography: Charlie Todd

Explaining the mission to the quadruplets

Just like our Human Mirror mission I reached out to our mailing list to see if anyone knew any identical quadruplets. They are very rare, so I wasn’t sure what kind of response we’d get. To my surprise within a couple of days we had leads on eight sets of quadruplets that lived in the greater New York area.

The Choy quadruplets walking

I instructed all of the quadruplets to dress exactly the same, including accessories. We placed all of them on a group of adjacent benches to create an extremely weird corridor for anyone walking through. We also placed the quadruplets in a variety of other situations throughout the park over the course of an hour.

The Baer quadruplets sitting down

The Ryan quadruplets talking to each other

We had tons of great reactions throughout the day, as people slowly started to notice they were surrounded by quadruplets.

The Sharp and Holland quadruplets on a quadruple date

Mission Accomplished

- Download the song from the video for free.

- If you haven’t seen it, here is our Human Mirror mission featuring identical twins:

If this is your first time here:
-our over 100 other missions can be seen here: Missions
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For our latest mission we converted a New York City subway car into a “sleeper car,” giving New Yorkers the chance to rest their heads during a late night commute. We set up three beds, each outfitted with a comforter, pillow, and sheets. Pajamas, sleep masks, and earplugs were also provided as part of this unauthorized free service. The project took place on the above-ground N train in Astoria, Queens around midnight on a Sunday evening.

The Sleeper Car was produced by Improv Everywhere as part of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition stillspotting nyc. This is our third collaboration in the series, the others being The Mute Button and Say Something Nice.

Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below.

Shot by: Matt Adams, Chloe Smolkin, Andrew Flynn Soltys
Photography: Katie Sokoler [Photo credit for all photos on this page]
Conductor: Charlie Todd
Sleepers: Patrick Cassels, Cody Lindquist

Agents Cassels and Lindquist model their pajamas

Assembling the beds on the outdoor platform in Astoria

We got started pretty late on a Sunday evening. I wanted to stage this project at a time when the subway would be mostly empty. The beds were pretty huge, and this would not work on a crowded car. Thematically it also made sense to stage it late at night when passengers would likely be tired. I used to live out in Astoria, and I can remember wanting to doze off on many late night commutes.

I played the conductor and carried a bag of “amenities” for any passenger that needed them.

The train was completely empty when we first boarded and set everything up. Agents Cassels and Lindquist were our “ringers.” Their job was to use the beds and pajamas as if it was a perfectly normal service. We had a third bed set up in hopes of getting random strangers to play along as well.

Agent Cassels reads before bed

The car filled up pretty quickly. It was fun watching a new group of passengers enter at every stop and realize what was going on. Most folks laughed and took a seat by one of the beds. Many took out their phones to snap photos or video.

I greeted everyone who entered in a hushed tone and informed them they had entered the special Sleeper Car and that there was a bed available for napping.

The guy in the photo above was the first to take us up on our offer. He declined to get underneath the sheets.

This guy was the first to let me fully tuck him in. That’s his friend taking his photo.

This guy was the first to accept the offer of a sleep mask. The subway car was quite bright. I’m not sure why more folks didn’t need them!

Demand for beds got high, so Agent Cassels decided to rest on the bench. This is technically against the rules, punishable by fine. While taking up more than one seat is a violation, we couldn’t find any rules stating you couldn’t bring your own seats (or in our case beds) on the train with you.

This girl was probably the most enthusiastic sleeper of the day. She jumped at the chance to hop in the bed and was extremely friendly.

There were a few riders along the way who were very curious to learn more about what we were doing. I informed them it was a pilot program and that we were trying to get funding. I think a few of the more gullible folks bought it, but most people just laughed and understood it for what it was, a bit of out-of-the-ordinary fun. We’ve staged over a dozen different ideas in subway cars over the past 11 years, and it remains one of our favorite “stages.” I love the sense of community that develops when a random car of people have an opportunity to share something fun.

