In a city where thousands of people are in the same place at the same time, Charlie Todd is causing a scene.
Charlie Todd created Improv Everywhere in 2001 in New York. The idea was that a group of people, "undercover agents" as he calls them, would execute different pranks in highly populated areas.
Imagine eating your lunch when the person next to you stands up and starts singing about how they love lunch – and then someone at a nearby table joins in – then someone else – then the cop that you thought was coming over to check out what was going on starts singing as well. It’s all part of an elaborate prank meant to surprise you as you’re living your ordinary, everyday life. And it’s just one of the many pranks that Charlie has orchestrated.
You’re in the middle of your daily subway commute in the middle of winter and you look over to find that someone (who is not homeless and does not seem mentally impaired) in your subway car isn’t wearing any pants. Then mid-commute you notice that there are people on the subway sitting opposite each other acting as a mirror to each other, keeping their composure, never breaking character.
These are a couple of the pranks that Charlie has pulled.
Have you ever walked into a Best Buy and seen someone wearing a blue polo and khaki pants who didn’t actually work at Best Buy? That on its own is pretty funny. But what if you saw 80 people wearing blue polos and khaki pants who weren’t Best Buy employees? You’d start to wonder what was going on. Another Improv Everywhere prank.
The pranks involve hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. And if you’re a NY resident, you can join in on the fun, as you can sign up at the website to become a NY agent. And as the pranks are starting to go global, soon people all over the world will be able to be a part of the madness.
Charlie’s Goal is to make people smile and to give them a good story to tell, to take a boring, familiar place, and try to get people to laugh.
But he’s accomplishing so much more than that. NY is a city of over 10 million people; a city that differs greatly from one burrow to the next. Charlie is doing his part to bring everyone together for the common goal of shining a little light into someone’s day. Improv Everywhere pops up in the most ordinary, yet unexpected places.
It isn’t bringing about world peace or feeding the homeless, but it is bringing joy to everyone who participates in these pranks and everyone who experiences them.
To find out more, visit ImprovEverywhere.com.
