It would appear that an April Fools prank has finally gone too far, leaving the initial pranksters victims of abuse of copyright law, and taking away the credibility of a major news network.
On April 1, 2009, Improv Everywhere reported about their latest mission, to give a mourning family the best funeral ever. They reported that in their Improv Everywhere style, they attended a funeral and pretended to act as friends of the deceased. Their stunt shocked many people, including myself, who realized after about 30 minutes that this whole story was nothing more than an April Fools prank. But CW11 News did not see the humor.
The stunt was reported as real by CW11’s anchor, Jim Watkins, as legitimate. Obviously embarassed by the fact that he got it wrong, Jim Watkins noted on his blog that the staff at CW11 knew that the IE report was an april fools joke in itself, but reported it as true as an april fools joke of their own. I don’t buy it for a minute as Improv Everywhere had a recording of the CW11 news report up on YouTube, but it was taken down after the parent company of CW11 filed a copyright claim against the video with YouTube.
To watch the Improv Everywhere prank head over to www.ImprovEverywhere.com and also feel free to watch the CW11 news report below.
Download this video for yourself here. (Right-click on this link and select Save.