April Fools Day: Pranks Gone Wrong

Astonishing Legends Network Disclaimer. This episode includes the usual amount of adult language and graphic discussions you've come to expect around here, but in the event it becomes an unusual amount, expect another call from me. Hey, everybody, welcome back to Scaret all the time. I'm Chris Klari and I'm at FORCLA and today, in honor of April Fool's Day, we're pulling a little prank and sneaking onto your feeds a day early. Wow, it's admittedly maybe not the funniest prank in the world. Gotcha, ass gotcha ass. Haha, you're getting something cool earlier than you expected. Fuck you. It's maybe not the funniest break in the world, but it was better than the alternative idea we had, which was pretending that we both had a bola and then keeping that joke going for a month. So they would know immediately when I lost no weight, I think something's up, or died when I didn't die. That's yes. It all generally has a pretty high. Not natural pranks, this is what we're getting across. We're not natural pranksters, and we didn't want to pull a prank that would get anyone killed, which when it comes to pranks, might happen a lot more often than you would think, because prank is one of those words that means very different things to different people. For some people, it means putting a fake spider in your soup, or stretching saran wrap over the toilet seat so that when you pee, it bounces off. I've always wondered about that. It's like, I feel like I would notice that there's fucking soran wrapping, and. Yeah, you would think you'd have to be night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's For some people, pranks are pretty harmless stuff. But for other people, the word prank means public humiliation. It means getting singled out, embarrassed, tricked, and then being told to relax because it's just a fucking joke. Man hah God, which as a phrase I think is para as a phrase, has probably gotten more people punched in the face than any other combination of words in the English language. And that's the problem with pranks. They only work if everybody involved finds them funny. If the target is not amused, the whole situation can go very very bad, very very quickly. So join us today on this blessed day of Fools as we dive into the twisted, weird, occasionally hilarious, and very often bloody history of prank's gone wrong, from ghost hoaxes in London that ended with a man getting blasted in the chest, to media stunts that spiraled into riots, to modern YouTube idiots who pushed strangers until somebody pulls a gun. This is scared all the time, and today the joke is on everybody. What are we scared? When are we all the time? Now? Which is time? Full time scandal. Happy April Fool's Day, ed, Yeah, happy birthday. Sam My nephew is a birthday. He's April Fool's Day. So I'm sure when we got those texts, people might have thought he wasn't born yet or something. What My nephew was born on April Fols Day, so I'm assuming my brother and his wife had to like send out. And by the way, he came like seven weeks early. Oh, so it's like he came in an insane amount of time. He came seven weeks early on April Fools correct. Yes, when I got that text, I would assume it was also an April. Fools correct, like Sam's here? Yes, gotcha need a ride fuck off. You know, well, today is April Fools, or depending on when you're listening to this, maybe it's September or Merry Christmas. Maybe it depends. But instead of pranking you with a joke episode like we thought about doing, We're going to celebrate the day by looking at what happens when the world's dumbest holiday goes catastrophically wrong. Is it a holiday? I mean it's on the calendar. The thing is I there's a version where you're like, oh, a holiday is just like a bank holiday or blah blah blah, or a federal holiday. But Valentine's Day is it and stuff? So do you think it has to have a greeting card to be a holiday. I'm sure there's April Fools greeting cards. I bet they smell like farts. Yeah, Spencer's gifts or something. Okay, I was just trying to see how we can classified. I think it's a holiday. Okay, Before we start stacking bodies, I just want to take a quick second to say, if you like the show, please please go to patreon dot com slash scare it all the time to check out everything we have on offer over there. We've got a monthly live stream that we do. We've got Button of the Month club, we've got early release, you've got ad free, all kinds of stuff. If you guys, sign up over at the Patreon. It really helps keep the lights on at the show. And I do not say that lightly. It really genuinely helps keep the lights on. So sign up over there if you haven't yet. And if you can't do that, that's all good. But if you could leave us a five star review on Spotify or Apple, head over, check us out on YouTube, help us grow our channels. This show exists because of you, the listener, and we try to involve you as much as we can. So we thank you. And with that, Ed, I want to open this show with a discussion of pranks and how we feel about them. Okay, because Ed, you're famously a well known funny guy. Oh that's you're going to say that that era I had where everyone thought I was that guy from that fucking show. I don't know what era that or what guy you're talking about here. I've never seen the show in my life. In practical well, there was like a fourteen month period that I don't know who this guy sail from that show that I would be at bars from here to San Francisco and I would just be alone or whatever, and people like once every two months people would come up and be like, hey, oh, if I thought you were selling. Yeah, I know Salvolcano. I know his voice from podcasts. I've also never seen the show, so I don't know what he looks like when I usually look like me ish When I would work at comic con in the summers, back when I was like twenty two and had did not have a. Beard or a very very you thought your Zack Snyder. Yeah, you know, they were like, dude, you look like you just came from the gym. No. They thought I was like the guy with the big nose from Big Bang Theory once at a comic con, and I didn't know who that guy was, And then when I found out, I was like, I guess that's compliment. Yeah, he's a handsome man now, but on the show he looks like a loser. Yeah. You were probably wearing one of those turtlenecks you always wore. Back then, I well, collared shirts. Yeah, but his character was known for the turtle I think. But I wanted to ask you yeah, you are a funny guy. You've lived with mostly men. I'm sure the opportunity to prank or be pranked has arisen multiple times. I was pranked one time. Do you find them funny? I hate them with all my heart and it's pretty well known documented thing. So what's the time you were prank that you hate and. Would this be? I think this is a prank where Steve's murder puts you in the face. But that was that was road rage, No Steve comic. Steve put a life sized sand person. Sand person. You'll have to define, you know from Star Star Wars Java. No, there's sand people. They walk in straight lines to cover their numbers. Those aren't the Jawas. I thought the Javas with the sand people, the little guys with the glowing eyes. I always thought the sand people were the ones that made the like horn noise. I can't think of their name right now. The Tarak. So he put a he put a sand person in your room. So he puts this Tuscan raider cutout yes, in the bathroom. When we were like edit, we were up working on a short film, editing a short home all through the night after work until three in the morning, blah blah blah, and I was super tired, and like I went to go to the bathroom and he had like propped up right when you open the bathroom door, like a sandperson Tuscan raider thing, and it scared the shit out of me. It was like three in the morning, it was dark, they hadn't turned light on there yet. Yeah, and it's just fucking it's not scary when I say it, but at that moment, no, for sure, it was the fucking scariest thing. And I fell backwards out of the bathroom, like almost like I could have really done real harm to myself because it's back. You'll remember just a few episodes ago I talked about how a turkey almost gave me a heart attack, So I get it. Yeah, yeah, so I was so anyway, the only thing I hate more than being pranked is if the prank has a scare component. And so like the fact that it was a prank, which I never consent too, and. You hear that motherfuckers never don't even try. And even try it, and then you then I'm scared, which is the thing I hate all the time, even more than being pranked. I was to this day that was almost relationship ending. Well, so you're not a big hellmieen horrn Nites guy. I've never been to one in my life. As you know. Well, I'll do it if the fans demand it, but I don't want to. If the fans pay for it, we will go to Halloween Harna Nits this year and make video content of Ed peeing his pants. It'll be great. I don't get it, get it. Go fundme, going, guys, go scare me. We'll call it a go scare me. Go fund me is usually what you get for people who were in a hospital. So yeah, I'll probably need that way to do. Go fund me to put you in the hospital. Yeah, go fund me to. Get you out exactly. So yeah, I don't like pranks. I don't either. I don't like being into, I don't like being pranks and I don't like being fourteen months confused for a famous prankster. Yes, no, fair enough. I don't like pranks either. I think they can be very mean, and I think being the butt of the joke makes me uncomfortable. I've always wanted to be somebody who can like roll with the punches, but it's funny. Over the years, I've always thought that I kind of was. But I've had a couple of friends over the years also be like chill the fuck out, man, Like like our friend Tina bust my balls about a lot of stuff, but don't not prank. No, she doesn't prank, but even just busting my balls, Like, I think I go with the flow, but I think I just think I do. In your head, You're like, I'm do have handling as well. Yeah, I'm not scowling. Yeah on the outside, you're just squeezing a carrot till it explosion. Yeah yeah. I don't like being embarrassed in public period. So it's like I get it. I get that feeling of you're like, I'm chill and I'm cool until everyone's staring at you. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And I like jackass, which is a little bit more like a friendly vibe. You know, it's super. Fucked up and insane. I don't know any of those guys are so alive, But that definitely seems like pranks with consent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sort of a celebration of friendship through pranks. But the thing that really ruined pranking for me is this summer after I graduated high school. I went to a little beach house with some of my friends and I don't even really want to get into the details of the prank because I do feel really bad about it. I'm still friends with this guy, but I I pull a prank that like didn't just wasn't prank. I like really hurt his feelings. Oh but that's better than it really hurt him. No, I didn't physically hurt him. I don't feel like I can't tell the story because it's a statue of limitation. No, no, no, no no. I just I did something really shitty that I thought was a funny prank, and I really hurt this guy's feelings. And after that, I was like, I don't know about pranks. They seem you don't have to tell the. Story here, because I don't. I don't want to associated with a guy who has this much hesitation. I do have one good prank story, though, Okay, that wasn't really me pulling the prank, and it's it's a much more everyone laughs about it now kind of thing. Years ago, another one of my friends had just started dating the woman that he would later marry, and we were also on like a we'd gone up to Tahoe or something, and it was the first time. We're very one of the very early times that she'd kind of hung out with all of us, like the rest of the group, okay, And we were sitting around one night drinking and just like having a good time, and someone made a joke about how a mutual friend of ours who wasn't there, but someone that she knew, and that we were all friends with this guy, someone just made it. Real name and shit for this if you I've never heard that name in my life, by the way. Well, this guy. We were all sitting around one night drinking and having a good time when somebody in the group I don't remember who it was, but made a joke about a mutual friend that both my friends soon to be wife and the rest of us all knew. And somebody said, oh, yeah, that guy does he still sleep with that blonde wig on? And it was just a weird, half drunken comment. He's never slept with the blonde wig I was about to say, I don't know, like yeah, no, it was just something that somebody said in the moment that they thought was really funny and in the in the context of like the idea that he slept with it almost like a safety blanket that like, to feel like comfortable at night, he had to put this wig on. I mean, I don't have a lot of wig experience that I feel like to make you more uncomfortable, like your head will get hot, dude. But for whatever reason, it was one of those like group dynamic things. The mood was just right and like none of us correct, no one say oh, that's like a joke. We all just sort of ran with it, sure, and like it was real. We hadn't discussed pranking this woman. We just thought it was funny for a few minutes to pretend that left with this wig on, and uh, you know, everyone was like, oh my god, that's right. Has he ever replaced that thing? Like does it ever get dirty? Like having this fake conversation he was there, he wasn't there. He wasn't No, he wasn't there. Okay. So that made it easy to