Featuring: Ace$Thugg, Borden, Dippold, Hines, Jesster, Keech, King, Kula, Todd, Roche, Harms, Foley, Parker, Hot Chocolate, Wengert, Taylor, Cohen, Woods

On the cool, sunny afternoon of May 17, Improv Everywhere gave free tours of Manhattan by boat in the fountain at Union Square. Not to be confused with Circle Line Cruises, we offered a “Circle Line Tour” with a much closer view of the city.

Captain Keech and Captain Todd arrive at the fountain.

Captain Todd announces the tour.

Agent Roche attracts customers.

Agent Jesster waves good bye to the shore.

The crowd begins to grow.

Captain Keech points out Manhattan landmarks like “Staples”.
Todd: If you look to the north and just slightly to the west, you’re looking in the direction of the Upper West Side, including Lincoln Center. If there weren’t so many trees and buildings you would be able to see all of this very clearly.
Keech: To my right is Foot Locker, which claims to be the world’s best place for athletic shoes. Beside that is Shoe Mania, where they have lots of shoes and are crazy.
Todd: This tour offers you the best view of Union Square out of any other water based tour.
Keech: Over here you’ll see the famous “Staples” where you can purchase all kinds of office supplies.

Agents Foley and Borden board.

Crowd members laugh.

Agent King continues to shill for the tour.

Captain Todd points out the tip of the Empire State Building.

The Captain’s boat is stuck on a sharp drain, or “glacier”.

A young girl gets a closer look.

Bojou considers the tour.

Bojou is helped up onto the dock.

The boats are securely tied up as Bojou boards.

Bojou waves good bye to her boyfriend as she leaves shore.

Bojou floats safely as the captains’ boat begins to sink.

The crowd continues to grow.

The boat sinks!

Agent Parker stays afloat as the rest struggle to stay alive.

Roche tries to save Captain Todd.

King uses an oar to save Roche and Todd.

Captain Todd is pulled to the shore.

Agent Roche collapses as he reaches land.

Strangers witness the tragedy.

Captain Keech announces that everything is ok.

Soaked from head to toe, the Captains decide to continue the tours.

Crowd members laugh and take photos.

The Captains and Agent Harms.

Agent Hot Chocolate struggles to stay dry.

