Ep 131. Becoming The Greatest Professional Prankster - Charlie Todd [Founder, Improv Everywhere]

So This Is My Why

Meet Charlie Todd - a professional prankster & also the founder of Improv Everywhere (a New York City-based prank collective with a twist!).

Rather than pranks that embarrass people, Improv Everywhere organises large-scale pranks that create chaos & lots of joy in public.

The kind of thing that’d make you go, “You’ll never believe what just happened!”

E.g.

✨ A bunch of strangers ride the subway - without pants!

✨ 200 people freezing in place for 5 minutes in NYC’s Grand Central Terminal - with 37 million views on YouTube!

✨ A man going to work in his socially distanced office - located in the middle of the East River in NYC!

✨ Thousands of people putting on headphones and following the narrator’s every word: Walking backwards, freezing, slow dancing, wrapping themselves in toilet paper etc.

✨ Turning the NYC subway into a spa, complete with complimentary water, sauna station, hot stone massage & a steam room misting station...

You get the picture 🤣

The key to these “pranks” is that there is no official ending to the performance. Once done, the performers just disappear.

And leave everyone else behind, baffled!

To date, these pranks have hit a collective view of 487+ million times on YouTube.

So the obvious questions are:

❓ How did Charlie turn pranks into a career?

❓ How does he pull these crazy stunts off?

❓ What does it take to go viral?

❓ What's next?

Highlights:

• 3:20 Family of pranksters
• 5:26 Interest in theatre
• 7:09 Building a new life in New York City
• 8:59 Pretending to be a celebrity!
• 19:20 Straddling the legal/illegal grey area for their pranks
• 21:48 Pretending to be U2 the band & the police dropping by!
• 29:03 Organising the MP3 Experiment for thousands of people
• 34:03 Measuring impact
• 37:54 The person behind the social media algorithms?!
• 40:43 Identity crisis
• 45:39 Tours + Monetising Pranks
• 48:18 When Charlie realised he was ready to quit to go full-time in on Improv Everywhere
• 51:11 Disney+'s Pixar in Real Life - being its executive producer & director
• 55:50 Socially distanced office on the river
• 57:27 The future?
• 59:19 Going viral over a fake meme?!

📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/131

🍿 YouTube: https://youtu.be/hv7v_qIio78

💌 Weekly STIMY Newsletter that deconstructs how you build a portfolio career to prepare yourself for the future of work: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/acd5bd1062

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