joke about it because there was no one being like, hey, I don't sleep with a wig on. Yeah yeah, yeah. But my friend's girlfriend was looking at everybody like this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard, which kind of you know, egged us on. Yeah, anyway, it would be like you judge mentl bitch. Let people live their life. The bit was reaching a point where we were kind of getting ready to drop it when another woman who had been upstairs sleeping comes down the stairs and without missing a beat, she goes, oh, you talking about you know, our friend's wig and that was that like sold it because she heard us talking about Okay, so she just chimed in and that was like we were like yeah, yeah, yeah, we are. And then it took us like I think after they got married, we finally came clean and we were like, just so you know, that guy doesn't sleep with a wig on, like you said that to his future wife or other friend's future wife. Okay, but so this person just to get this straight, this the timeline of this prank. Do you want me to start over the person not there? Correct? No one knows dating is there? Correct, He's just a person in the orbit of your friend group. Yes, you make a bunch of you know this guy wears a wig comments, and then there's a newer person to your friend group, someone's girlfriend who believed it. Yes, well, then there's no harm, no foul here. There's no prank, well except that she believed it for years. She was at what the prank is if she was like, I was going to fucking marry until I found out, because it's like I don't want to marry a psychopath. That's a prank where you were like, hey, it went too far now that guy was lonely, lost the relationship, killed himself, Like that's where I thought this was going now and he blames you guys for like the love of my life laughs, because you said that I fuck wigs or whatever it was. It was a so basically you one time made up a thing about a friend and that was it. Well, but then she asked about it a number of times over the years, and as she had met at that point, yeah, she knew him before all this happened. Well, she should have gone to him or not ever bring it up again. Either way, I could see how you got here. I think it's very much not a prank. Okay, we'll cut this section. We have to cut him or hey, go to the comment section of this YouTube page. Go down and let us know. Was that a prank or was it a prank or was it not a prank? Please let us know. In the comments section. That's gauge the fun out. That's good. Leave comments on Spotify too, or wherever you listen to the podcast. Just leave a ton of comments. Yeah, fantastic. If you wear a wig to bed, let us know in the comments. It was one of those things that was sort of annoying but definitely not cruel. Which is especially not cruel because the person who was the butt of the joke never found out about it. No. But but the woman who we told us lie to it was nobody in the story. She was upset that we had all lied to her for years. She's upset. She had nothing else going on in her life where she was still thinking about that thing that might have happened about once. Okay, let's move on from the prank or no prank. Don't let us know in the comments if it's a prank. But here's a funny prank about April Fool's Day itself. Nobody actually has any idea why it exists. Oh. I initially went down this rabbit hole somewhat foolishly, Oh my God, expecting a clean origin story and found more disputes about the origin of April Fool's Day than I ever would have expected. I have a guess about how it was cemented. Do you want to give me that guess right now or would you like to wait until later? Google? I feel like Google doing the every year on April Fool's Day. They don't think they really do it anymore. Maybe, but in like original og Google, there was always like a big Google prank that day, not a prank like you heard somethim saying. It would always be like a different fact or a this is a whatever day. I think that might have I think that might have made it very popular with our generation. And I know, for a while there, like in the mid twenty tens, digital pranks on April Fool's Day on like Twitter or Facebook were like really big, and then people got tired of them really cold. Yeah, one hundred percent, I'm talking about. Like, but April April Fool's Day was big, at least in America before Google started doing it. There's a reason why they did it, because yes, there was a cultural understanding that this was what that day was. But I'm saying I feel like in the spring there would always be something with Gmail or Google or whatever where you'd literally have to go, wait is today April five? Yeah, I remember. They One of the big ones that got them in trouble was they had a mic drop button. Do you remember that? Is that where they've dropped a wig on your friend? No, No, it was there was a button in Gmail where you could hit in a conversation like an auto reply that was mic drop and it was sort of like a telloff and then it would shut off that like you couldn't reply to the chain or something. Oh my god. But but people didn't. They didn't do it like people not everyone using Gmail knew what was going on and didn't realize that the button was there. Didn't know it did so a bunch of people were like sending mic drop emails to their bosses and like their their spouses and. We're done here people. Yeah, people were like what the fuck? And I think they had to issue a big like we're sorry. We thought that would be funnier than it was anyway. The most popular theory about why April Fool's Day exists is the calendar change theory, which I found put forth on history dot com. Is that is April when the leapyard Day is No. Okay, they tell us that when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as called for by the Council of Trent in fifteen sixty three. The Julian calendar, as in the Hindu calendar, began with the spring equinox around April first, So the new year was April first in the Julian calendar, which. Makes sense because like the crops are gonna start growing, like it makes sense on a planetary scale. In the Gregorian calendar, the year began on January first, as it does today. People who were slow to get the news or didn't, you know, realize what was going on that the new year was now starting in January instead of April. They continued to celebrate the new year during the last week of March through April first, like fools, like fools were and so they were called April fools, and a number of pranks were invented to make fun of the dumb idiots who didn't realize that we were now using an entirely different calendar. This is crazy to me because this in itself sounds like an April fool's joke. Like this sounds like the most believable and at the very same time made up fact I've ever heard it's it's true. It's true a lot of people the news didn't really spread if you, especially if you were just a peasant, you know, you just had your crops. You weren't paying attention. I genuinely don't think people like I think that's the reason why the Canterbury Tales is still here. I think most people who weren't on a pilgrimage did not leave the like couple of acres of where they fucking grew up. Yeah, like, it's just the others are thieves and bears and you don't know how I fucking get home. Yeah, Like there's no maps or GPS, so I can imagine news traveled slow. It traveled really slowly. But there were pranks invented to make fun of these people who didn't know, including if you were an April fool, you would have a paper fish placed on your back and you would be referred to as a poisson devriel or an april fish, said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish, or a gullible person who. Was shown up in town with fish to slap on people's fish. Yeah, but nobody in the town would know if like this guy didn't know the new year, then no one in town would know there's a new man in town. Been like you fools kind of well, or there was or there were not a fish on these maps there were maybe there were people who were just confused, and the locals would make fun of them behind their backs, and then at some point were like, let's put let's slap one of those foolish fish on this guy. Yeah. I one thing I would like to do for realm is instead of April fools pranks, Yeah, we should get some kind of like April Fool's forgiveness, which is to say, if you made a New Year's resolution that really hasn't started by the end of March, huh, you get like a second chance to be like, get it together. I like this, Like you've had it all the way until the old Like you can blame that the you know, hey, I'm still right in the old calendar on my checks. Yeah, like now you kind of need to get with the program because now it's like, Okay, you're excusive. I thought the New year started. Now, well it does, so start doing your fucking resolutions? Are you? Did you just come up with that right now? Yeah, it's a great idea. Hell yeah, it does. We should do something with that. That's I think. By the time this episode comes out, there's no way I would have started anything yet. I think, well, no, I I, we're not gonna create another calendar that we should get. We should get ripped if you get square, and they'll work in square in the new year, which starts April first for us. Now today, we're gonna do push ups right after this episode. Fuck man, I'm already havev'm bud lies. I'm gonna puke on you after this episode. The problem for those who put forth the theory about the origin of April Fool's Day that is centered around this calendar change is that references to April Fool's style trickery pre date the calendar change. Oh, these are guys who had had the fish cup before anyone even knew. Way before we know the countries that adopted the Gregorian calendar centuries after France did, like Britain, who didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until seventeen fifty two, and Russia, who didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until nineteen eighteen. So I don't know what calendar they were using in Russia until nineteen eighteen, but the year didn't start on January first. Well, to their point, Russian Orthodox has like Christmas, you know, after calendar, so maybe they were rocking some shit that had to do with that, probably. But the point is both of those England and Russia have April Fool's traditions that stretch back way before they made that Gregorian calendar change, which means those traditions must have come from somewhere else. Well, I didn't know. Okay, you following, I am now, but it's weird to me that I guess pranks are just baked into society like this is this like humanity is prank based. This is the journey that I was on of trying to find out just how the hell did this holiday start? One of the oldest holidays to your point that humanity is a very prank based species. One of these old holidays is the Roman celebration of Hilaria on March twenty fifth, which is a spring equinox festival honoring the cult of Cybel and Attis that featured masquerades, mockery, and disguises. The word hilaria literally means. Joyful, and that's hilarious. It is literally the root word of hilarious. Okay, if you're attempting to win bar trivia someday, there you go. The day before Hilaria. The saddest day of the year. Literally, yes, oh boy, here we go. It was the twenty fourth of March was the somber day of Blood, during which priests of the goddess Sabelle carried out a ritual of self flagellation, which is whipping themselves on their backs until they bled, and some are even said to have castrated themselves. Okay, guys, wait twenty four hours, it's gonna be a vibe. Hey, listen, a I see why you'd want a day of hilarity to follow that. And second of all, be you now have a whole town of people with a bunch of recently removed testicles hanging out to do something with. So what do you get You're going to prank people with them? My worry, yeah, is that that was the prank. Is that the people who believed that that's what you're supposed to do the day before hilario. M hmmm, the jokes on them? No, I don't well like we pranked your ass man. No, one else ripped their balls off and slapped themselves. That would be funny if they were just like the Day of Blood. We made it up. Yeah, we made it up. Man, that didn't That didn't help anything grow. While we're on the topic of ancient Rome, though, this is this is a bit of a detour, but one that is so good that I had to put it in the episode. There was at least one Roman emperor, really, just one Roman emperor who was so obsessed with pranks outside the Day of Hilarity, just obsessed with pranks around that He's gone down in history as the King of the Pranks. So it's not nero. He was way worse. No, this guy is up there. His name was Eligabalis's name elevated to the throne at fourteen years old. Too young and such a little shithead that even his imperial biographer wrote the Life of Eli Gablis. I should never have put into writing hoping that nobody should know that he was the Emperor of Rome. Oh and now fun that wasn't really because just because of his love of pranks. But that's where we have to start. According to history facts dot Com quote, sometimes elagabolists serve food of only a single color, such as green or blue. He's a Michelin star for that, now. You know, right His least desired guests were even known to find that the food in front of them was not food at all, but wax replicas of what everyone else was eating. Very fun. Other unfortunate guests would find themselves sitting on inflated animal bladders or what Historia a guopie cushions, what Historia Augusta describes as air filled pillows that let out air while they were dining. This is amazing. Ella Gabolis invented the whoope cushion. Ella Gabolis is