The Week in Pranks: Stephen Colbert, Mitt Romney's Penis, and a Robot Face Painter A comedy article
by Jen Hubley Luckwaldt 413 5 01/20/2012 01:45 PM 1150 views
Why does the internet exist? The easy answer is porn, but we are not easy. (Despite what you may have heard.) No, we would argue that the single best reason for the existence of the internet is to help people waste time. Of course, the single best way to waste time is to prank people, and then tell other people about the pranking that took place, which is easier to do on the internet than, say, via skywriting or hand signals or however people made fun of each other in the 70s.
With this in mind, we're starting a new column here at ZUG: a round-up of the best pranks of the week, as documented by the citizens of the internet. (This is not including the ones we're responsible for. We are far too modest to point out our awesomeness in that way.)
Here are the greatest pranks of the past week.
A Vote for Stephen Colbert Is a Vote for ... Herman Cain? Pictured: Twins.
"Anyone who shares my values can show it by voting for Herman Cain," Stephen Colbert said last week. Colbert suggested that viewers could cast their votes for Cain in the South Carolina primary, since the state doesn't allow write-in candidates and it was too late for Colbert to get on the ballot.
This week, Cain endorsed the endorsement, so to speak.
"On Stephen Colbert's endorsement of himself as Herman Cain, I find it very clever and humorous, as it should be," said Cain. "Anyone who finds what Mr. Colbert is doing offensive should simply lighten up."
Man Crushes "Friend's" Car With a Giant Axe
"Ha, ha, hilarious, right, mate? Mate?"
There are pranks you can get over, and pranks you can't. Prank phone calls, printer pranks, or anything related to wasting time at the office? Totally OK, and in fact, often welcome. (See previous re: the office. Anything that gets you out of that 10 a.m. meeting is a good idea.)
We would argue, however, that once you crush your friend's car with a geedee ax, you are no longer friends. But maybe that's just us.
Mitt Romney's Penis. That's All You Need to Know.
Oh, no. Oh, no.
A call-in show is no better than its participants, but Dan from New Hampshire does not disappoint the viewers of C-SPAN's "Washington Journal." He starts out by laying out his credentials for New Hampshire Governor Judd Gregg, including some impressively dull-sounding experience as a something-something in the Boston City Manager's office. He then goes on to try to get Gregg to comment on the most personal issue of Romney's campaign.
We see a lot of viral videos, mostly because our friends work in offices and don't want to actually do any work, but this one made us actually LOL, which is rare. (In our case, "LOL" stands for "laugh out loonily." You should see the looks we get from our neighbors.) Also, it inspired some excellent service journalism for people who would like to create their own Romney prank.
Robot Face Painter This is basically a party clown for parents who didn't want children.
Oh, thank God this is a prank. When this video first hit the internet, a lot of people actually thought someone had volunteered their tween as a test subject for the University of Michigan's robot arm painting machine. Apparently, however, it's not real.
As a side note: People of academia, please stop building robots. Don't you know that's how the world ends? It's 2012. Let's not tempt both the Mayans and John Connor.
Bank of America ATMs Become "Automated Truth Machines" "We don't even know who Guy Fawkes was!"
If you tried to use an ATM in San Francisco this week, you might have gotten a prank instead of cash. The Rain Forest Action Network taped over the keys on dozens of ATMs in the Bay Area, replacing the usual options with things like "bankroll climate change" and "fund executive bonuses."
The most hilarious part? The prank didn't do as much damage as an actual network outage on Tuesday, which shut down automated truth machines all over the city. Proving once again that no activist in the world is a match for computer error.
C-span is usually best watched when heavily medicated, but it could actually be a fun show if you knew something like that was going to happen every so often. Who's out of work AND has a phone?
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