Hoax Museum Blog: Entertainment

867-5309 — The bidding on eBay for the phone number 867-5309 (from the Tommy Tutone song) appears to have reached over $200,000. I suspect a few hoax bids are being placed.

Superbowl Overexposure — Half of America saw Justin Timberlake 'accidentally' expose part of Janet Jackson's breast on live tv during the Superbowl halftime show. But now a great controversy is sweeping over the internet. Was the exposure really an accident? Or was it planned and staged? Matt Drudge is reporting that it was planned and even approved by high-level CBS officials beforehand. Plus, the accidental exposure fit in remarkably well with the lyrics of the song, which made references to getting naked before the end of the song. Finally, how exactly does one 'accidentally' rip away part of a costume? I mean, it wasn't like something got snagged. He quite purposefully reached over and grabbed her costume.

Antebellum Island — The Onion has a good parody of the Reality TV genre: Antebellum Island. It's a new 'alternate reality' show, supposedly being aired by CBS, set on an island on which the South won the Civil War. The show's motto is 'Secede, Suppress, Survive.'

Russian Roulette TV — Man plays Russian roulette on British TV as three million viewers watch. Of course, it was just an illusion, vetted in advance by the police. But the stunt causes controversy anyway.

Hell on Earth’s Suicide Stunt — Hell on Earth promises that its concert in St. Petersburg this weekend will include an onstage suicide. A terminally ill patient will be the one departing this world. I guess if you wanted to go, doing it at a rock concert wouldn't be a bad way to do it, but in my opinion this is a pure publicity stunt hoax. In the same vein as Hunting for Bambi, Or Freck's New Feet (in which Freck claimed he was going to cut off his legs for a live audience... that never happened, of course). What will happen in this case is that the police will show up, and the concert will never take place. But Hell on Earth will have achieved lots of publicity. I'd never heard of them before, after all, but now I have. They can also claim to have legitimately raised awareness about the subject of euthanasia. The beauty of this stunt is that it definitely could happen. But I would wager money that it won't. These stunts never deliver on their promises. They're all about the publicity.

Two Towers Protest — Two Towers Protest: This group is protesting the fact that the second installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy is named The Two Towers (despite the fact that Tolkein came up with this name some fifty years ago). They feel this might cause emotional discomfort to people following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. I'm almost positive this was meant to be satirical. But its companion in spirit, The Return of the King Protest site, was definitely a satire. This second group argued that the name of the third installment of the trilogy would cause discomfort to fans of Elvis. The Return of the King Protest site no longer exists, but it can still be partially viewed via the Wayback Machine.

Practical Joke Six Years in the Making — Perry Caravello wanted to be an actor, and his friends told him he would be. In fact, they signed him up to play the leading role in a film they were making, Windy City Heat. Unfortunately for Perry, they weren't actually shooting a movie. They were just stringing him along, trying to figure out how long they could keep him believing that they were making a movie. He kept believing, for six long years, bolstered by an unshakeable faith in his own Star Power. Even though the friends weren't shooting a movie, they did shoot footage of the entire practical joke, which has now resulted in a documentary on Comedy Central titled, appropriately enough, Windy City Heat.

Staged Bloopers — You know all those real-life, caught-on-video bloopers and accidents that are the staple of shows like 'Funniest Home Videos'? Guess what? According to the Hollywood Reporter A lot of them are staged. The market for bloopers has simply become too large to rely on accidental bloopers alone.

Lapdance Island — Britain's Channel 4 was flooded with applicants hoping to get a spot on the new Reality Show called Lapdance Island. In this show ten men would be on an island with forty lapdancers. The winner would be the one who could keep his hands off the dancers for the longest. But the show was a hoax. Details here.

Of Mice and Metallica — The Guardian contemplates the recent Metallica hoax and word-of-mouse advertising.

Paul Is Dead — Undeniable Forensic Proof that Paul McCartney really was replaced with a Look-Alike in 1966 (link via J-Walk)

Meat Shakes — Here's a new hoax website: meatshake.com. It claims to be the homepage of the MeatShake Corporation, operators of the Meat Shake chain of fast food restaurants. You guessed it, MeatShake offers meat lovers the chance to quench their carnivorous appetites with ham, beef, and turkey shakes. Let there be no doubt. This is meat put in a blender and sipped through a straw. Their corporate vision is simple, "Meat. Lots of Meat." (Thanks to Jeff Whealton for pointing the site out to me).