the fucking Willie Wonka of frank. He's the king of the pranks. The fun didn't stop there. According to a Roman tours website, I found that this kid quote raced a chariot drawn by four elephants up the Vatican Hill, destroying a number of tombs in the process, and hosted a private race in the Circus Maximus, in which the chariots were not drawn by horses, but in a hilarious twist by camels, which apparently people would have found like very funny at the time. Get out of here are those camels. He also, I think, must have basically almost started a religious war because he made citizens of all faiths in Rome worship a black, conical rock that he installed in a temple on a hill and called it God. Every summer solstice, the rock was paraded around in a golden chariot and people had to line the streets to worship it. I kind of fucking love it, but I don't like the had two aspects any. Yeah, As the historian Herodian who lived at the time, described it, quote, a six horse chariot carried the Divinity. The horse is huge and flawlessly white, with expensive gold fittings and rich ornaments. No one held the reins, and no one rode in the chariot. Vehicle was escorted as if the God himself were the charioteer. Ela Gambliss ran backwards in front of the chariot, facing the God and holding the horse's reins. He made the whole journey in this reverse fashion, looking up into the face of his God, which again was a rock. This is which is really sort of the most fourteen year old religion. Like a guy who's like, I'm gonna run backwards in front of the horses, and. Well, only a fourteen year old has that energy. That's true, but it's weird because it's juvenile. But it's not universally juvenile, right where like fourteen year olds we've read other history books could easily skin you and you know what I mean, feeds you too today got gods. Yeah, this is like a particular Pewee Herman's playhouse level. Mind that. I'm sure the remaining sections of his biography were the like skin people sections, But this is a particularly funny way to live in a way that is not like, oh, Curlickula or whatever, like waged a war with the sea, and that's where sand dollars come from? Is that true? Yeah? It was either curricular one of those like real shit ones. They like one of them appointed their horses, like the vice president. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew that. I didn't know about the sand dollars. Sandours come from like this weird war against the ocean, and they were like, what do we bring to say we won? This guy so he brought like these things. But this guy does kind of sound like he rules, but he certainly can't rule. He's also in the running for horniest teenage king whoever lives. Okay, but as also mentioned, this must be I don't know what age this, I don't know what years this guy was, but it has to be like post Punic wars because they have elephants and posts like Caesar and the Egyptian shit, because they have camels. I'll also throw it out there that I didn't include any quotes of this, but in my research I did find that there's, yeah, a lot of his life has become sort of myth and legend. So who knows how how exact the elephants are the king, you know, but this guy was definitely up to up to no good. It wouldn't be amazing if they, like if we find out that, like Brewsters, millions is like based on something from his biography. He he uh, well, you know. Eli Gabolis's millions was the number of women and men that he slept with. He's the wilt Chamberlain of He was so horny that he was said to have never slept with the same woman twice. His limitless libido extended to his charioteers, whose speed and physical prowess he particularly admired. Okay, Eli Gablis's biographer tells us that the emperor procured men for political office based solely on the size of their penises, and he made more. He made use of more than just their counsel, availing himself of more anal sex than you'd believe a teenager could fit into just three years on the throne. Honestly, again, this is an energy thing. I think I'm not going with teenager, which you hadn't said a teenager. I didn't. That's a quote, by the way, that little section there was a quote. Yeah, absolutely, I've just met like, who's got that kind of fucking energy and virility other than young people. He also threw orgies, during which rose petals were dumped on the guests in such quantities that some partiers were said to have suffocated to death beneath the flowers. That's a lot of flowers. But I don't even know if that will undo the stink in that room. Never. Yeah, yeah, especially you you dump all the rose petals hoping it covers up the smell, But then you've got all those people rotting. Now you have people like months later being like what is what is that? Yeah, it was like, oh we found for still finding people under the like but it's like, uh, it's like a very distinct sound of dragging a body across marble floors that also has the like hard dead. Leaf sound, yeah, of ancient rose petals. Yeah, that would be in a who's that guy that makes like the lobster and shit? That would be like a scene in a movie of his. Oh yeah yeah yeah, not Pinos, because Matos, the other Greek. Uh, he made Bogonia. This little shithead was so full of himself. Sounds like other people were full of them too. All of Rome was full of him. He was full of others, and he was full of himself. He was so full of himself that after he learned that he had basically pissed off so many people in Rome that assassins were coming to kill him, he made ornate plans to kill himself in a variety of different manners. So this is a quote, Thik Siphilis is gonna win this one, right, Like that's gonna end up being the. He entwined a scarlet and purple silk noose to hang himself with. That sounds if he has so, like if he had the time, if he knew the assassins were coming, he could dramatically hang himself. He kept golden swords lying around the palace in case the situation called for a quick death, so that he could stab himself with a golden sword. This is something where I feel like he needs to speak to the Asians at this point. I feel like at this same time period, the Asians would have been like, we have fourteen hundred pages on flowers. You can eat to die instantly without any issue. Well, you don't have to run to your fucking golden stab cabinet. He also prepared poisons mixed with precious stones in case he fancied a drink before he died, and he even constructed a tower of gilded and jeweled boards in case he fancied throwing himself to his death. Okay, all right, so he knew about easier ways to die. He's just being dramatic. He's just being He is a fourteen year old theater We didn't realize he's a theater kid. He is a fourteen year old theister, the first theater kid. In the end, though, it was all for nothing, because like I want to do to theater kids, he was slaughtered by his own soldiers as he hid in the toilets. No, these poor kids, they get hard enough. Be you be whoever you want to be. His corpse was dragged to this unless you're this guy specifically, don't don't be this guy. But I mean, go out for whatever. Theater kids, I'm kidding about you, but just tone the energy down a little bit. Yeah, don't be on all the time. Don't. You don't have to be on all the time, but you also. Don't need to have scarlet nooses on the rest. It's funny. I didn't realize is that I disliked theater kids because I did stage crew and stuff in high school for the musical, for the place. When you're dressed in all black, we're a different group. But I didn't realize I hated theater kids until I got to Emerson and Oh there were a bunch of theater kids on my floor. He lived in like student house. The first couple of months, I was like, I couldn't. I was like, I could not figure out why I didn't like these people. Like I could. I was like, something is weird and like the energy, like I didn't know what it was. And then after a few months, I was like, I think they're just always annoying and like singing and not. They can't ever have a conversation because they all got to do bits all the time. It's improv yeah, and theater kids. Yeah, I think they might be natural enemies in the wild, but they're the same person. I mean, the worst prank Ella Gabolos could have ever pulled would have been starting an improv troop. I feel like I am certain he had a few. He probly did, but anyway, but it always ended. With like the ones he liked least were fucking skinned. He uh did not get a chance to use any of these dramatic ways to kill himself because he was slaughtered by his own soldiers as he hid in the toilets. His corpse was dragged to the streets of Rome and thrown into the River Tiber, where it ultimately washed up in Rome's sewer, the Cloaca Maxima. So in the end, these pranks, in the end, the oh people, I hated you, bro In the end, these pranks all went wrong for him, not for anybody else. He pushed a couple too many buttons, pushed way too many buttons. I mean, he is actually there's I didn't want to make the whole episode about this guy. But if if you're interested in this kind of history, look up Ela Gabolis. There's a ton of fascinating stories about how he. I think I read something about how like his grandmother and mother like orchestrated his rise. Oh yeah, you're thrown at fourteen and all this different stuff. He was a really weird, fascinating guy. Anything post Caesar. I mean even Augustus was his adopted kid, right, So it's like there's a lot of orchestration after that because there's no like genuine like through line of like lineage of it. Imagine, man, the worst thing that could have ever happened is that, like guys are always thinking about ancient Rome is like a meme because I was certainly never thinking about ancient Rome in my daily life. But the two best classes I ever took in school were like a medieval history class and an Ancient Rome, like a whole semester of Ancient Rome, and they were like nothing held my attention like both of those classes. And you know, I kind of agree with Shane Gillis a little bit on like anything older than I don't know, the American histories is like could all be fucking made up. We don't know, but it's really interesting stuff and shit like stories like this. I mean, you can do a thousand podcasts on I'm sure right now there's a podcast on. Like we're going through every Roman emperor, but late Abolis the second. I didn't know if al gabblists. I have to lose some research because I think I'm minutes away from getting ol gabalists tattoo until I find out he did a few more horrible things. So to recap briefly, we had the ancient Roman holiday of the Day of Blood the twenty fourth, followed by Hilaria on the twenty fifth. How hilarious was yesterday? Which was hilarious. Then Eligabolis took that all a little too seriously, and then there's the Feast of Fools that occurred from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. This was primarily a French thing, just like the personal fiches or whatever from. Yeah, they don't seem like hilarious people today, Well they've got mimes. I stand by what I said. This was primarily a French thing where lower clergy like deacons elected a pope of fools and then conducted mock masses, wore vestments inside out, brought donkeys into churches, and saying obscene parodies of hymns. This seems sacrilegious. The Catholic website Newadvent dot org memorably describes this holiday the Feast of Fools as quote, a celebration marked by much license and buffoonery, which took place every year on or about the Feast of the Circumcision. It was what are we doing? It was known by many names festum, foul taorum, festum, stultorum, festum, hypodeacnorum. And it is difficult, if not quite impossible, to distinguish it from certain other celebrations, such, for example, as the Feast of Asses and the Feast of the Boy Bishop. Okay, all right, the first bunch of names, those are magic words. Those are Harry Potter spells. Yeah. The last two, you know what? Call them by the last two. If if we got a couple centuries where having a day of Asses meant we're not gonna hurt these kids, then fucking let them blow off steam. Bring a donkey in here for a donkey show. I don't give a fuck, but uh, it does to me feel like it seems to be co signed by the religion at the time, but even to me, I'm like, that seems really sacrilegious. So it wasn't the church condemned it repeatedly, Okay, But like everything else the church condemns and says you can't do it just made they. Just move those lower bishops to another all of a sudden. Spain was like, we've got all these bishops throwing a weird festival. Yeah, no, it was they said you. Couldn't do it, and then people just wanted to do it more. I kind of wish they still did. It really does sound like a pretty pretty awesome holiday. I don't think they should do it, but why not, I don't. Know, there should be some Can you imagine if there was a weird al of Catholic hymn parodies he got to show off once a year. Only once a year though, Yeah, I mean, like again, if it's if it is the release valve, the community needs to because if there's any community that needs a release valve, it's that group. Catholics, Catholic, French people Catholic, but man, maybe both at least I don't want to say anymore, but it is if it's doing a service great. Otherwise, I don't know. I walk into churches and I lower my voice. Here's a question, you know what I mean. I try and that's like a hollowed ground. Here's a question for you. I feel like Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics have very strong stereotypes. Sure, what do you think of when you hear French Catholic. Well, I think of I guess really the only Well, yeah, I also think of the French Indian War, because that during the