Mission Accomplished

- Many more photos in higher resolution:
- Agent Sokoler’s Flickr Set
- Download the song from the video for free.

If this is your first time here:
-our over 100 other missions can be seen here: Missions
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For our latest mission, a presenter at the TED conference has his talk interrupted by the Mac spinning wait cursor, commonly known as the “Spinning Beach Ball of Death.” As he stands awkwardly and waits, things get weird. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below.

Produced by: Charlie Todd and Cody Lindquist
Shot by: TED2012 production crew
Edited by: Marla Mitchnick
Starring: Eugene Cordero as Colin Robertson
Animation by: Bob Bonniol
Song by: Tyler Walker
Still Photos: James Duncan Davidson, Charlie Todd

Rehearsal

For the uninitiated, TED is an annual conference in Long Beach, California that focuses on “Ideas Worth Spreading.” I gave a talk at a TEDx event last year that was promoted to TED.com. For the conference this year, the TED curators approached me about staging something unexpected to surprise their audience. We had previously staged a musical prank at a conference, but I wanted to do something new and different for TED. I came up with the idea to have a fake speaker give a talk and make it seem like his big moment in the spotlight had been ruined by a computer crash. Apple users love to hate the notorious Spinning Beach Ball of Death. I started with that image and set out to heighten it to absurdity.

Agent Cordero takes the stage

Eugene Cordero played the fake speaker, “Colin Robertson.” You might remember Agent Cordero as the wrestler who crashed my wedding. He was introduced like a normal TED speaker, and took the stage in front of 1500 people at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center.

Colin Robertson was introduced as “a futurist whose start-up has discovered how crowdsourcing solar panel technology innovations can lead us to a new paradigm for health care reform.” So, basically nonsense, but nonsense that sounds interesting and innovative at first glance. Agent Cordero only got a few sentences into his talk before the beach ball appeared.

The beach ball spun for 20 seconds without anything else happening (even longer than the video shows.) We made it as awkward as possible, with Agent Cordero politely suggesting the tech person skip ahead past the crashed slide. The crowd clearly felt bad for the poor guy.

Eventually Mac system sounds started playing and soon error messages started popping up.

The crowd started to catch on that something was not right as the error messages starting piling on top of each other. Errors from older Mac operating systems starting popping up, one accompanied by the classic “eep” sound. Then two additional spinning beach balls appeared. At this point, performers secretly placed in the crowd popped open umbrellas that looked exactly like the spinning beach ball.

The view from the balcony

A restart screen appeared and the spinning beach balls started to grow as music began playing.

Five performers walked on stage in black suits and rainbow wigs. They each fired a handheld cannon, sending rainbow streamers into the crowd.

Performers hiding in the 2nd balcony tossed dozens of actual beach balls onto the crowd as rainbow colors were projected across the entire room.

Eight performers dressed head-to-toe in full-body colored “morph suits” danced around the speaker.

We worked with the TED in-house animator, Bob Bonniol, who created a spectacular animation for the stunt. TED had an enormous screen that sort of exploded out towards the audience. As the chaos reached its height, the screen saw huge spinning beach balls exploding to reveal hundreds of smaller ones.

The performers left the stage and the umbrellas disappeared. The animation focused on one huge spinning beach ball that slowly shrank back to its original size.

Agent Cordero found himself back where he started, alone on stage, now surrounded by a couple of dozen beach balls the TED crowd had tossed on stage during the excitement.

He attempted to start his presentation again, and then glanced at the stage manager, “That’s my time? Thank you very much.” He took a bow and left the stage nonchalantly. The whole thing lasted less than four minutes. It was a quick explosion of color and fun. It was a thrill to get to do something at TED, and so much fun to be able to stage something with their awesome tech capabilities. All of the performers besides Agent Cordero were TED attendees who signed up to take an Improv Everywhere workshop, not knowing what they were getting themselves into. Thanks to all of them for helping out, and thanks to TED for inviting us!

