Essentially, Improv Everywhere carries out various missions throughout New York City, designed to create unusual situations that are fun, entertaining, strange, and downright puzzling to the innocently by-standing public. Anonymous and harmless pranks, you might call them.
The group documents their missions with text descriptions, photos, and videos. The reactions of bystanders can be hilarious. I haven't read through nearly all of the mission reports, but some of my favorites so far include:
- Best Buy
Over 80 Improv Everywhere "Agents" dress up in royal blue polo shirts and khaki pants. One by one, they enter a local Best Buy store in Manhattan, and proceed to stand around. Confused customers start asking them for assistance -- when an Agent can answer the question, he or she does so; otherwise the customer is directed to the nearest real employee. When questioned by employees, Agents respond that this is simply what they wore this morning, they don't know any of the others dressed similarly, and they're just waiting for a friend.
Meanwhile, Best Buy employees and managers begin to freak out.
"Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair!"
"I want every available employee out on the floor RIGHT NOW!"
Eventually the cops are called to break it up, and the Agents peacefully remove themselves from the premises. - Slo-Mo Home Depot
After synchronizing their watches ahead of time, over 200 Agents enter a Home Depot store to do a little shopping. To ensure full store coverage, they are assigned sections of the store by birth month.
At precisely 4:15, every Agent begins moving in slow motion for 5 minutes. The other customers, of course, continue shopping normally. Agents resume shopping at normal speed for 5 minutes before completely freezing in place at 4:25. The video of this is pretty surreal. In an amazing coincidence, a song called "Standing Still" is playing over the speaker system during the 5 minutes that Agents are frozen.
Unlike at Best Buy, the Home Depot employees are highly amused and entertained, rather than frightened. One employee is even quite upset that the mission occurred during his break. - The Moebius
For one hour in a local Starbucks, time folds back onto itself as the same 5-minute sequence of events repeats twelve times.
- A couple enters the store and begins to argue. She runs out and he chases after her.
- A customer sitting down spills his drink.
- Another customer receives a cell phone call and walks to the front for better reception.
- Someone else goes to use the bathroom, but returns to his table complaining of the long line.
- A sixth person enters the Starbucks carrying a small boombox playing R.E.M.'s Shiny Happy People.
- Finally, someone sneezes. The couple re-enters the Starbucks shortly after this and proceeds to have the exact same argument as before. The entire sequence repeats.
Customers and employees begin to take notice by the second or third time through the loop. Some are initially confused:
"We seen that the third time. The same direction, the same face. How many times do you see the same thing like that?"
"What are we, in a time warp?"
(talking on a cell phone) "You've got to come down here! The same thing keeps happening over and over again. No! The same exact thing. The same people keep doing the same things. I'm freaking out. It's like the Twilight Zone!"
All become amused as they catch on to what's happening. By the last several sequences, a Starbucks employee is in on it, as he asks one of the Agents for the time, at the exact point in each loop.
Great stuff. I wonder if there's a group like this around here, because it sounds like fun!