American Revolution, before the American Revolution and then into the American Revolution. Uh, the only people who are Catholics were French coming down from Canada, right, And so I associate for French pretty I guess strongly with Catholicism versus but I'd say Protestants and stuff that maybe would have been like English people who can. That stereotype didn't really stick around the way that Irish and Italian Catholics. No, I think, I think because and I never do this, So I'm gonna give French a little, you know, some grace here, Okay, give them some props. I think they're kind of too cool for it, a little bit like they're smoking SIGs. They're like, they're known for French kisses in like good ass food and like not lame things to have their religious tendencies rise to the top of things you think of French before. I see they're known for revolutions, yeah, and just being cool and being rude. They don't seem like a very guilty people, whereas like Irish they pretty open and Italian Catholics feel very. Like Peppi la Peu is a fucking rapist. Yeah, and and his name is Peppi Lepieu. Yeah. And that is not to associate all French people with the R word there. I'm just saying that, like, yeah, they they kind of don't seem like they're worried about anything. Sure, That's all I'm saying is yeah, like they're just like openly be like, yeah, I was about a thousand cigarettes and fuck fifty people today, Yeah, see you at church versus like we would never and then in the confession be like a fucked a million people and drink cigarettes. It's like that's okay, a thousand hell, Mary's right. Well, whichever of these multitude of origins of April Fool's Day is to be believed or whichever one is the most accurate. By the eighteenth century, the idea of a day on which pranks were celebrated and fun was to be had at the expense of others had spread across Europe. Okay, there were different flavors of fools Days depending on where you lived. So Scotland's, for instance, was also actually something that lasted two days, two long, dreadful days, because day one was called hunt the gawk day. Oh, I don't want to be a gowk? What's a gwk? G owk gowk hunt the gawk Day. According to Scott's Magazine, the term gawk refers to a cuckoo bird and can be used to describe a fool. Okay, hunt the gok was also often shortened to hunt. A gok all one word, oh, Okay. On this day, some poor idiot, typically someone's young apprentice, was sent on a pretend errand that would turn into a wild goose chase. So often this would involve delivering you know, you would hand your young apprentice a very important letter, right uh, and there was no letter in the envelope. You would They'd be like, take this letter to the blacksmith and you'd run it to the Blacksmith, and they would open it to read the phrase dinn a laugh and din a smile. But Hunt the Gawk another mile that blacksmith is in on the joke. He writes another letter. He doesn't even write, he just falls back up and goes, oh, actually this is for the baker, not me. Go to the baker, and they would keep this guy. Running mind that. Yeah, it's wildly inconvenient, but it started from your boss, and so it's not like he's gonna lose his job being on a wild goose chase all day. Hey, why weren't you here at the bakery? Right? Yeah, this is a hazing ritual, you know. And it's also not like the letter opens and it was like my assistant says, you're a fucking bitch and you're not about it. Yeah, yeah, you know. So it's not like it turns scary. That's true. That's true. I kind of like this one. Yeah, it's not. Of many of the pranks we're going to discuss on this episode, Hunt of Gawk is not one of the worst. And it seems like something where you could an apprentice later be like, oh, what was your gawk day? Like it was like Oh, I had to go to the Like it's almost a bonding experience for people in that industry. That's a positive way to think of it at I like that. I like that perspective. Day two was called Tailly Day and was more of a backside centered prank day where people would pin tails on the butts of their friends and neighbors along with kick me signs. And this is apparently the origin of kick me See. The origin of kick me signs, much like the origin of the whoopee cushion, stems from these prank traditions that stretch back forever. So yes, the kick me sign has been hilarious since the seventeen hundreds. Yeah, I hope people are, you know, kind of being fun and gentle about it. And I hope to pin the tail on is not like you got something nailed into your body. Well that was what I was thinking, because I don't know if they had tape back then. Well, they probably had like a pin, like a clothes pin style. I guess you'd have to be so sneaky to pin something to somebody. Yeah, people were wearing you can't call it a backslap, you know, the backslap, you know what you definitely can, because this is a fucked up sos. They probably just looked like goose shit or or like tar pine tar, and they targets your ass. In Spain, the equivalent of a Fool's Day is Holy Innocence Day or Dia delo sentos Innocentes. Okay, so this sounds like it's also going to stem from and exploit like naive people are new to their job people. I'm hoping it's a little worse than. Murder. The day is celebrated by pranking each other and making jokes, the most popular of which is sticking paper in the shape of a child on someone's back, and when the victim of the prank realizes. That they've been marked a predator. Yeah, the jokers will scream in day, which is Spanish for innocent. The weird thing about Dia delos CentOS Innescentes is that it's named after dead babies, and not just any dead babies. These particular babies are the ones who were slaughtered by order of King Herod around the time of Jesus' birth. Oh, if you aren't familiar with the story, King Herod was the king at the time when Jesus was and he was so blinded by his jealousy because the prophecy called for Jesus to be the new king of the Jews. So King Herod ordered all of the infant boys under the age of two in Bethlehem and neighboring towns and cities to be killed in hopes that whichever one was Jesus would be caught and compromised to a permanent end. In this slaughter of babies, Jaxonammy wasn't anywhere you're expecting to be. No, Nope, he got away. He snuck away. But this holiday the day of the Innocence. So the innocence of the kids who had no reason to be killed, correct, gotcha. It's a commemoration of those innocent souls mixed with winter festivities and something that a long time ago was called La Fiesta de los locos, so the crazy festival, the party of the crazy people that has a pagan oregon and was celebrated during the Middle Ages. And during La Fiesta des Locos everything was allowed. It was a day of debauchery and reverge, ye kind of. And so the church is way of ruining their fun was to remind people of the baby massacre and be like, now we're handling this holiday and guess what it involves? Thousands of dead children. Dude, car down one of my favorite jokes, but I don't remember what it was in or whatever, but it was one of those things where it's like, finish all the food in your plate. They're starving kids in you pick the country whatever. Every fucking ten years the country changes. But yeah, yeah, there's starving kids and whatever. And I remember who said or why are they set up or the show or anything, But the other person who was being told this just goes, yeah, name five. That to me is like one of the funniest responses to that ever. But and so you're saying the same energy, I can't name five of the slaughtered children. The people who were saying do it because of the slaughtered children, they probably couldn't name five. But you're said back then is to keep the name alive. We should do that for more things, but add dead babies to them that we'll just keep the memory alive of things. Well, speaking of moving on quickly, by the time the eighteen hundreds roll around, pranks have broken containment. They're not just for Apel Fool's Day. Anymore. Mass media is on the rise, powered by newspapers desperate to sell copies, and they discovered that pranks are a shortcut to profit. So The New York Sun in eighteen thirty five published what is now known as the Great Moon Hoax. Reporter Richard Adams Locke wrote articles old dick lock, what's up to pranking people? Still, he wrote articles claiming astronomer John Herschel had discovered bat winged humanoids and unicorns on the moon. It became The New York Sun's best selling series ever, and even after they admitted the articles were bullshit, they never officially retracted the story. Wow. The same paper pulled another stunt in eighteen forty four when they claimed that the first transatlantic flight had been achieved, which is a slightly more believable prank than unicorns on the moon. Yeah, but it was powered by those winged creatures they've found on the Moon. The headline read astounding news by Express via Norfolk the Atlanta It crossed in three days signal triumph of mister Monk Mason's flying machine. Oh Below, the article gushed the great problem as at length solved the air as well as the Earth in the ocean has been subdued by science. Got your ass. Other exclamations peppered the columns. God be praised. Who shall say that anything is impossible? Hereafter? Interestingly enough, this article was written by none other than Edgar Allen Poe Wow how it had just arrived in New York City and was looking for a paying job, and I guess the newspaper said you want. To lie to some people? Whatever keeps me drunk. He later defended himself, saying that quote there was nothing put forth in the balloon story which is not in full keeping with the known facts of aeronautic experience and any part of it, he insisted, might have really occurred. I will say this, it is interesting if you made an April fool's joke, yeah, that someone did not realize was a joke. M hm, and it like ushered in some sort of space race level, like what do you mean the Americans to transatlantic flight? Yeah? Based on that article, it's like we're gonna fucking do that. Yeah, and then like a new industries were formed from like a joke would be awesome. I also, I just think it's funny the idea that Edgar Allan Poe was okay with printing news that could have happened. Can you imagine if that was the standard we help people to these days. I think maybe it is. Yeah. He later wrote this about the article and its reception, which I think is shockingly relevant to modern media criticism. Poe said, quote the more intelligent believed the joke, while the rabble, for the most part, rejected the whole with disdain. He saw this as a historical change, He said, quote twenty years ago, credulity was the characteristic trait of the mob, and incredulity the distinctive feature of the philosophic. Remind me of which what those two means. Credulity is the just a gullibleness that you believe it, you believe, you believe whatever you're told. Okay. Incredulity is questioning, Oh interesting, that's interesting. And he's saying when this article ran, he's saying that the intelligent were the ones who were gullible. We took a hook line and saying. Here and the rabble were like, the fuck are you talking about? I bet you there is something that's already been written about it. But I bet you there is like a very distinct pendulum swing on that every two generations or every forty years, there is like a and now the masses are more gullible and the you know what I mean, I. Think we do kind of. I mean we don't see it with everything today, but I do Like, how often do you see a media outlet run with a story that you know, the intelligent, the de literati, the intelligent people the talking heads on on the news have to just run with. I mean, like, weapons is mass destruction is at this point a pretty well known. I think it was pretty well known a year into being made. Well right, But but part of the reason that it became sort of the eye roll phrase that it became was because, you know, the government said it, and then some people ran with it because they wanted to you know, they wanted to prove the government right. But then a lot of other somewhat ostensibly intelligent people on the news just kind of had to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, weapons of mass destruction. Like you didn't have a lot of people going, hang on, that sounds like bullshit. There were people saying that, but they weren't the mainstream thinkers. Yeah no, no, you can't really who knows what the incentives were for any outlets at the time or what the restrictions were, and who know, I were still doing the same shit man, Yeah, I mean literally the time of recording. Yeah, but you know what, the newspaper hoaxes sort of made hoaxes a popular. Well, newspaper hoaxes are fucking cool because it's your one piece of media. Yeah, you know, whether it's a later would be radio like War of the World's doesn't work if there's a second channel to turn to. Well, there weres. We're going to get to War the Worlds in a little bit. Yeah. But you know, these these newspaper pranks were embarrassing, and they were financially motivated by greedy newspaper publishers who wanted to sell newspapers. But nobody died from thinking that there were bat people on the moon. That wasn't the case in the Hammersmith neighborhood of London in eighteen oh three, when someone started dressing in a white sheet and leaping out at people in dark lanes at night, pretending to be a ghost. You can't do that. That's like that crazy like clown people from the Clown episode. While this person's actions were likely intended to be funny, the neighborhood was genuinely terrorized. People were afraid to go outside after dark, and vigilante patrols formed to catch