Mission Accomplished

If you’d like to hire us to stage a surprise prank at your conference, please get in touch!

- Our other conference prank: Gotta Share! The Musical

- Photographer James Duncan Davidson made a video of the project using just his still images:

If this is your first time here:
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Since Aspen, Colorado has an African American population of 0.44%, we decided to give the locals a chance to “meet a black person.” We put comedian Colton Dunn in an empty hot chocolate kiosk at the foot of the mountain to greet folks as they exited the slopes.

This 2006 mission is the second in a series of remastered videos we are producing from our archives to commemorate our 10th anniversary. We are going through our original tapes and updating old classics with higher quality video and audio, as well as adding additional never-before-seen footage. Due to file size restrictions in the early days of YouTube, many of these videos have only been seen in extremely low 240p quality. The remastered Meet a Black Person video adds new interactions with Aspen tourists and locals. The original mission report is still online for your reading pleasure.

Look for more remastered videos in the future, including some that have never been posted to YouTube, and stay tuned for our regular schedule of brand new missions throughout the year.

On Sunday, January 8th, 2012 tens of thousands of people took off their pants on subways in 59 cities in 27 countries around the world. In New York, our 11th Annual No Pants Subway Ride had nearly 4,000 participants, spread out over six meeting points and ten subway lines. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.

Digital Video: Matt Adams (DP), Karen Blumberg, Myo Campbell, Keith Haskel, Kristopher Knight, Adam Nawrot, Corey Richardson, Nathan Russell, Chloe Smolkin, John Michael Scholl, Andrew Flynn Soltys, Charlie Todd
Digital Photography: See our official photographers’ flickr sets here.

If you’re unfamiliar with this event, you might want to first read our history of The No Pants Subway Ride. Since this is the 11th year we’ve done this, there’s not too much to report other than it was another awesome time. Below are a small selection of photos that jumped out to me as being fun and new, compared to previous editions. Enjoy!

This guy won the award for “oldest participant” at last year’s ride when he was 76. You would have thought he would have won again at 77, but nope, a 78-year-old beat him out. You can see the 78-year-old in the video in the red hat and very tight underwear.

On the other end of the age spectrum, there were many babies this year.

The NYPD guys at the downtown meeting point were especially friendly this year. I had a fun time talking to them before we got started. Although The No Pants Subway Ride is still completely unauthorized, I think it’s great that the NYPD comes out to escort us as if we were an official parade.

I wound up in the same subway car as the guy above. Even though I started downtown and he started in Astoria, we ended up together after I transferred. One of the things I love about the scope of the No Pants Subway Ride these days is that we really take over the whole system. At 59th and Lex, three trains of pantless people arrived at the same time. Two groups were switching lines and one was just passing through. Anyway, the guy in the photo above wins the badass award.

Pretty awesome the US Military was represented.

Probably the sharpest father and son team in all of NYC.

Once again the No Pants Subway Ride happened around the world, with many cities making their debut this year. You can find links to photos and articles in the comments on this page: Regional Agent Reports. The above photo comes from Istanbul. This was the first Turkish city to participate. The police got involved, detaining participants and deleting photos from their cameras (though obviously they didn’t delete them all!) The leader of the event wrote a great write up about their day that’s worth a read. Other cities that reported trouble from police or security: Chicago, Madrid, and Milan. I don’t believe anyone was arrested or fined, just detained or asked to stop.

I gotta give props to the Miami ride, as it only had ONE participant. Pretty awesome and brave to still go through with it. She’s pictured above.

Bangalore became the first city in India to participate. The all-male participant group reported no trouble from authorities, but many shocked passengers.

We announce the date of the No Pants Subway Ride every year in early December. If you’re interested in participating in 2013 in New York or anywhere else in the world, sign up for our mailing list, follow us on twitter, and like us on Facebook so you’ll be the first to hear about it.

Get the official 2012 No Pants Subway Ride t-shirt:

Mission Accomplished.

