Man. I am a world class Smallville whore, so I watch the WB regularly.
I always see the clips for the JKX.
I always roll my eyes.
I always tell Mr Wolf, “You know, if I was ever a target like that, I would probably need you to bail me out of jail on assault charges.”
I do not find his pranks (or, frankly, him) to be funny. I find his ideas cruel, mean spirited, and most of the time, if you have friends or family in on the “joke” (like that wedding one), the target comes off looking like an idiot on national tv, or they have to put up with, “Aw, have a sense of humour, it’s all in good fun!” pressure from the friends and family.
Who wants to wager the mom on that episode succumbed to that sort of pressure from her son, to let it air? “C’mon, Mom, it’s just a joke. Don’t you have a sense of humour?”
I mean, really, everyone’s talking about how “the victim clearly wasn’t that upset if they let it air,” but don’t we all know just how powerful peer pressure is?
Glad to know I’m not alone in hating these kinds of shows. Even as a kid I hated Candid Camera, Alan Funt always seemed so smarmy to me with his attitude. “Watch us mess with these innocent people on the street, and enjoy their embarassed and bewildered reactions. But it’s all in good fun.”
The new “edgier” brand of prank humor shows are just wretched. You know a show like Punk’d is bad when it gets me to sympathize with celebrities I can’t stand like Justin Timberlake.
The only thing worse to me are stunts like Tom Green’s act and lots of the stuff Jimmy Kimmel is involved with, like Crank Yankers (although I honestly believe most of the calls are staged) or those Cousin Sal bits and that irritating kid on his talk show. Where it’s not so much a trick or a prank as just being really annoying and not letting up even once people realize the whole thing is an act. That’s just the human equivalent of poking a wild animal in cage with a stick. You’re not using any talent or creative ability for humorous ends, you’re just goading people for a reaction.
I hate shows where the pranks are really cruel. How is it funny to see someone miserable? I’m not American and hadn’t heard of the show in the OP, but I really don’t think I would have liked it. It sounds particularly unfunny.
However, I won’t say all prank shows are a bad thing. Every so often you see one that’s really good, not cruel, just funny, and everyone concerned has a good laugh. The best one I ever saw was years ago - I really can’t remember where I saw it, but it was brilliant. They set up their camera in front of a construction site on a rainy day, so the construction workers were having to make their way through puddles on their way into work. We watch as some people walk by in the street, and behind them, one of the construction guys (wearing full gear, helmet, boots, everything) takes a step forward into a puddle. It looks like a deep puddle, so you expect him to go into the water up to his ankles, but instead, he just disappears down as if the puddle was ten feet deep. The people passing by are beyond shocked, put their feet in the water, discover the puddle is about two inches deep and there’s no sign of the guy.
When they’ve gone, he re-emerges. The next time someone goes past, they repeat the whole performance. I was cracking up, and what made it even funnier was the fact it was never explained how the prank was played.
I’m wavering off-topic - that was funny, sure. But cruel jokes are not. I especially hate that show Wolfian mentioned - Women Behaving Badly? I always thought it was Girls Behaving Badly - anyway, sterling example of What Not To Do.
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the humor at other’s expense deals either … at least not in real life.
Fiction about it is a-okay with me. For example, your typical gross out movie where someone gets his hand superglued to his johnson, or someone is fed eclairs filled doggy-goo. Ha ha - it is to laugh.
But in actual practice it’s pretty friggin’ cruel and I don’t see the humor in it.
It’s like violence. In a movie – I love it, hell yeah, Arnold, put your fist right through that guy’s head! In real life … eh, not so much.
There’s a Canadian show I can’t remember the name of that pulls a few pranks, but they seem to be mostly fooling or surprising people, not making them feel like something horrible has happened. One that I saw was a 7-11 microwave where the prankster had his head in a cut-out behind the mike - people opened the door to put a burrito in, and the guy said “HI! HOW YA DOIN?” The startled reactions were hysterical, but I didn’t feel like anyone was being hurt.
Another one I saw was a guy walking down the street with a spray water bottle - he pretended to sneeze, and sprayed the water on the back of the person’s neck in front of him. The reactions were absolutely priceless. Maybe it was a little mean to let people think for a few seconds that they had been sneezed on, but it doesn’t seem in the same class as letting people think their car has been totalled or a relative is dead.