the ghost. And what did you know it, before long, a once living man was turned into a real Hammersmith ghost because, according to an article on Discovery UK, around ten thirty pm on the evening of January third, eighteen oh four, local bricklayer Thomas Millwood was walking near black Lion Laney to rest, yeah, he will be soon. He was walking near black Lion Lane, just north of the River Thames. He was wearing his work clith which were entirely white in color. At the same time, twenty nine year old ex scise officer Francis Smith was armed and hunting for the ghost of Hammersmith, convinced he could put an end to the terror. I guess convinced that he could shoot a ghost. It is interesting that, like I have a feeling, the man who's gonna get shot was not the ghost. But it is interesting that the personality traits the ven diagram in the fucking disturbed wavelength of these two men's brains, the guy who's a ghostbuster and the guy who is a ghost? Impostor yeah, probably have more in common than the poor man. Yeah, because yes. Smith was convinced that he could bust this ghost, so to speak. And when he encountered this figure dressed entirely in white, he raised his weapon and fired, killing Thomas Millwood Francis Smith. God bless, rip, god blest to Thomas Millwood. Francis Smith. The shooter was tried at the old Barely Courthouse, where quote, his defense argued that this. Place is barely a courthouse. We should do this somewhere better. The new Bally Courthouse, perhaps no. In an argument reminiscent of stand your ground laws, his defense argued that he acted out of genuine fear, believing that the ghost of Hammersmith poses a real threat. The prosecution encounter that Smith's actions were reckless and based on superstition rather than evidence. I agree. The jury initially convicted Francis Smith of murder, but King George commuted the sentence, and apparently what was a rarer commutation for King George the third He commuted the sentence to manslaughter, sparing Smith the death penalty and instead condemning him to a year of hard labor instead This was eighteen oh three, eighteen oh four. Okay, And interestingly, this case became a landmark in English common law regarding the defense of what is known as honest mistake of fact. That's such a British way to say it. Yeah, as Discovery UK puts it, quote, could belief in the supernatural justify lethal force? I thought that guy was a good like I fuck, I've been using that all the time. That's I mean, that was the defense. He was thought the guy was a real ghost, and he was so afraid he had to pull the trigger and shoot him. Dude, the idea that you are getting off on the what would you do defense? What would you do? Guy was coming at me like a specter. But here's even crazier. It wasn't until nineteen eighty three that the question was answered by the Court of Appeal in R versus Williams, and the ruling determined that an assailant's actions had to be judged on the circumstances as he or she reasonably believed them to be, even if that belief was mistaken. So, okay, if ed ever snaps and kills me, don't let him say he thought I was a ghost. He knows I'm not a ghost. It's not gonna fly Inklari Court. But it seems like it did for a long time. No, and I think it still does. It was settled that if your actions are judged, the actions have to be judged on the circumstances that you believe them to be. So I think there's In eighty three they were like, we've heard enough of this. If you think it's a ghost, it can kill it. Okay, shit, Yeah, So I thought you were saying that. In nineteen eighty three they finally were like, no, we have so many graveyards filled with accidental murders or like, how many peoples you're saying the entire islands ex wives or ghosts, like you know what I mean. Like, So I thought that they were saying ninety eight three, we're done with this, but you're saying in nice, say eight three, there was an official Supreme Court essentially decision that ghosts are fair game. So if you live in the if you one of our UK listeners have at it killed it is still well yeah, first, definitely don't do that. But second, if you find out one way or the other, if this still holds true, let us know yeah, because I just be curious. The next stop along pranks that totally fucking backfired Boulevard. He's an event I almost touched on in our Alien Invasion episode with Olivia, and I'm glad I didn't because it turns out it does fit even better in this episode. Okay, It, as you mentioned earlier, is one of the most famous pranks in history, famous for both its excellent execution and the manner in which it immediately and spectacularly backfired, although depending on who you ask, it maybe got exactly the reaction its creators were hoping for. Isn't this some When you say immediately backfired, do you mean like a shut it down? We fucked up, like this is causing a big panic sort of. Yeah. On October thirtieth, nineteen thirty eight, twenty three year old incredibly Yeah, Orson Wells, duly talented Orson Wells and the Mercury Theater on the Air broadcast an adaptation of HG. Wells War of the World's on CBS Radio, structured as fake breaking news bulletins describing a Martian invasion in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. I bet you it worked better then, too, because I feel like breaking news would have maybe, and I don't know, I'm not a scholar of the era, it might have been reserved for actual breaking news. Then it wasn't like I on the drive to record of this got like no exaggeration five in the thirty minute drive five like New York Times breaking. News emails that plus the citizen app No, I don't. As you know, but but yeah, maybe at the time people took it even more seriously because it's like, oh shit, there actually this is. Breaking on well I've I've if you've never listened to HG. Wells War of the Worlds before, I've put the original broadcast in the show notes, and if you get a chance, you should definitely listen to it. It's scared all the time, stamp of approval. It's really good. It's it's still I think, probably just as entertaining as it was in the day. Yeah. Probably, Orson Wells is just like I mean, he's just that voice. He's the best. He's a phenomenal storyteller, both as an actor and eventually, No, I think. We would mentioned that ITHD. War of the World is even older than the broadcast. Yes, it's based on HG. Wells's book. Yes, but I'm saying there must have been somebody listening going, hey, wait a minute, that's just War of the Worlds. Probably right. It's like if someone came ready, like breaking news, Pete Maverick Mitchell shot down MiGs, It's like, wait, that's just top gun. Possibly. I mean, War of the Worlds was set in the UK, not America, okay, And it's a very abridged on the ground telling of War of the World. So I feel like you would have had to be pretty, you have to be far, you have to be pretty familiar with the book to go wait a sec. Okay, okay. But part of what's so interesting about this, the chaos that the broadcast of War the World's caused is manifold. But one thing that I think is interesting is that if you listen to it, you'll notice the broadcast opens with the traditional radio broadcast information that this is the Mercury Theater on the air, and you're about to listen to a show of I don't remember if they oh, so, the news breaks into what appears to be a genuine they announced the beginning of the show, They run the title credit. You know what I'm saying, so that the news of alien invasion breaks into the one minute into I Love Lucy. Essentially, it would be the It would be the same as if we started watching I Love Lucy and then one minute in it's like you were interrupt this program for a real disaster. No, but that would have been fucking cool. No, no, no, no. The broadcast starts with the announcement that you are listening to the Mercury Theater doing War of the worlds. Oh, and then then it comes a real War of the. World and then it becomes a new and then they say, like, you know, I forget, I forget exactly it's getting so hot here now. Yeah, well, if this is what I think you're saying, and I probably cut myself being wrong a couple of times, but if this is what I think you're saying, it's actually way fucking cool than I thought it was, which is they're like, hey, this is the Mercury Theater. We and the Mercury Theater boys are gonna put on a presentation of HG. Wells War of the World's and then like start doing it and then interrupt this broadcast to be like a real World of the World is happening. Fuck. That would have been so cool. Though it would have been very confusing, but it would have been cool. Do you want me to play the opening for you? I'll play the opening. One of the things that's crazy about the fact that this caused so many problems is that this is how the actual broadcast of War of the World begins. The broadcasting system from the faciliated stations present orson Wells and the Mercury Theater on the air in the War of the World by HG. West' So it literally tells you this, we're doing War of the worlds and then it does. It segues into a broadcast from a ballroom where there's a band playing, and then they do the first we interrupt this program the astronomers have seen flashes of light coming from Mars. But okay, but so it really the panic was anyone who missed the first thirty seconds. The panic was anyone who missed the first thirty seconds. Yes, okay, So they weren't actively trying to confuse the audience. They weren't actively trying to though, which. To me always kind of is the lore of it. I don't know why, I feel like the entire time I've ever heard of the War of the World's incident, in my mind it was always like, we're playing a trick on everyone. This is actually news to me that it was just a presentation of War of the Worlds. Well, it's up to who you you know, it's Orson Wells. Wo Louie told me this, So that's if you want to blame someone. Orson Wells was, you know he was. He was a snarky, get one over on you, I'm smarter than you kind of guy. So while the official line was no, no, no, we weren't trying to trick anybody, I think you could easily read into it. Well, how many people tune into the show exactly when the show begins to exactly hear the announcement. Yeah, but I mean the fact that they told you meant that it's not a trick. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't fully intended to be a trick. But as that broadcast continues, the news of strange explosions on Mars interrupt this musical performance, and from there, Wells and writer Howard E. Cook, who went on to co write Casablanca, ratchet up the tension with live radio reports live quotes from astronomers, reporters, the US infantry, and the Air Force. By minute eighteen of this broadcast, a man is describing crowds being burned alive by alien death rays right in front of him. Do you know what I think really works for this? And it wouldn't work if you tried to do it today. I mean, you can make arguments I'm saying in traditional media and not fucking the internet is back then it was like el CooA presents the whatever Hour, so you weren't there's no commercial breaks. You can run this off as one big live event and not like is that a Martian right, Let's be it an how a moment for our sponsor. Yeah, well, now, the only way you could do that would be for a sponsor to pay for the whole hour in advance. But the media that they would get from pulling a stunt like that would not be positive, so they wouldn't necessarily want to do that. But I'm just saying the structure of that also very much lent itself to the believability because there was no interruptions. Yes, history tells us this is the next interesting thing about War of the Worlds that a mass Hannic ensued, people fled, the city's phone liized jams, roads were clogged with terrified citizens. The next day, the country awoke to newspaper headlines like fake stirs terror throughout the US War, skit on radio terrifies nation, and the end of the world colon terror stricken America. I grew up hearing from my grandparents that mold Lewis multiple people died in New York and New Jersey trample from having heart attacks, crashing their cars, driving off bridges, and committing suicide because they didn't want to fall victim to these horrific martians that were storming towards their homes. But the truth might be a little bit more nuanced. Media historian W. Joseph Campbell documented in his book Getting It Wrong that much of what was put into the public record by newspapers the following day was heavily exaggerated, both in an attempt to sell more papers and to hawk shit on the newspaper industry's popular new competitor, which was radio. W. Joseph Campbell is quoted in a BBC article is saying, quote for newspapers, the so called panic broadcast brought newspapers an exceptional opportunity to censure radio, a still new medium that was becoming a serious competitor in providing news and advertising. Newspaper leader columns in the days immediately after the broadcast helped deepen the impression that Wells's program had sown hysteria. The New York Times said, radio is new, but it has adult responsibilities. My God, has not mastered itself or the material it uses. So the war of the World's panic we've all heard about was really. Was the dying gasp of like an industry trying to remain relevant. From the research I did through, there do not appear to have been any actual recorded instances of car crash. I love that death. This is awesome. This is genuinely, to me the very interesting piece of the history of this because we have how many times have we done an episode of scare all the time where it's like waking up during surgery, It's like we made gas to put you under, and like people would be like, don't