Embedded Files
1959–1963
The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (S.I.N.A.)
In the late 1950s, Alan Abel formed a tongue-in-cheek crusade whose mission was to clothe all naked animals for the sake of decency. It was called SINA or The Society for the Indecency to Naked Animals. The campaign slogan was "a nude horse is a rude horse." Alan and his wife, Jeanne Abel, would go out picketing together. They traveled to the White House and held signs pleading with the Kennedys to cover their horse's private parts.
Wearing a deadpan expression, Abel went on numerous television and radio shows to promote S.I.N.A. He hired his friend, Buck Henry, to play the part of SINA's President, G. Clifford Prout, and together they duped such major TV programs as The Tonight Show, the Today Show and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. The media frenzy carried over to the public. While some became outraged, others eagerly joined in on the march to clothe every horse, cat, dog and cow.
SINA was actually a satirical commentary on censorship. The Abels were poking fun at the true moral maniacs who were banning books and records during that time period. In 1963, Time Magazine finally blew the whistle on the SINA campaign and in 2000, the Abel's iconic hoax was honored in Time Life's Century of Change.
1964–1968
Yetta Bronstein for President
Alan Abel promoted a campaign for Mrs. Yetta Bronstein, a Jewish grandmother from the Bronx who wanted to become President of the United States. Her slogan was "Vote for Yetta and things will get betta..." Yetta's platforms included putting a truth serum in the Senate drinking fountain, installing a mental detector along with the metal detector, and taking Congress off salary and putting them on straight commission. Yetta was actually a fictitious character voiced by Abel's wife, Jeanne Abel, who did hundreds of radio and newspaper interviews over the phone. When the press requested a picture of Yetta, Alan supplied them with a photo of his mother, Ida.
1970
Alan Abel Sues the I.R.S.
After being audited by the IRS, Alan Abel decided to sue the United States government in retaliation. Under the auspices of a fictitious group called Taxpayer's Anonymous, Abel demanded to examine the government's books and records and ordered the I.R.S. to bring all of its cancelled checks to his house. This stunt was featured in National Lampoon magazine's second issue (May 1970).
1971
The International Sex Bowl
Using the alias Dr. Harrison T. Rogers, Abel announced the International Sex Bowl event, whereby couples from around the world would "compete" in front of a black tie audience. Members of the press were invited to attend the Olympic-style competition called the most "shocking sporting event ever to be staged." Outraged protesters from a watchdog group called S.O.S. (Stamp out Smut) picketed outside the venue beforehand. They were, however, merely actors hired by Abel to attract further media attention. The International Sex Bowl was Alan and Jeanne Abel's ploy to promote the upcoming release of their cult comedy film, Is There Sex After Death?
1972
Howard Hughes Hoax
Howard Hughes appeared at the St. Regis Hotel in NYC wrapped in bandages, claiming that he was going to be frozen through cryogenics and return when the stock market peaked. A press conference was held and a large group of reporters were in attendance. After questioning, Hughes was hurriedly wheeled out through the lobby and his wheelchair got stuck in the revolving door. A second press conference took place several days later, during which it was revealed that Alan Abel was actually the man underneath the bandages. In retaliation, the media decided to play their own "joke" on Abel.
1974
Missing 18-1/2 Minutes
Alan Abel posed as a former White House employee who supposedly had in his possession the infamous 18-and-a-half minute gap missing from the Watergate tapes. When Alan played the tape for the room packed full of eager reporters and cameramen, he acted shocked when his tape had also been mysteriously erased. The stunt was a promotional hoax for Abel's mock documentary, The Faking of the President.
1974–1988
Omar the Beggar
Alan Abel created a character named Omar, the founder of a School for Beggars that taught people how to panhandle professionally. The hoax was a satirical commentary on the rise of unemployment and homelessness crisis in America. Alan first introduced Omar on NBC's Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. Omar continued appearing on TV shows for the next 14 years, even though his School for Beggars was repeatedly revealed as a hoax. Omar's School for Beggars was one of Abel's longest running capers, along with SINA and Citizens Against Breastfeeding.
1976
Fake "Deep Throat"
An unknown actor hired by Abel posed as Deep Throat and met with reporters at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. He held a press conference to explain his involvement in feeding Woodward and Bernstein information that led to the Watergate scandal. Halfway through the conference, Deep Throat collapsed to the floor, pretending to have fainted. The stunt was a promotional hoax for the Abels' independent mockumentary film, The Faking of the President.
1979
Idi Amin Wedding Hoax
Abel orchestrated an elaborate green card wedding between former Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, and a young White Anglo Saxon Protestant woman. He hired some of his actor friends to play the roles of the bride, the priest and a team of bodyguards. Alan found an Idi Amin lookalike while riding on the subway. The lavish ceremony took place at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and attracted a roomful of eager news reporters, as well as the FBI, CIA and the State Department.