- To see links to full flickr sets of photos from all of our official photographers and to read comments from participants, check out this page: NYC Agent Reports

- Check out the comments in this post for reports and links to photos from the regional events: Regional Agent Reports

- Also check out our complete history of The No Pants Subway Ride.

- See our new video telling the story of the first No Pants Subway Ride:

If this is your first time here:
-our over 100 other missions can be seen here: Missions
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-We have merch for sale!

For our latest mission, a musical breaks out at a shopping mall in New Jersey. A man is suddenly compelled to express his desire to sit on Santa’s lap via song. This is the fifth in our series of Spontaneous Musical projects. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below.

Also of note: we have a new DVD and t-shirt for sale! Put them both on Santa’s list when you sit in his lap.

Produced by: Charlie Todd
Song by: Scott Brown and Anthony King
Director of Photography: TV Boy
Still Photos: Katie Sokoler – Flickr Set – (photo credit for all photos on this page.)
Starring: (in order of appearance) Michael Kayne, Megan Maes, Lauren Adams, Amy Heidt, Sebastian Thomas, Jim Santangeli, Evan Gregory, Michael Gregory, Don Fanelli, Rich Klimaski

Agent Brown working with the cast at our first rehearsal

Most of our cast had performed in previous Improv Everywhere projects, but we also added some new performers who we had not worked with. I was thrilled when I learned Evan and Michael Gregory of The Gregory Brothers fame were available for the mission. Not only are they hilarious YouTube stars, they’re super nice and cool dudes. Agent Sebastian Thomas was cast to play the young kid. He’s nine years old, making him our youngest musical performer! Agent Rich Klimaski was brought in to play Santa Claus, a role he plays quite frequently this time of year. It was sad doing a Santa Claus-themed mission and not having our dear friend John Ward there to be a part of it. John of course played Santa for us in the very first Mp3 Experiment.

Here’s a video I shot at our rehearsal of the cast running through the song:

Agent Thomas makes a Styrofoam angel at dress rehearsal

We had a dress rehearsal in the mall the night before the mission. Although many Improv Everywhere projects are unauthorized, the production values needed to pull off one of our musicals requires permission. We worked with production company Generate and hidden camera experts TV Boy to install hidden cameras and microphones at the mall.

Agent Amy Heidt gets mic’d up

Our hidden camera angles in our secret control room

Working with the mall enabled us to take over their Santa set up. They had a Santa working that day, and we staged the mission during his breaks, swapping out their Santa for our Santa each time.

We staged the mission a few times throughout the day, waiting for the crowds to change between them. Hilariously, Agent Michael Gregory hid inside the giant Christmas present for a good ten minutes before each take, ensuring no one there saw him get in.

The Christmas present in action

Agent Evan Gregory as “the delivery man”

Agent Soltys had the tedious task of putting the peanuts back in the box after each take

The area we staged the musical in had a really great balcony above it. For each take we had a full crowd of people watching from above in addition to those on the ground level.

During one take, a little girl loved it so much that she walked right up to the performers mid-song.

Since this is our fifth musical, we wanted to make sure there were some surprises in to set it apart from the previous ones. We developed a fake ending concept, where it seemed like the musical was over and that a guy working the Santa photos in an elf costume actually wanted our actors to leave the area. Of course he, along with Santa, turned out to be in on it.

Agent Don Fanelli as the Elf

We actually cut a section of the song out of the video, which you can see in the photo above. The Elf joined in the song for a few lines as everyone sang the chorus one last time. What we found out staging the musical was that our fake ending was actually too good. Everyone applauded and many folks started walking away. So a certain percentage of the audience left the area without realizing Santa and the Elf were in on it. It felt a little anti-climactic in the video, so we cut it out. You can see the original full song in the rehearsal video above.

Santa sings!

Photographer Agent Katie Sokoler decided to hide in the box and surprise people, long after the mission was over.