go to that dentist or that surgeon because they won't know you're if you're helping, because they don't hear your screams. Like it's like things that seem like this is a rad new invention, or like we built a car and then like the horse, people being like a car carble drive into your home. Horse, I don't know, you know what I'm saying, like the like the the We've seen this a number of times where like one industry feels threatened by another and it and it takes to the news to do it. So it's interesting to see the news actually doing the one perpetrating it. And Orson Wells very famously made a movie about hurst Ye, which is a lot to do with like using and wielding the power of controlling all the media markets. Yep, I mean there were there were documented pissed off calls, like two CBS stations and like people, some people were upset and some people were scared, but not nearly at the level that it kind of has gone down as in myth. There are probably people at those newspapers on the second day who were like, I think radio's done. We did it, we killed it. There's no way. People are like, who's going to support a thing where a hundred people died? Less, they can't come back from this, To come back from that, the FCC might be invented that same week, though. Here is what I didn't know about the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. Eleven years later, in nineteen forty nine, in Ecuador, someone tried the same trick. It was February twelfth when Radio Quito broadcast its own localized adaptation of War of the Worlds, directed by Leonardo Payez. At the time, tensions were very high with Peru, who is their neighboring country, and when radio descriptions of smoke and fire and something advanced towards the city went out on the airwaves, people thought that the country was at war. Oh, they didn't think tripods. They were even thinking invaliens. Yeah. According to an article I found on Skepticality quote, churches opened their doors to the terrified population who were pouring from their homes and their night clothes and running about the streets and terror. One priest is said to have conducted an open air mass absolution of sins. Such were the overwhelming number of supplicants wishing to make peace with their God. Before they were going to be killed this week, like this day. But the real problems didn't start until people realized that there was panic in the streets. So the broadcast interrupted itself to announce this is all a prank. About twenty minutes into the episode, they were like, hey, we're kidding again. From skepticality quote. Up until this moment, no one appears to have been seriously hurt. But now a great many people in Quito were acutely aware they had been fooled and were looking for something or someone to vent the fury. Oh my god. El Commercio, the largest and most respected paper in the country, owned Radio Quito, and the station was housed in the same building as the newspaper, and it was to this location that the mob advanced, and, in what might have seemed an ironic act by the crowd, set fire to copies of El commercial newspaper and then hurled those and other objects at the building. People don't deserve anything. The main entrance was blocked and a fire swiftly broke out. Some of the besieged staff of one hundred people escaped from a exit, but many were trapped on upper floors. It were forced in some cases to leap from the windows to avoid being burned to death. Others attempted to form human chains to the ground, but many fell. The reported figures for the eventual death toll varies between about six and twenty. Generally, it's thought that the lower end is probably more accurate. But regardless, I think these people should have went to war with Peru. Like it sounds like you got people ready to fucking go. They should have. Yeah, right, they should have just been like, tonight's the night taking you out. It would be a sneak attack, sneak attack, like what the fuck is happening. They probably would have won, because it sounds like these people are like hulked out, you know, had so much rage, way to go. It is said that they were so pissed off that they beat policemen who arrived on the scene and removed fire hydrants in order to thwart the attempts to extinguish the blaze. They know people were in there. Yeah. Yo, these people are trash. They were fucking pissed. But that's an insane reaction to have. Yeah. Yeah. Luckily, not every mid century media prank backfired with the same disastrous results as War of the World's, especially the War of the World's Radio Kito version. I'd be remiss not to mention the Museum of Hoax's number one prank of all time on their April Fool's List, the BBC's Spaghetti Tree What Oh Yes, I have put a link to the Spaghetti Tree hoax in the show notes, so I encourage you listener to go and watch it. But on April first, nineteen fifty seven, the BBC's Panorama program, narrated by the distinguished Richard Dimbleby, very British names. Would say, Richard Attenborough, he was. He was sort of like a war correspondent. Like I think he was sort of like their Walter Cronkite maybe like he was like a real news anchor. Like if this guy said something you believed it. Do you think he was, Oh, like he's in on the joke. He's in on the joke, about to say it's not like yeah, going to a bar after being like what he's gotten on the spaghetti beat. He They aired a three minute segment narrated by him, showing a Swiss family in Tacchino harvesting their spaghetti for the year by happily pulling strands of pasta from trees and laying them in the sun to dry. Dimbleby explained in the clip that a mild winter and the quote virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weavil have contributed to a bumper harvest. Eight million people watched it and the reaction was massive because at the time, and this is late, I don't again, I don't really have any connection to Britain, but apparently even in nineteen fifty seven, passa was not really common in Britain. Weird, It's like five seconds from mid. And most of the country was unfamiliar with how it was made. So even the BBC Director General at the time, Sir Ian Jacob, was bewildered by the broadcast and resorted to seeking out the origins of spaghetti in three different books to clear up his suspicions. Not everyone was amused, but no one rioted and no one died. The BBC was inundated with calls demanding proof or an explanation. Some people even asked how to grow their own spaghetti tree, to which the BBC's alleged response was quote plays a sprig of spaghetti and a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best so best prank of all time according to the Museum of Hoaxes, But it's right around this time, in the middle of the century that the modern prank apparatus really kicks into high gear. Alan Funt creates Candid Camera in nineteen forty eight, which is generally considered the first mass media prank show. The novelty industry explodes the joy Buzzer in nineteen twenty eight and the Whoopee cushion in the nineteen thirties, courtesy pretty late to that, courtesy of the Gem Rubber Company of Toronto, So the Canadians are to thank for the modern whoopee cushion. Another Canadian, Tom Green, pioneered aggressive public prank TV in the nineties and then on October first, two thousand, arguably the single most important date in prank history, Jackass premieres on MTV. The Patrious Say on September eleven, two and one, A big joke was played, Oh yeah, Jackass. I guess it's weird because it's not. Yeah, it is prank because they're always fucking with that guy's dad and like stuff like that. But I guess it's also not pranks. It's also just like human feats on display. Yeah. Before Jackass, pranks on TV were mostly about tricking people. It was a lot of hidden cameras, a lot of gotcha stuff. I mean Punked even came after Jackass, and that was hidden cameras and whatnot. But I think punk that was proper pranks. That was proper pranks. But I think Punked was, you know, riding the heels of Jackass. Really yeah, they were both m TV maybe they both, Yeah, But after Jackass, pranks became about what you were willing to do to yourself or to others for laughs. And as a result, the majority of the pranks gone wrong I found in the two thousands are really the same story over and over and over again. To a depressing degree. Some kid decides they're gonna prank someone. That person has a gun. I will say this not the second part, the killing, yeah, but the threatening to kill is very funny to me. I don't like pranks, as you know. So somebody who's like, I'm gonna prank you and then it goes real bad on them, I enjoy. I enjoy. I love watching a YouTuber who's like, I put a plastic garbage can over this person's head at home depot and I'm gonna walk by like I didn't do it. Yeah, if you get thrown through a fucking wall for that let's go like I am for that. I love an immediate and swift punishment to a prankster. Yeah, well, I think I think more people probably were killed as a result of trying to do a jackass prank on somebody in the two thousands than most other forms of death. I think it went high on the list. It was above gun violence for one year. Yeah, well you remember that violence? Do you remember that like video when we were much It's a thousand year old video. Now, feel like a kid at this high school like popping out of a garbage can with like a spooky mask on, and the other kid who tried to like scare just punched him immediately in the face. Oh yeah, yeah, yea, yeah, yeah yeah yeah that was and he just like crumples back down to the garbage can. Yeah, and that was, dude, that's fifteen ten. That guy might have died. Oh he's dead. We don't know that punch looks up. But what's funny is like like that was on the internet for over a decade before anyone was saying fuck around and find out. Yeah, because that's the epitome of fuck around and find out. Well. YouTube launched in two thousand and five, and the prank economy exploded again because now anyone with a camera and a prank could compete for views. And of course, as we know in the podcasting industry, views mean money. Which sucks because I forgot we're a video podcast and just ate a bunch of sushi yeah on camera for our second half of this record each video. If you want to keep making money on YouTube, pass to top the last. And the algorithm tends to reward extremity, and that incentive to push further and go harder and take bigger risks doesn't lead anywhere good. There are so many YouTube pranks gone wrong that we could probably do an entire episode just on YouTube pranks gone wrong. Good lots of them. Go a little something like this On April second, twenty twenty three, at the Dallas Town Center food court in Sterling, Virginia, YouTube prankster Tanner Cook, a twenty one year old with a channel called Classified Goons. Oh my god, that must have been pre that being on a new term. Yeah, that term taking on new meeting. He had roughly fifty five thousand subscribers at the time. Probably more now that they're taking on new meeting. When people just find this website. He approached a door dash delivery driver named Alan Colly who is thirty one, and he was filming, and he holds his phone inches from Alan Colly's face and plays the phrase hey dipshit, quit thinking about my twinkie multiple times through a Google Translate app. I assume Alan must have had some sort of ethnic appearance, and so he played it through, you know, saying it and I don't I don't know what Alan Collie looks like, but Spanish or Chinese or something. Yeah. After about thirty seconds of Tanner Cook playing hey dipshit, quit thinking about my twinkle Twinkie, twinkle, I'm sorry, twink Twinkie. So this guy said, hey, give me give me a twinkie. Or else thinking about my twinkle, and then then he was immediately shot. Basically Yeah. After about thirty seconds of this, College drew a legally concealed handgun and shot Cook once in the lower left abde. Whit is that real? Yeah? Oh so you're not joking. No, No, Collie shot Cook in the stomach. It's extreme reaction, but a reaction I kind of get. They were in a mall, so everyone in the mall panicked and ran because for. Some reason, I thought he ran up to his car. The guy was in the whole time. I've pictured it that way. Sorry, it does sort of sound that way because the door it's a door dash driver. So he must have ordered food to the mall. Sure, everyone in the mall thought a mass shooting was about to start, so everyone started screaming, even calling the police. And I'm not sure where your legal grounds are for public place pulling a gun out. You have to really prove that you're in danger. Well, maybe he thought he was a ghost defense Cook, the younger the prankster, survived, but he required serious surgery and a trial. Alan Colly argued self defense. He didn't know was a prank, he wasn't told he was being filmed, and he felt cornered by a stranger who wouldn't stop following him. Cook's own video footage clearly showed him as the aggressor, and the jury found Collie not guilty of aggravated malicious wounding, but guilty of a lesser firearms charge, which I don't know what it was, because he was legally had the gun. I legally have guns. Maybe it was pretty sure I can't discharge them. In a fucking panda express. Yeah, you know what I mean, without really having a reason. Tanner Cook, for his part, the classified goon himself card carrying goon, expressed no remorse and continued making prank content. He literally got shot in the stomach, and his takeaway was, hey, it's good Content's his takeaway. Was I'll never be bigger than I am now, Like now, you know, I've probably got more famous from the trial he did. Although I will say, in a credit to society, not significantly more. He had fifty five