1980
Obituary Prank
Alan Abel successfully faked his own death by getting his obituary published in The New York Times. According to the paper, he died of a heart attack while skiing in Utah. He was supposedly scouting locations, at the time, for an upcoming film called Who's Going to Bite Your Neck, Dear, When All of My Teeth are Gone? Some reports indicated that Alan was found buried in a snow bank with his skis in the form of a cross. Several years after he was "resurrected," Abel's friend, Bob Pagani, introduced Alan to Andy Kaufman, who became obsessed with the details surrounding this hoax.
1982
Fake Celebrity Plays Charity Tennis Match
A man named Prince Emir Assad mysteriously appeared at the Red Cross Pro/Celebrity tennis tournament. He arrived in a limousine, wearing a burnoose over his tennis outfit and was accompanied by a strange entourage. A supposed Arab millionaire, he proceeded to play tennis with Penny Marshall, Sonny Bono, and professional players Bill Scanlan and Vijay Amritraj. One of Abel's longtime compatriots, Frank Murgalo, played the role of Prince Assad.
1983
Fake Superbowl Referee
During the 1983 Super Bowl game between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Commanders, Abel secretly delivered a fake referee onto the field. The "official" called several plays before being chased down the sideline by a cop. The game was halted and the crowd went wild as the policeman escorted the impostor off of the playing field. It was later revealed that the cop was also an accomplice of Abel's.
1984
Females for Felons
Alan formed an organization called Females for Felons, a group of former members of the Junior League who provided sexual relations to men behind bars for rehabilitation. Appearing in disguise and accompanied by fellow pranksters, Alan Abel went on numerous talk shows to promote his cause, infuriating hosts and audience members alike. The hoax was a sociopolitical commentary on the poor treatment of the incarcerated within our nation's prison system.
1985
Donahue Mass Fainting on Live TV
One of Phil Donahue's first live national shows out of New York City featured the topic of gay senior citizens. Seeking to satirize early exploitation and sensationalism creeping into the talk show genre, Abel planted several of his pranksters in the audience. As per Alan's instructions they stood up, one by one, to ask Phil a question. And as soon as the microphone came near, they collapsed onto the floor. Fearing a possible gas leak, Donahue quickly evacuated the entire studio audience. Alan later revealed to the press that the name of the campaign was "Fight Against Idiotic Neurotic Television," or F.A.I.N.T.
1987
Iran-Contra Prank
The press was introduced to Mehdi Bahremani, an Iranian arms merchant who made six million dollars in commission on the sale of U.S. arms to Iran. He summoned the media to announce that he wanted to give the money back. Abel hired actors and friends to play the roles of Behremani, his girlfriend and their bodyguards. He then arranged the press conference that was attended by all the major media. The story was never questioned and it wound up on the national news.
1989
Salman Rushdie Imposter
Abel arranged for a Salman Rushdie lookalike to appear at a Washington DC book convention to autograph his controversial book, The Satanic Verses. The man alleging to be Rushdie stated that he had come out of hiding for the purpose of reaffirming a writer's freedom of speech. The media who had gathered across the street to attend Nancy Reagan's book signing left in a hurry when word had spread about Rushdie's unexpected visit.
1990
The $35M Lottery Hoax
When the news got out that an attractive single woman had won a fortune in the state lottery, reporters were all over the story. Alan Abel hired actress Lee Chirillo to pose as the winner of the thirty-five million dollar lottery. In order to attract the media, Alan and a group of his pranksters staged a lavish party at the Omni Park Plaza Hotel in midtown Manhattan and threw dollar bills out the window, causing a commotion down below. The story received nationwide-wide news coverage including a long segment about Alan Abel on 20/20.
1992
Kidney For Sale or Rent
In the early 1990s, when there was a severe lack of organ donors in the United States, Abel devised a plan to address the situation. It required his friend, Paul Hiatt, to pose as an unemployed college graduate willing to put his body parts up for sale. He placed an ad in the New York Press classifieds section saying that he was so desperate and ready to sell his kidney or lung for $25,000. When requests for interviews began to pour in, he appeared in disguise at Grand Central Station to speak with the reporters from all the major networks.
1993
Euthanasia Cruises
As a response to the news stories surrounding the controversy of Dr. Khevorkian, Alan Abel formed a fictitious cruise line called Euthanasia Cruises. He set up an office in Florida with a 1-800 number, printed up stationery and sent out legitimate-looking press releases, touting that the cruise was for ordinary people who wanted to expire in luxury. One reporter wanted to buy a ticket, despite the fact it was a one-way trip only and passengers never returned.