Mission Accomplished

- Many more photos in higher resolution: Agent Sokoler’s Flickr Set

- Our first musical: Food Court Musical
- Our second musical: Grocery Story Musical
- Our third musical: I Love Lunch! The Musical
- Our fourth musical: Gotta Share! The Musical
- Buy the original cast recording of Gutenberg! The Musical, also by Brown & King.

- Gregory Brothers’ vlog from the day:

If this is your first time here:
-our over 100 other missions can be seen here: Missions
-sign up for our RSS feed and Newsletter
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-We have merch for sale!

80 people enter a Manhattan Best Buy wearing blue polo shirts and khaki pants. Chaos ensues.

This 2006 mission is the first in a series of remastered videos we are producing from our archives to commemorate our 10th anniversary. We are going through our original tapes and updating old classics with higher quality video and audio, as well as adding additional never-before-seen footage. Due to file size restrictions in the early days of YouTube, many of these videos have only been seen in extremely low 240p quality. The remastered Best Buy video adds some interactions with employees that we didn’t even realize we had on tape! The original, lengthy Best Buy mission report is still online for your reading pleasure.

Look for more remastered videos in the future including some that have never been posted to YouTube, and stay tuned for a brand new mission coming out in just a few weeks.

We’re also excited to launch our new logo today, designed by Will Schneider of Busted Tees. You can get it on a t-shirt!

Photo by Chad Nicholson

Last weekend I married my longtime girlfriend and fellow Improv Everywhere member, Cody Lindquist. Our wedding ceremony featured a surprise stunt where we were interrupted by a professional wrestler. Besides the bride and groom, only the officiant and groomsmen were in on the prank. Watch the video above first, and then check out the behind-the-scenes photos and report below.

Shot and edited by: Matt Adams
Photography: Katie Sokoler (wedding photographer), Chad Nicholson, Brian Fountain

Rehearsal

Ever since Cody and I got engaged everyone we know has asked us, “Is there going to be a prank at the wedding?” The pressure was on to do something fun and out of the ordinary.

Planning the stunt

Years ago, I created a parody professional wrestling league at the UCB Theatre called The UCBW that still regularly performs. One of the original wrestlers from the league was a character called “Pu Kang Kang,” played by Eugene Cordero. I asked Eugene if he would be up for reprising his character at my wedding, and he immediately agreed.

Agent Cordero plans his enterance

Deadly choke hold the “Pu Kanger-Snore”

After everyone else had left the rehearsal on Friday night, we choreographed the stunt with my best man (my dad) and groomsmen.

Obviously Cody and I had a million things on our mind over the weekend, but it was fun knowing we had a little trick up our sleeves.

The ceremony

Our wedding photographer (and Improv Everywhere Senior Agent) Katie Sokoler got some beautiful shots of the ceremony.

The stunt took place at the very end of the wedding, after we had exchanged vows and rings. Officiant Brent Stansell asked, “If anyone has any reason why these two should not be married…” and Agent Cordero, who had slipped away from the back row to change into costume, yelled, “I got a problem with it!”

Pu Kang Kang made his way down the aisle as our friends and family laughed. Even the bridesmaids and our immediate families were not told about the prank, so it was a fun surprise for everyone.

My groomsman Ben Rodgers plays an announcer called “The Captain” in the UCBW, so we had him throw on his captain’s hat and announce. You may remember Agent Rodgers from his announcing work in Carousel Horse Race. He informed the crowd that this crazy man walking down the aisle was “Cody’s ex-boyfriend, former professional wrestler Pu Kang Kang,” who most definitely did not RSVP.

Pu Kang Kang blocked my first punch and then got a few good hits on me, leaving me dazed as he went to take out the groomsmen.

Locking in the Pu Kanger-Snore

Groomsmen Anthony King, Chuck Todd, and Chris Kula take out Pu Kang Kang

Groomsman Ken Keech hands me a chair

Chair shot!

Steel wedding chair!

Pu Kang Kang left the ceremony in shame as I taunted him with the chair.

Agent Cordero never broke character, limping all the way to the reception a few hundred feet away.