thousand subscribers when this began, and he has I checked when I looked up this article the other day. He has sixty six thousand subscribers now. And when was this? When did this event take place? Twenty twenty three? Yeah, he could be doing better, but also his uh, maybe he's in pain all the time. His pranks are just asking me over a bathroom because his fucking bowels or all work. Yeah, I mean, IM so practical joke Is that the same thing as a prank? Because there's no n in practical joke? What do you mean? Prank is not the shortening of practical joke. If practical jokes. Where does the word prank. Yeah, that's a good question. I didn't actually look up the history of the word prank. Okay, that's a good question. I don't know. Maybe we'll do a follow up. Sure, anyway, this guy went to the house, Yes, w I have a. Better question though, Yeah, Ed, would you take a bullet for the show? No? Okay, Now I don't even I'm not even sure I will discharge a bullet at a public place to get a prank stra out of my face. But I will absolutely brandish a weapon in front of a prank store. What about in front of a ghost I'd have to ask it, what are your weaknesses? If I say, is your weakness guns and bullets and it says yes, I go, fucking this is your worst day. Man, This is a bad day for you. He just walked into a gun and bullets situation. But I if they say no, I guess I'll just have to walk away. Then you know it's a real ghost. Well, a real ghost would say boo, it's true. I don't know what I know these things are that are speaking to me at this point. Well, in any case, it is this toxic, money driven prank culture that reduced two gentlemen known as the Paul Brothers. Yeah, you're doing very well. Jake and Logan Paul, two assholes from the Internet who are now assholes for money as villains in boxing and wrestling. Ye wrestling. I hate to say it, if anybody watches WWE Logan Paul, actually I think despicable person, but born to be a wrestling heel, like, incredibly athletic, does insane shit every time he has a match, and genuinely hated by the fans and loves being hated by the fans. But is good enough that he's not someone that you're like, like, you hate him because he's an asshole, but when he gets in the ring, he delivers. He's not just like a guy that you hate because he's bad at what he does. Sure, he's a. Prick and an asshole, and he always has been, but he's really fucking good at wrestling. Didn't him and his fucking brother one time? I don't believe for a second his brother like that. That Mike Tyson fight was such a waste of everyone's time. So watch that. Yeah, so clearly Mike Tyson was paid to, even at that advanced age, to not beat his ass. Yeah, it was objectively, he was paid to not touch that kid. Well, and that's part of why these guys have continued to be hated assholes, because Jake Paul was obviously, you know, paying Jake Paul's company produced the fight. No, because even the thing is they get the twenty million or whatever, no matter what the outcome is. And so so he clearly paid to win. And and logan is part of the reason he's hated by wrestling fans is because most wrestlers put in years of grind and struggle and it takes a long time to get good and go to the top. He got just put on TV because he was famous and would get people to tune in, and then turned out to be really good at it on top of that. Yeah, so people hate it, didn't him and his brother? That was what I started to say before I got remember the Mike Tyson thing. Didn't They give an interview one time that was like, not that we live in the matrix, but they were like, we rigged that. Basically, they said we live in the matrix. But that's not the takeaway here. It's not that I think that they're right that we live in a simulation. It's that they essentially were like, and this is years ago, We're like, we know we live in the matrix, and so we bend the rules in knowing that, so success will be easy because success is easy for Neo in the sense that he could move fast, run, and I'm not, again, this is nothing. It's hard to say that there's nothing to do with the matrix. Remove the matrix from your mind. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting thing to say. And then over the next ten years amass five to ten x their fortunes entered two separate industries they were not part of previous Yeah, became absolute superstars in those industries. And then at the end of that decade, I thought, now I'm thinking, do we live in the matrix? Because like at the time, I was like, it's ridiculous thing to say that. I didn't give any credence to it. But I'm thinking, fuck, man, maybe we do. And these two do know that. I mean, I think I think more likely the money begets money, money begets money, but the living in the matrix, the red pill, blue pill, that's all very kind of manosphere stuff that I think they were kind of. Early, because this was definitely before we were saying red pill, blue pill. Yeah, in the culture, but they were early to that because they were online. And I do think though, if if nothing else, they are examples of probably white privilege, but also just what can happen when you just don't even believe that you can fail. Yeah, that must be pretty interesting way to live, when you. Just don't have that thing that makes you go, this might be embarrassing or maybe I won't do well, Like I think they don't have that. I think they're just like, well, yeah, if I try it, I'll be good at it, and then I'll get even better at it. And I think that's probably you know, I mean there's some genetic luck there too, that they both have the ability to become as athletic if they as they've become, because you know, what they're doing isn't easy, no, No, I mean fighting Mike Tyson, even if he's been made to pull his punches, is not something most people can do, you know. Yeah, but I also don't see anyone doing backflips off a twelve foot ladder in a ring unless they already started with like, I could totally do that, Yeah, no, exactly, I could jump backwards off of somebody. Like they don't think they can die on some level, I'm sure. Well that's why I hopefully not hopefully I don't want to get sued. But if we revisit this next April Fools, we found out that they pranked the wrong guy. Yeah yeah, yeah, uh you know, interesting to see. But anyway, I. Bring Jake and Logan Paul up not to talk about wrestling or boxing or the matrix, but to illustrate the really dark place that the YouTube prank world ultimately ended up. Okay Or is the subhead of Vox's explainer about this incident, says, quote Paul's decision to post footage of a suicide victim stems from many popular pranksters film first and think later, ethos. No, that was what made him really popular, right, was that it was like, it's a thing that made him known to the rest of the world who aren't like kids who watch. So technically him, this wasn't a prank. But I bring it up because I think one of the darkest things, in a way, the darkest prank gone wrong, is the fact that the prank culture that made him famous, I think is part of what fueled his journey to this very very low point. So, according to Vo's prank videos, typically starring white men or young boys, comprise an entire genre on YouTube. I mean that's not surprising kind of what you said. It's like there's very few people who can get away not once or twice, but twenty times. Yeah, with half the contents videos. If you weren't a young white guy, I don't know how easy it is to make a career in this without ended up with a tombstone or arrested. Yeah, they comprise an entire genre on YouTube, one so popular that even creators who have become famous for other things often participate in guest pranks and viral prank challenges. Pranking first became popular on Vine, which you know some people who got popular on Vine, although I don't think they were doing pranks, they certainly weren't. No, six seconds is around the time I expect you'd live to prank me. Yeah, So that's why it's perfect for them. Because of its six second time limit, Vine was the perfect platform for short public stunts, usually involving unwitting members of the public who had no idea they were being pranked while the camera was rolling. The most successful pranks often mimicked many of the largely non consensual techniques of pickup artists culture. Another great subculture over that. Yeah, another MTV show or VH one or something. Did they have a pickup guy show? It was that guy who wrote the game or whatever? Oh, Neil Strauss, he had a whole television show called the Pickup Artists or whoa Well, and they're pieces of shit. These pranks, if they were mean spirited, cruel, or even physically threatening, tended to do even better than the ones that were safe and nice. Yeah, there's a it's just terrible worlds we live in. This is the environment the Brothers thrived in. By twenty fifteen, when Logan Paul was just twenty years old, he had over eight million followers on Vine, and his business insider put it was already famous by the standards of millions of fourteen year old girls. By twenty eighteen, he was the fifty first most popular creator on YouTube, and the monetization of his videos brought him up to fifty thousand dollars per video. And this is a guy who posts multiple times a day, every single day. One of those videos came out on December thirty first, twenty eighteen, documenting a trip that Logan took to Japan's Okigara Forest, located on the northwestern side of Mount Fuji. This place has the nickname Suicide Forest because of the number of people who had out there to do as advertised. It's their golden gate bridge. Yeah, it's become a bit mythologized, and I think they're probably there's been one or two horror movies made about this place. The reality is that people have died there. And even even if the plan was I gotta go check this place out. It's a weird, bizarre place. We're gonna be quiet and respectful. It's not really a playground for influencers, and I don't think being quiet and respectful was the plan. When Logan Paul and his team hiked to the woods and happened across a body in the forest. The video has long since been taken down, although I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but I don't think it's on YouTube anymore. According to Vox, upon seeing the body, Logan Paul calls out, yo, are you alive? And then are you fucking with us? He then continues to film his reaction to discovery, complete with laughter and joking, which he later explains it's his way of trying to cope with the shock of the situation. Sure, and not to defend him in this moment, having never seen the video and not liking him as a person. He at this point was already pretty famous for pranks. Yeah. Probably hangs out with a bunch of idiots who are part of his posse and his crew, and there is very realistically a thing where he's like, did one of you do this? Am I being pranked right now? But when you find out it isn't, then you say, hey, guys logan response reaction video. I'm not going to show you, but we saw some crazy shit in the woods today. We'd love to release a video, but it would be not great to do. He took the other road. Yeah, I'm a gonna say he want to know what he did instead? Yeah. He added a preface to the video before posting it, in which he gravely insisted that this is not clickbait, and he also advised viewers to quote buckle the fuck up because you're never going to see a video like this again. And he used the shot of the dead body for the videos promotional thumbnail, and also the video was called we found a dead body in all caps. So, well, he's the one, he's a showman. Wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't giving a doubt for his thing. I'm saying, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt for him being like, hey, bro, or you whatever like that initial are you kidding me? Way of dealing with that? Yeah, that's I'm giving a benefit just for those like two lines in the court transcript. Yeah. After the video came under fire, he pivoted a few times, trying to claim that he was actually trying to raise awareness for suicide prevention. But that was obviously a lie. If you kill yourself, you might end up being made fun of, so don't do it. So was that prevention. There was a huge blowback, and for a moment it seemed like the boundaries of good taste might be enforced, But of course they made too much money. They were not. YouTube came under fire because they let the video trend for more than a full day and never moved to take it down. Logan took it down himself after YouTube placed a strike on his content. But when you got a strike, or at least I don't know what the rules are now, but in twenty fifteen or twenty eighteen, when you got a strike on your content, it meant you could get two more and you might get demonetized after a review. So a strike is not much, not very meaningful. Logan and YouTube both put out statements and apologies, and ultimately the whole thing blew over and in kind of an ironic cherry on the top of this horrific Sunday, Logan's apology became the number one video on YouTube the day that he put it out. Yeah, tracks, so he made money off the apology too. I will say that I've been seeing that a lot, the apology videos or the like update on So I Got arrested video, those do so well. Like yeah, there's just I know, you think about them, like double dipping monetization on that, especially since being monetized at that level is not actually easy, not ten years later. It's they make it so hard because of guys like this. They're giving millions of dollars too. Yeah, it's just funny that then yeah, once that, once that engine is moving forward, Yeah, you can just monetize anything. So it's like, hey, guys came on because it's two o'clock and I