I still remember seeing clips from a Japanese prank show a few years back where they’d haul a CANNON into someone’s bedroom while they were sleeping and then fire the thing off. It’s a miracle they didn’t have dead bodies on their hands from heart attacks!
Today’s prank shows are nasty and ugly. Candid Camera back in the old days at least had an innocence about it that made it pretty harmless. I mean, who was Fannie Flagg hurting or even embarrassing when she “drove” her Volkswagen into a gas station complaining it wouldn’t run, and the poor guy there was stunned to discover it didn’t have an engine in it? Or my personal favorite, the water cooler that they’d slipped a rotating divider into, so after people would get their cup of water, it would rotate to the other side where goldfish were swimming in the water?
I completely agree with you, Auntie Em. I can’t stand these shows. They’re cruel and mean, and I refuse to watch them. The once or twice I tried I found them completely and utterly unamusing.
This is one of the many reasons I can’t stand morning “drive-time” radio. It seems that half the stations do phone pranks like this. bleep bleep bleep Mwahaha…isn’t it funny, we made someone so upset they swore! :rolleyes: I’m the scanning type, always looking for a song I like, but it seems I stumble on more of these prank calls than music.
I absolutely hate practical jokes. The way I react to them you’d think I am the most joyless person on the planet. I don’t enjoy watching people suffer, whether in jest or not.
There was one show (I think it was Girls Behaving Badly) I saw that some GF pulled a fake home demolition on her BF. I completely felt for the guy when he started spouting profanity and went inside to call the police.
Being the unfeeling robot that I am I’d probably have re-emerged with my gun screaming “Get the Fuck off of my property!”
I think the mean practical jokes are really not entertaining. Like LilyoftheValley, I know it’s regularly on one radio station in the morning. It’s a station I normally listen to for the music any other time of day, but because they do this in the morning, I’ve stopped even turning to that station during the morning drive. They basically make prank phone calls. I keep wondering if there isn’t a law that covers that somewhere?
I’m sorry, but I maintain that people who don’t “catch on” are morons. Especially the people on the radio station call-in pranks. How can the people on the other end not realize its a joke??? If I got one of those calls, I’d play along with it the whole time and make the radio guy look like an ass.
The worst I’ve seen is a show called “Scare Tactics,” hosted by (I think) Shannon Doherty. They set up a very elaborate situation that basically scares the mark to death, then tells them it’s not real.
One poor girl was invited by a friend to a party out in the desert somewhere. Fake federal agents stop the car, saying that they’re about to drive into a restricted zone. The driver of the car panics, and there’s a car chase with guns, etc. The mark is about to pass out from fear, crying…Sick.
It’s disturbing to imagine people feeding off the fear of others, and getting amusement from it.
Some of you guys are too gullible, maybe the “marks” are actors in the “Scare Tactics” show, I’ve seen it and I’ve suspected it. If I saw some girl that said she had the devil in her I sure as hell wouldn’t believe her even if they brought some priest in. One thing you do have to remember is that you need the person’s permission before playing the video which is another reason to believe some of these shows are scams. I personally think Punk’d is maybe the biggest bullshitter of them all. The thing that really exposed them in my opinion is the one with Pink where her boyfriend is getting arrested on her property. If you know any celebrity the first thing they would say is “get the hell off my property and bring my lawyer in here”. But instead she just acted like a good sport.
I’m with the people who would lay on an instant beat-down. I think there’s a clear difference between having stuff done, and having stuff done to you. I’m pretty annoyed with most of that stuff, even the crank calls. I do like the puddle one; that sounds like fun though.
Two I’ve seen that were ok: A guy drives this car into a mechanics garage, and the door closes - right away it sounds like he’s driving back and forth trying to adjust it, but smacking all sorts of stuff in the process. Some good footage of passers-by there. The other was longer - this guy goes to the park at noon, sits down next to some people, puts some crumbs out for the pigeons. As soon as he gets a bunch, he starts running wildly through them. A bit later, he comes back with two pieces of bread, with some feathers and two pigeon feet sticking out the side, and starts to eat it. Most people figured out he was faking, but it was really funny anyhow.
