ImprovEverywhere: The Merry Prankster

An interview with Charlie Todd, founder of ImprovEverywhere

August 01, 2006 — CSO — After Charlie Todd posted on his website how he pretended to be rock star Ben Folds at a bar in New York City, friends started e-mailing ideas to him for more public pranks. Thus was born ImprovEverywhere, Todd's ad hoc prankster troupe responsible for dozens of public pranks. In the group's pièce de résistance, Todd and 80 other "agents," as he calls participants, went to Best Buy dressed in the Best Buy uniform (khaki pants and blue polo shirts) and loitered. The agents never lied if someone asked if they were employees, but security still called the police, and a store manager accused the group of violating her civil rights. Debriefing checked in with Todd shortly after another prank in which 600 people played an impromptu game of Simon Says in Central Park.

CSO: First things first, I don't want the extended warranty upgrade!

Charlie Todd: [Laughs] I think that's what made this successful—everyone knows Best Buy, it's so cookie-cutter. Employees keep pamphlets about the warranties in their back pockets, and some of our agents found the pamphlet and stuck it in their pocket to complete the illusion. Sort of like method acting.

The funniest, most telling moment came when the manager was running across the store yelling "Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair!" into a walkie-talkie.

In retail pranks, the dudes on the floor get the joke, smile, laugh and have a good time. Managers tend to freak out. One manager told us absolutely no cameras of any kind were allowed in the store, period. And right behind her are 80 cameras for sale. We even had an agent using a floor-model camera to capture the action.

Are you trying to make a point about society and security?

My only motivation is to cause a scene that is ultimately positive and uplifting. A lot of pranks now are about humiliation. I feel the best pranks are the ones that are as much fun for the victims as for the perpetrators. The goal is to brighten the day of a person working a lousy retail job. A core audience of the website is people in cubicles who hate their job.

Positive? Uplifting? Brightening? Bah! That's not very New York of you.

I'm from the South. Aren't we humiliated enough in our daily lives? If someone is humiliated by our pranks, they likely brought it on themselves by overreacting.

Enough chit chat. Tell us about this Agent Reeves from the Best Buy prank!