Crowd members watch as the second boat is destroyed.
AGENT REPORTS
Agent Jesster
I got to the meeting place early that day. I noticed as other agents starting coming in that I had the biggest bag. Inside my giant Nike bag I brought a towel, a change of pants, a shirt, my camera, and a pair of underwear. I was definitely over prepared/excited to get into one of those rafts.
We all walked together to USP and then slowly dissolved into the crowd. I was with Agent Hot Chocolate; we sat pretty close to the fountain under the shade and just waited for things to get started. When they finally did, I took a minute or two to let Agent Todd and the others do their thing, and then I slowly approached. Once I did I didn’t wait very long to get first on line to get in the raft. I was really excited to get on the raft and to get really soaked! I get in, and the tour began. Agent Todd pointed out the park, the entrance to the subway, and I think Virgin Megastore, then he handed the megaphone to Agent Keech, who proceeded to tell me about various other interesting landmarks, such as the Diesel store, while holding the megaphone about two inches from my head.
I remember hearing the laughter of the crowd at this point. They were already warming up to what was going on, and really enjoying it. After all was said and done the maiden voyage of the tour was over, and ironically, I got out pretty much completely dry. I think its because I only weigh about 120lbs and Agent Todd told me later the raft is meant to hold up to 130lbs, which it never did ever again. By this time a pretty decent audience had formed. I got my bag and found a place in the crowd to just sit back and watch the rest of the tours happen.
At its peak the fountain was completely surrounded with bystanders, and I knew this point the mission was a huge success. It was further confirmed when the first crowd member was egged on by the crowd and her boyfriend to take the tour. To me, that the was the highlight of everything – that we actually convinced someone who had no idea what was going on, but in a way did, to get into a tiny little raft and take a mock “tour” of the city, getting into the little fountain and all the while potentially getting soaked with dirty, dirty fountain water. Awesome. Then the rafts broke one after the other, and the crowd slowly dispersed. It was brief, but beautiful. Everything worked out really well.
Agent Taylor
“The best way to see New York City is by boat!” Agent King exclaimed. How right he was this past Saturday. It wasn’t the buildings, monuments, or historical side of NYC, but the people that made this IE assignment a true delight. Tourists, natives, senior citizens, kids, women, men, skaters, posers, and improvisers crowded around to see Cap’n Todd and Keech valiantly steer their fleet of inflatable rafts around the bathtub sized fountain in the SW corner of Union Square. Donning sailor hats and speaking through a megaphone, these IE agents quickly gained the attention of just about every pedestrian in the area. Shoreman King engaged the ever-increasing crowd to offer the Free Circle Line tour. People couldn’t help but smile (including planted IE agents like me) while the tour was getting underway. I personally have never seen so many people smile in Union Square. Eventually, both boats sank turning the “Free Boat tours on a wishing well” mission into an equally humorous “Boat Tour Tragedy!” mission
Net results:
- Zero boats
- 10 wet people
- 1 whole lotta fun
Highlights:
- Agent Todd pointing out the Empire State building and, of all places, Union Square on the tour.
- Agent King turning away from a reporter to grab a small string, yelling “I got the rope!”, and quickly docking the ill-fated dirigibles.
- Agent Harms, as a Tennessee tourist forced to lead his own tour, pointing out the STAPLES store that Ken had mentioned in the prior tour.
Agent Kula
Female Onlooker: Who are these guys? Are they like students or something?
Agent Kula: I don’t know, I think they’re just giving boat tours of Manhattan.
Female Onlooker: (shakes her head and laughs) I just think they’re trying to meet girls.
Agent Hines
I stood in the crowd on the East side for most of the tours, moving over the West side at one point. Folks gathered fast and most stayed for all but the last tour. I think after the boat sank, folks thought ‘shows over’ and scurried away. But during the tours folks enjoyed things being repeated from previous tours. Staples got a bigger laugh each time (though my personal favorite tour guide moment, was Agent Todd bragging that this tour offered the ‘best view of Union Square’). And a couple of folks were calling friends to tell them about it. They loved the urgency with which Agent King roped the boats to the side and – like I said – stuck around for tour after tour. Keeping a New York crowds attention is no mean feat.
Agent King
When the mission was over, a little girl came over and talked to me while I folded up the boats to throw in the trash. She told me she was disappointed because “every captain I’ve seen goes down with his ship. That captain did not go down with his ship.” Then she mockingly shook her head and laughed. She also told me that next time she would bring a sea monster to put in the fountain and she could be its voice and move it around and attack the boats. She was laughing a lot and very excited that when an oar had fallen out of the fountain, she had been the one to get it and give it back to the captain. Her dad told me, “Thanks, you guys made our day.”
Agent Ace$Thugg
I overheard someone on the phone say, “I’m in Union Square, and there’s something crazy going on in the fountain.” Overall, everyone on the benches seemed to enjoy themselves and laugh out loud. Not one of them left until the whole show was over. That’s at least one good sign of successful entertainment.
Agent Parker
I was only planning on participating in the mission as a deep cover crowd member. Agents wishing to take the ride had already formed a line three people long. However, Agent Keech, using a megaphone, set his sights on me standing among the crowd. “You sir, how about a ride?” It wasn’t hard to play the role of reticent crowd member. After expressing (real) disinterest in taking the tour, Agent Keech got the crowd on his side. “Come on, everyone, how many people want to see him take the tour?” The crowd applauded loudly, so I gave in.
