Improv Everywhere is comedian and director Charlie Todd‘s decades-long project to bring extraordinary moments of surprise and delight to ordinary places. Based in New York City but producing projects around the world, Improv Everywhere pioneered large-scale surprise public performances, long before anyone had heard of the term “flash mob.”

Early adopters of YouTube, Improv Everywhere was one of the first creators on the platform in 2006 and defined an entire genre of comedy for the Internet age. To date the channel has over half a billion views. With viral hits like the legendary Frozen Grand Central and the absurdly silly No Pants Subway Ride, Improv Everywhere has created iconic projects that have entered the zeitgeist and been replicated in dozens of countries around the globe.

Over the past 20+ years, Improv Everywhere has staged hundreds of projects in public places involving tens of thousands of undercover performers, all with the goal of making random strangers laugh and smile. Who doesn’t want to live in a world where high fives are offered at the top of a subway escalator, a Broadway musical breaks out in the produce section of the grocery store, and random people are given the chance to conduct a world-class orchestra in the middle of Manhattan?

Building on the success of Improv Everywhere, Charlie Todd has brought his unique brand of chaos and joy to television, working as an executive producer on comedy series for NBC, MTV, and Pop TV and most recently serving as director and executive producer for the series Pixar In Real Life for Disney+. As a commercial director, Charlie works with longtime collaborators DVRG, and has directed projects for brands like Target, Hulu, and ESPN.

Documentary Film

The feature-length documentary about Improv Everywhere, We Cause Scenes, originally premiered at the SXSW Film & TV Festival. The 86-minute film is now available to stream for free on YouTube.

Film Synopsis:

Since their humble beginnings in New York City in 2001, Improv Everywhere has grown from a small gang of restless jokesters into an internationally recognized prank collective and a viral video-making machine. From the No Pants Subway Ride to Frozen Grand Central to the Mp3 Experiment and beyond, their publicly staged scenes of chaos and joy are beloved by the hundreds who witness them, the thousands who participate in them, and the millions who watch and share the videos online. We Cause Scenes: The Rise of Improv Everywhere is the inside story of this groundbreaking group and its founder, Charlie Todd, who has turned the world into a stage, inventing an art form for the Internet age.