need money. Yeah yeah, yeah, so pretty much, you know videos, give me twenty minutes. I'm gonna show you things i'd like to buy, and by the end of you watching this video of things i'd like to buy, I think be able to afford them. So see later. Yeah. Yeah, it's a weird, weird world. And now I think with a lot of the streaming stuff that's becoming popular on Twitch and kick and everything, like I've seen, you know, we sometimes talk about other ways to help, uh maybe you know, monetize the podcast or whatever, so check some of this stuff out. And like I cannot for the life of me. And maybe it's because I'm too old, I don't know, but I think it's probably that I cannot tell what makes one kickstreamer or one Twitch streamer more popular than something like they just talk for five hours, eight hours, and it's like they're not really it doesn't seem like they're getting it much or have a point. They're just talking and showing videos. And figure out from from exactly this in the sense that like, right, he dedicated his life prior to blowing up to what exactly makes you blow up? Yeah, So there is something to it, like there is a thing. Yeah. I mean I think mister Beast, if he applied that same logic to what it would take to be elected president, he probably could do. Mister Pace will be president. I don't understand where you're he's being president until maybe recently being president isn't enough money. Yeah, so when he's ready to be president, he'll decide to be president. Yeah. Anyway, I thought we'd end this episode on a little bit of a lighter note. We have a guest for you guys. Mister he brought mister Beast bars for all of us. I wanted to add on a little bit of a lighter note with maybe the biggest prank that we ever lived through. Is it, uh, David Copperfield's making the Statueliberty disappear. No, No, that's magic. It's not only a lighter prank that we all lived through, but it I think tops all of these pranks, because for as awful as many of these pranks were, none of them ever rose to the level of suspected terrorism the way that a cartoon. Network Tree we were literally in the study for that. Did in Boston in two thousand and seven. But I'll swim. You and I were actually in college in Boston when this. Happened, and huge Aquatine fans. While I was I mean, I yeah, you probably were a bigger fan than I was, but I was very you know, I'd seen the show and I liked the show. It was I cannot stress enough for two or three days. This was the biggest deal in the world in Boston. It maybe was not intended as a prank in the classic sense of the word. It was more of gorilla marketing gone wrong. But I think it's close enough to qualify. On the morning of January thirty first, two thousand and seven, Bostonians across the city started calling the cops en mass after spotting strange electronic devices that looked cobbled together out of circuit boards, exposed wiring and electrical tape. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Cokeley said the device quote had a very sinister appearance. The Moonites. It had a battery behind it and wires. Each one displayed a one foot by one foot light bright style display featuring a moon andite, A weird alien creature that kind of looks like an alien from Alien and It's million Invaders. Alien Invaders face invaders, like a little kind of blocky creature. Blacky, little two dimensional creature. Each of these little displays featured one of these creatures giving the finger. According to Wikipedia, quote, the first device was discovered on a stanchion that supports an elevated section of I ninety three above Sullivan Station, and the person who called told the policeman from the NBTA of its presence. At nine am, the Boston Police Department Bomb Squad received a phone call from the MBTA requesting assistance in identifying the device. Authorities responded with what the Boston Globe described as quote an army of emergency vehicles at the scene, including police cruisers, fire trucks, ambulances, and the Boston Police Department bomb Squad. Now, for those of you listening to this show who very well may not have been alive when this happened, this was six years after nine to eleven. But before the Boston Marathon bombers or. The Boston Marathon bombing. And this was a device that someone thought was a bomb that was found on a support beam beneath a very busy highway. So if it had been a bomb, the response would have been appropriate, Yes, because if this had blown up, it would have killed a lot of people. Ultimately, it was not a bomb. It was a cartoon character giving you the birth. Yeah. The La Times reported they quote emergency personnel and anti terrorism squads shut down more than a dozen highways, transit stations and other locations across the city Wednesday after receiving reports about multiple suspicious devices. But of course, as Ed and I have already said, these weren't bombs. A young staffer and Mayor Menino's office, who was the mayor at the time, quickly recognized the aliens as characters from the Cartoon Network show Aquitine Hunger Force Luninites, and the network confirmed these signs were part of a viral marketing campaign for the upcoming Aquatine Hunger Force movie. Turner Networks paid out a two million dollars settlement to the city to cover the cost of the emergency response and apparently further training for police officers. He had to watch adult swimshow. Yeah, I was gonna say, I can't imagine. Was it like flashcards of Johnny Bravo that the Posta cops had to study just to be like, Okay, we know what these characters are now this. What's funny is like there's I don't know if it was memified for young kids now and the internet wasn't the same then Yeah, But like the Moon and Night throwing the bird in the show has that, it's just the line that goes with it. It's got a middle finger up the digital little middle finger. It says, I hope you can see this because I'm doing it as hard as I can. It's like was the famous line with that, and that is what their marketing was, was that frame essentially right right right, I hope you can see this because I'm doing it as hard as I can. And then also that specific thing causing a panic that the tune of millions of dollars is so funny to me. Yeah, and I thought i'd put the number in here. I guess I didn't. I think like more than a dozen of these that had been put around here. There was one in the in the commons, I remember it was one like on an Emerson building. I feel like, yeah, they were put places that were like sort of hidden, but all so places that they wanted you to see them. So many of them were found very quickly. The only reason anyone thought they were bombs is because they looked very home shit. They looked like dogshit. If they'd been like fancy and smooth and polished or three D printed or something, I mean, there still might have been some people calling the police, but I don't think it would have been quite the same level. I also think placing them on support beams beneath a highway is probably a really bad idea. But you know, I didn't go too deep on it. But the guys who who actually like came up with the idea and actually put them up were part of like a you know, creative agency or whatever, and at one point I think they were in danger of getting sued. Like there was a lot of blowback to this and a lot of people going, look, we didn't fucking know. I wouldn't put it past an ad agency to literally make the first call that it's a bomb. Though that's true, Like we're gonna get free fucking press. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That movie didn't ultimately do very well, did no. I think maybe because of the bad press was partially. I don't even remember the movie. I remember the Moon and Night episodes that it. It had crazy it was like awkwardine hunger for us. The movie. Yeah, I had a crazy title, but yeah, it ultimately didn't do I don't I don't remember the movie. I'm sure my buddy Dan is screaming at the podcast right now, But I mean there's whole episodes of that show that I can quote right now, but the movie is not one of them. I mean, same with Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie Never Saw. But I wasn't a Tim and Eric guy. So a lot of that show really really good. The movie is just like, shouldn't have even bothered, Like it just doesn't translate. Sure, you know. But anyway, I wanted to end on that note because we were there and it was a big deal at the time, and I think it's one of the better examples of a prank gone really terribly wrong on a governmental scale. So with that, that brings us to the fear tier for this episode. So, ed, where would you place prank's gone wrong on your fear tear? I'm not I'm never gonna prank. So the idea of me doing a prank and it blows up my face is zero because I'm not pranking. But the idea of someone doing a prank on. Me and you pulling a gun and killing them to ten. Yeah, I would be like an it's an eight because my eyes would roll over like Adele's black, like Adele's eyes. I like, I don't know, I would come to yeah with like blood on my hands a mile from where I first blacked out, Like like, I just hate being pranked and I hate being scared. I it's I think I actually put a prank gun right, maybe higher on my fears here because I don't want to be pranked. I don't want to be made a fool of. Yeah, I hate it so much. This is pretty high. This is like a pretty because the episode is not about pranks in general, so it's hard to Yeah. I mean, the difference is like I in the right context, Like I don't I don't like I like Halloween harronits it's draining after a point. And I don't love the jumping jumping jumping all the time, but I enjoy it because there's a context for it. And like, oh, I expect to. Be if you were just walking on the street and one of those things happen a guy runs you with a fake chainsaw, forget it like that. There's nothing fun about that, not at all. Also, I don't even like pranks that aren't. But then again, you know, as I so regularly talk about like my fear of not being in on the whole town being in on it, and I think there is a prank element of like even if it's like Steve is gonna leave the room and when Steve comes back, we're all gonna make believe that the water's running in the bathroom and he's not gonna hear it, and then we're just gonna like gaslight someone into going crazy because we're all gonna be like, you can't hear it's like a drip. It's like a drip drip, and it's like, no, I don't hear anything. It's like, well, to me, that's just as like horrible of a prank as running at you with a fucking machete, and so pranks, Yeah, Like I guess it's what I'm getting at is that it's just there's way too much Van Diagram with the bigger fears of mind that pranking is like right on the edges. Of pranks not cool. I didn't even give a number. I guess I would say prank's gone wrong for me. I would put at, here's the thing, prank gone wrong for me is more someone pranks me and I get so upset or scared that I like walk into traffic and get hit by a car. Yeah, I mean that's I mean, listen, I never thought about this, but I've accidentally prank gone wrong to someone when I was like in middle school. Oh, like I was fooling around. I won't use their name, and like he was getting his little he was getting a drink at the water phone, and I like kind of push him a little bit to like make it so he gets his face wet. But he uh went he went too far and he broke his front tooth on the like fountain thing. And I didn't even push hard or anything. Yeah, we were just kind of goofing off. It is a prank gone wrong, and you're thinking about it all these years later, so and I. Had never thought about it all right now, and it's still a really horrible thing that. Yeah, the prank gone wrong thing is Yeah, I very fucked man. Like just here at the top of the stairs, someone makes you try and flinch, they're like and then you fall on stairs. Like it's just too easy to go wrong. I'm keeping it at an eight, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna put. Twenty thirty years later, I'm so sad about this. That's definitely an eight for my thing. The prank that I hurt my friends feelings with is still haunts me. Uh so, yeah, I'll I'll go one lower than you. I'm gonna go to seven for pranks gone wrong. But yeah, I think it's a pretty it's pretty up there, and hopefully no one pranks me on today, which is definitely April Fool's Day, so we keep it. Keep the pranks light, keep the pranks light. But one thing that's not a joke is you should go over to patreon dot com. Slash scare it all the time. See our feet, see see everything we have on offer over at the Patreon sign up. Join at one of the levels. We try to give you the most bang for your buck that we can come to. Some of the live shows, there are always a blast like subscribe, do what you do common like subscribe do it? Find us on YouTube, find us on Spotify. It right now we are a media juggernaut and you're all are a part of it. But until next time, I'm Chris Calari and I'm at for Cola and the show is Scared all the Time. We'll see you later, Bye bye bye. Scared all the Time is co produced by Chris Klari and Edvacola. Written by Chris Calari, edited by Edvacola. Additional support and Keeper of Sanity is test Fightful. Our theme song is the track Scared by Perpetual Stu. And Mister Disclaimer is and just a reminder, you can. Now support the podcast on Patreon. You can get all kinds of cool shit in return, depending on the tear you choose, We'll be offering everything from ad free episodes, producer credits, exclusive access, and exclusive merch. So go sign up for a Patreon and Scared all the Time podcast dot com. Don't worry. Full steady Cats welcome. 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