The bottom of the passenger boat was already covered in water, and I was wet from the first moment I settled in. The boats didn’t float so much as drag along the bottom of the extremely shallow fountain. The weight of tour directors Todd and Keech on the lead boat was too much, and halfway through my tour the boat sprung a leak. Panic ensued, and the daring and selfless rescue by Agent King and Agent Roche was breathtaking. Arms were flailing, everyone was screaming, water was splashing…meanwhile, I was sitting alone in the passenger boat, ignored, alone, wet, scared. So I stepped out of the boat and my tour was over.
I stayed to watch the rest of the action, dripping wet. A woman approached me and asked if I knew who the guys were. I said, “No, I have no idea”. She then introduced herself as a reporter from the New York Post, and asked again if I knew who the guys were. After I denied knowing them again, she said, “Well, you got in the boat, you’re all wet, I assumed you knew them.” “No”, I said, “It just looked like fun.” “Well”, she asked, “how was it?” My brilliant quote: “It was cold! I got wet!”
Highlights:
- Seeing how long it would take a woman sitting on the edge of the fountain to stop pretending that nothing was happening behind her, and to put down her sandwich. (It took a few minutes.)
- While the tour was in progress, Agent King shouting, “Ladies and gentlemen, the boat will be returning to shore soon.”
- The elaborate docking ritual at the end of each tour: preparing to dock, tossing the rope ashore, the frantic grab at the rope (“Got it!”), tying the rope around the statue.
- After everyone disembarks the boat soaking wet (and tour directors Agent Keech and Agent Todd are wet, head to toe), Agent King informing the next rider that, “You might get wet.”
- Agent Keech holding up the barely-surviving boat to show a hole in the bottom, and asking if anyone else wants to take a ride. Agent Hot Chocolate shrugs his shoulders and nods his head.
It was a great time. So many laughs and smiles and pictures and disbelief.
Mission Accomplished.
Marvellous! The city should pay you to do this on a regular basis!
i laughed/ icried/ igotta get alife but this site is addictive.
I agree, totally addictive.
Best parts of this mission:
1) The rope throwing and tieing up.
2) The sinking and immediate rescue by the shore crew. (Awesome improv!)
Best one ever, the idea alone has me laughing all the time.
I think you people should take fountain drowning more seriously. Every year more and more fatalities occur there. Your hopeless pranks only encourage more deaths. I lost my best friend in a fountain drowning accident. Ohhhh…rubber ducky, how I miss your buoyancy. I never should have taken you from the bathtub. If I didn’t we could be home right now, but you were always such a tourist. I remember that time when you swam into my bunger. No, I’ll never forget. Damn you all for mocking Ducky McButtington with your improv. You should be ashamed. Ok if this was ever funny at any point it no longer is so I’ll
Outstanding! I’ve never laughed so hard. Can you come to Phoenix, AZ? We have lots of fountains.
I laughed until I stopped!
ROFLMAO Shoe mania which has lots of shoes and are crazy LMAO
I’ll remember this as the first mission that made me nasally discharge milk.
I found your site through a link in a friend’s blog about the BestBuy mission and I’ve been reading through them. I think this one is my favorite so far but they’re all pretty wonderful. I wonder what it would take to get away with something like this in Central Texas…
Just like Katie above, I got addicted to your site after finding the BestBuy mission a couple days ago in a comment in Bruce Schneier’s blog (go figure). I can’t stop reading your mission logs! You guys are awesome. I wish I was back in NYC, so I could participate.
The ‘guiding’ comments got my special interest. They so much reminded me of my best friend in school and her immortal comment on our guide on a schooltrip in Prague (I’m European): ‘When you look to the left, you don’t see ANY-THING on the right’, so we consequently looked in opposite directions, I’ve never had as much fun in my life, I guess (and I had quite an interesting view of the city too!).
Had I been New Yorker, I would have joined, if only to laugh my ass off!
Oh, this had me laughing for ages! Got here from an U2 message board where everyone had a lot of fun reading about your "Even Better Than The Real Thing" Mission. Keep up the good work!
‘Her dad told me, "Thanks, you guys made our day."’
And that right there is why this is the best site around. Seeing the smile on the little girls face would have been priceless, as well as giving her an awesome story to tell her friends. Putting that happiness in peoples day is just so awesome.
Well done =)
I found a link to the Best Buy improv a few weeks ago and since then I’ve been in stitches. this is hysterical.
You guys have made my day. I was laughing so hard, and I only read about the mission. You’re awesome. Keep up the great work! :-D
Want to hear scary?
Agent Keech is my math teacher. o.0
^-^
He sounds like my old math teacher. They’re all a little crazy :D
This was sooo funny!! I don’t normally laugh out loud at most things, even in real life, but I do at nearly every one of the pranks you guys do!! You’re soo much more entertaining than real life!! :D
Hahahaha I’ve been reading your guys’ missions for the past few days and they always make me laugh. Here’s a thought: you could’ve brought life vests or something for your passengers to wear and a life preserver ready for when the boats sank. By the way, the pictures are great! I only wish I could’ve been there to see it for myself.
Fantastic!
Love it! Agent Keech, do you really teach math?
I only had to look at the very first picture before I knew that this would be a hilarious mission.
When I was reading this, I laughed till I cried, and almost peed my pants.
Thats why i used the batheroom before and then after it was over i almost peed my pants because it was hilarious!!!
When’s your next tour? I wanna schedule…
Great job, Improv. Great job…
This is my favorite! It was absolutely perfect – and I would have taken that tour! Thanks you guys for doing this – come to the other coast some time so i can join in!
LOL! I would have loved to see a video of this!
This mission is hilarious, I’ve been laughing nonstop for five minutes. If only the Circle Line Tours were around when I was in New York a few years back. I would’ve liked to have been on a tour with the best view of Union Square. Hope more missions like this are done in other cities.
I have been laughing non-stop. Even just reading this has me to tears! This is one of your best, I think. I wish there was video!
priceless
I wish I had you guys in our country. Your missions really lighten up people’s days. Especially now that our country just suffered the worst flooding in 40 years, I wish people like you could put back the smiles in most of our people’s faces.