Making sure Cody is OK

Our officiant joked, “If there are no MORE objections…” and everyone laughed as things went back to normal for the end of the ceremony.

First kiss as husband and wife!

We had a wonderful wedding weekend with family and friends, and it was icing on the cake to be able to add a little dose of Improv Everywhere fun to our big day.

Mission Accomplished

- See our other wedding related mission, Surprise Wedding Reception.
- See Cody as Princess Leia in Star Wars Subway Car.

Other recent videos:

If this is your first time here:
-our over 100 other missions can be seen here: Missions
-sign up for our RSS feed and Newsletter
-Subscribe to our YouTube channel, twitter, and Facebook page.
-We have a book for sale!

For the Second Annual Black Tie Beach, hundreds of participants spent a day at Rockaway Beach in black tie attire. We covered a half mile-long stretch with a diverse group of people of all ages laying out, playing games, and swimming in the ocean in formal wear. Agents were instructed to find cheap tuxedos and ball gowns at thrift stores for the occasion. The event also happened on the same day in five other cities around the world, including Sydney, Australia and Malmö, Sweden. Watch the video first, and then read the check out the photos and report below.

Shot by: Keith Haskel, Kristopher Knight, Andrew Flynn Soltys, Charlie Todd
Photography: Brian Fountain, Ari Scott, Katie Sokoler (full flickr sets for each photographer at the bottom of this post.)

We usually do not repeat missions, but Black Tie Beach was one of my favorite days of last year. I figured an event that much fun deserved to happen annually. Last year we were at Coney Island, but I wanted to stage it in a new location this year to surprise an entirely different crowd of beach goers. Although Rockaway Beach is easily accessible by subway, scouting for this mission was the first time I had ever visited it in my ten years in New York. It’s a great beach!

Since the instructions were pretty clear from last year’s mission (spend a normal day at the beach in black tie attire as if there’s nothing unusual about doing so) we did not have a meeting point. Participants arrived on their own during a set window of time in the afternoon. It’s tough to count how many agents there were without having a meeting point, but the crowd seemed about like last year, a few hundred.

White tux!

A family of agents

It was fun to watch all the interactions between our participants and the other folks at the beach. When asked why they were dressed up, agents mostly responded that they were doing it “for fun” or that they “just like dressing up for the beach.” Of course, no one would admit to knowing the other dressed up folks. These responses frustrated some inquisitive locals, but most seemed to get the joke just fine.

We had a really great range of ages participate.

The woman on the right is 90!

Sometimes it was tough to figure if we were the unusual ones on the beach

Our agents came up with a wonderful variety of activities to do during their day at the beach.

The planking fad infiltrates Improv Everywhere!

Almost everyone decided to take a dip in the water. Swimming in a tuxedo is more fun than you would think it would be. I recommend it!

Since I didn’t plan on repeating the mission, I threw my cheap, sandy tuxedo away in a trash can at Coney Island last year. This year I found a complete tuxedo with tails at a thrift store for $40. I took it home in a plastic bag after the mission, and I got it dry cleaned for less than $20. It’s like new and hanging in my closet for next year!

Agent Lindquist rides a wave

I think this guy wins “best dressed.”

I brought a waterproof flip camera with me and got some action shots in the waves.

There were many chicken fights

Agent Jack Cheng drew lots of attention with his snorkeling accessories.

This year we invited other cities to participate as well, and five others joined the fun.

Malmö, Sweden

Newport, Rhode Island

Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California

Bloomington, Indiana (Black Tie Lake!)

Sydney, Australia (best photo I can find. Someone send me a better one!)

It was exciting to see it spread across the globe. Hopefully we can eventually have it spread to every beach in the world.

Mission Accomplished

- Agent Brian Fountain’s Set
- Agent Ari Scott’s Set
- Agent Katie Sokoler’s Set

Read the agent reports from hundreds of participants in the comments here.

Last year’s video:

If this is your first time here:
-our over 100 other missions can be seen here: Missions
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-We have a book for sale!