In reality, the MeatShake website is the creation of a band from Long Beach called Ugly Duckling. Their latest album, "Taste The Secret," tells the story of the MeatShake restaurant and it's battles against the rival chain Veggie Hut. The three members of the band claim to have met while working at a MeatShake restaurant.

Need more proof that MeatShake is a hoax? Well, if you examine the images on the site, you'll discover that whoever created them forgot to change the hidden preview file attached to the images, and this preview file shows what the images looked like before they were photoshopped. Thus, we discover that:


  

The Meat Shake sign (left) was originally a sign for Champion Burgers (right)

  

and the Meat Shake store with a 'Taste the Secret' banner (left), is actually an abandoned store with a 'For Lease' sign (right).

Old School Hoax — Inspired by the movie Old School, a bunch of teenagers fake a kidnapping outside of a Wal-Mart. Succeed in terrifying the watching crowd.

Daria Movie Rumor Page — Here's the Unofficial Daria Movie Rumor Page. I'll let its creator, Barry Edelman, describe it in his own words:
I just finished your book and I loved it. I had to check out the site,
which is also good. Since you have a section on hoax sites, I had to submit
mine. My brother and I, annoyed by bad Hollywood movies based on television
shows (and bad Hollywood movies in general), for a few years maintained a site
called The Unofficial Daria Movie Rumor Page. The premise is that the MTV
cartoon series _Daria_ has been turned into a movie starring Jennifer Love
Hewitt in the title role. (The title role, being an intelligent, sarcastic
loner with a monotone voice, is probably the last character Hewitt would be
cast to play.) Although the page is explicitly labeled a parody (see the
bottom of the page) and some of the rumors reported are rather improbable, many
people have written in to express their outrage at the movie industry doing
such a thing, or, occasionally, to submit their own rumors. (Interestingly,
the actual writing of the page was disrupted by a hoaxer on a Yahoo! club, who
repeatedly submitted fraudulent news articles, which produced a few interesting
plot twists in the rumors.) Enjoy.

Metallica Lawsuit Hoax — Metallica sues the band Unfaith for unsanctioned usage of the chords E and F. I saw this story yesterday and thought it was strange. But then I figured, well it is Metallica, after all. So it's probably true. I should have known better. Today it's revealed to be a hoax concocted by Unfaith's singer/songwriter Erik Ashley (if you've never heard of Unfaith before, join the club. I hadn't either). Quite a good hoax. Believable enough to seem true at first, but in hindsight you kick yourself for having fallen for it. Plus, it makes fun of someone worth making fun of.

Carl Spangler — A reporter at the Roswell Daily Record gets fired for printing a quote he claimed to have gotten from a groundskeeper at a local golf course named 'Carl Spangler.' In reality, the quote came from Bill Murray's character in Caddyshack, 'Carl Spackler.' The quote referred to a new type of hybrid grass developed by the groundskeeper that had this amazing feature: "you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on the stuff."

National Blonde Day — Oops. I forgot that yesterday was National Blonde Day, so designated by the Blonde Legal Defense Club. The day is designed to promote respect for the intelligence and accomplishments of blondes. In reality, it's a publicity stunt for the Legally Blonde movie.

No Sex Change for Toto — Toto's keyboard player is not going to have a sex change. It was just a joke. Personally I was more surprised to discover that Toto was still around.

Believing in Fargo — Now here's an odd story. An article in the Guardian tells the tale of Takako Konishi, a Japanese girl who apparently believed that the movie Fargo was real (perhaps because it says it's a true story at the beginning, though it isn't) and went off to North Dakota to find the million dollars that one of the characters buries during the movie. Unfortunately Takako died trying to find the money. Or so everyone thought. The reporter who went to investigate finds out the real truth behind what happened to Takako.

Unreliable Facts — The Unreliable Facts website, established in 1851, offers a motherlode of misinformation.