Loading...Started a whopping 15 years ago by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere is a Youtube Channel that specializes in “causing scenes of chaos and joy in public places”, as their website says. They are responsible for many great public pranks and scenes on the Internet to date, their videos racking up an incredible 400 million views in total. Their slogan is “We Cause Scenes”, and that’s not an understatement; some of their pranks involve hundreds of people and surely lots of preparation and resources.
And by pranks, I don’t mean classic pranks like whoopie cushions, surprise jump scares, etc. Improv Everywhere organizes pranks that involve lots of people getting together and acting in such a way that surprises, confuses, or amuses the people around them. These pranks have involved a large amount of people simultaneously freezing in place in a crowded train station, suddenly start ballroom dancing while crossing the street, and many, many sudden outbursts of choreographed song and dance such as their hilarious miniature musical in a tech conference titled “Gotta Share!“.
The video above is a perfect example of these large-scale public pranks, the video involving a group of actors secretly filtering into a public park in New York City. Once there, the group of actors pretended to be normal city goers, from musicians to arguing couples to a mother and small child. And they continued to act normal, until Charlie Todd, pretending to be a normal passerby, took off his sunglasses. Immediately, all the actors went mute, from the saxophone player to the performing dog. No noise. You can imagine the reactions from outsiders in the park, and altogether, the video is very funny and entertaining.
Altogether, Improv Everywhere is the channel that makes that idea that you always thought would be funny to do happen. They’ve Christmas carolled with a 40 piece orchestra, made a spontaneous musical about lunch, and blew the minds of people on a subway by having a guy pretending to have invented time travel encounter the twins of many of the other people on the train. Every one of their videos are very well planned and executed, the reactions of the people around the scene are always hilarious and entertaining.