1994
Jenny Jones Show
Alan infiltrated an episode of The Jenny Jones Show called, "Getting Revenge on an Unfaithful Loved One" He appeared with his actress "wife" who supposedly glued his private parts together after she found him in bed with another woman. They concocted the absurd story to poke fun at how ridiculous talk shows were becoming, but someone in the Chicago area recognized Abel and called the network to report that it was a hoax. The producers attempted to pull the plug on the remaining markets, but by that time, the show had already aired throughout half of the United States.
1999
HBO's Private Dicks
HBO put out an advertisement in the back of the Village Voice that Abel couldn't resist responding to... a casting call for men willing to discuss their genitalia on camera for a documentary called Men Exposed: Private Dicks. The producers fell for his character's story and made him a featured subject in the film. After the show ran nationwide, they realized to their horror that they had been had. Even after it was revealed that it was a hoax, HBO continued to run the program, since Abel's humorous interview was so prominently featured throughout the documentary.
2000-2005
Citizens Against BreastFeeding
Posing as Jim Rogers, Alan Abel founded an organization called Citizens Against Breast-feeding, a conservative group that sought to abolish this supposed act of immoral perversion. He claimed that breast-feeding was incestuous and that it led to oral addiction. He also stated that the 'naughty nipple' was responsible for many of society's ills. "Jim" appeared on several news programs and was featured on hundreds of radio shows throughout the country.
During the 2000 election year, Alan Abel and his team of pranksters picketed at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Four years following the introduction of the campaign, the hoax was officially exposed in a U.S. News and World Report article written by Abel himself. Despite the revelation of the hoax, Jim Rogers continued getting requests for interviews from the media and some angry people still do not understand it's purely satire.
2006
$365 Million Dollar Powerball
When the national Powerball Lottery reached $365 million, the biggest jackpot in American history at the time, Alan took the opportunity to dust off one of his most successful hoaxes. He hired his friend and long-time co-conspirator, Bob Pagani, to pose as the winner and a group of pranksters traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska where the winning ticket was purchased.
With a photocopy of a doctored ticket in hand, Bob and his "family" walked into a local diner where they gave the manager $2000 to pay for the meals of everyone there. Within fifteen minutes, the restaurant was packed with enthusiastic reporters. Pagani told the press that he had randomly picked the winning numbers out of a book called The Attractor Factor by Joe Vitale. Despite blatant discrepancies in Bob's story, their hijinks made national headlines.
2006
National Fat Tax
Most people are unhappy with the fact they're forced to pay taxes based on their income. So why not abolish the Income Tax Laws and have every American family weigh in at the post office, on or before April 15th, and pay $5 a pound for each member including pets? This aggregate amount will give Uncle Sam as much, if not more, than taxing income.
Joshua Foer, writing for Esquire Magazine, did a full story on a "Texan" named Irwin Leba who headed this national effort to implement a fat tax, "The More You Weigh, the More You Pay." A special "fat tax calculator" on a legit-looking fake site was set up and the majority of Esquire's readers took the bait. The ruse was revealed by the Washington Post to be an April Fool's Day prank cooked up by the magazine together with Josh Foer and Abel ('Leba' spelled backwards). Ironically enough, a few years later, the state of Arizona proposed its own obesity tax to help close the state's budget gap.
2007
Concerned Color Blind Citizens
In 2007, Alan and hoax compatriot, Paul Hiatt, staged an informal picketing of the White House to protest Homeland Security's use of a color code from green, yellow to red, to designate an imminent attack on our country. But what about the three million people who are color blind? They would remain unprotected. Alan recounted with glee the fact that Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, took one of their flyers, leaned against the White House fence and laughed out loud.
2009
Graffiti Art Museum
Ron English announced that he was looking to purchase some real estate in downtown Toronto to convert it into the world's first Graffiti Art Museum. English had previously collaborated with world-renowned artists Banksy, Swoon and FAILE to beautify the city of Bethlehem. The Toronto Museum would be equally as attention-grabbing, featuring ongoing exhibits of contemporary street/poster art and boast an ever-changing interactive artscape on the building's exterior four walls.
English hired a dozen international guerrilla artists to beautify Toronto in celebration of the Museum's opening. To further engage the young community, spray paint sponsors passed out 5000 cans of high-grade paint to art departments at local high schools. Seminars on evading arrest and reclaiming public space were standing room only.
I Want My Graffiti Art Museum and Chasing Abel: A Media Prankster Dupes Toronto reveal the the true story - an elaborate hoax by Gary Topp, Alan Abel and Ron English to promote a double-bill screening of Abel Raises Cain and Is There Sex After Death?
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