"I called Joe," Stewart remembers, "and asked if he wanted to come to spring training with me. I said, 'The Mets have this pitcher they picked up. They got him pitching in secret, under a big tarp. He has a 168 mile an hour fastball and he plays the French horn and went to Harvard and he was raised in Tibet by Buddhist monks and he pitches with one foot bare and one foot in a boot. And guess what?
You're going to be him.'" [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 1, 2013 -
23 comments
"
In the 1950s, a DJ named
Jean Shepherd hosted a late-night radio show on New York's WOR that was unlike any before or since. On these broadcasts, he delivered dense, cerebral monologues, sprinkled with pop-culture tidbits and vivid stretches of expert storytelling. 'There is no question that we are a tiny, tiny, tiny embattled minority here,' he assured his audience in a typical diatribe. 'Hardly anyone is listening to mankind in all of its silliness, all of its idiocy, all of its trivia, all of its wonder, all of its glory, all of its poor, sad, pitching us into the dark sea of oblivion.' Shepherd's approach was summed up by his catchphrase: a mock-triumphant 'Excelsior!', followed by an immediate, muttered 'you fathead ... '" (
via)
[more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan
on Feb 15, 2013 -
24 comments
In the late 1970s the UK's Anglia Television ran a respected weekly documentary series:
Science Report. But when the show was cancelled in 1977, the producers decided to channel Orson Welles in their final episode. The result was
Alternative 3. Over the course of the hour, the audience would learn that a
Science Report investigation into the UK "brain drain" had uncovered shocking revelations: man-made pollution had resulted in catastrophic climate change, the Earth would soon be rendered uninhabitable, and a secret American / Soviet joint plan was in place to establish colonies on the Moon and Mars. The show ended with footage of a US/Soviet Mars landing from May 22, 1962. After Alternative 3 aired,
thousands of panicked viewers phoned the production company and demanded to know how long they had left to change planets. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 20, 2012 -
22 comments
A woman opens an old steamer trunk and discovers tantalizing clues that a long-dead relative may actually have been a serial killer, stalking the streets of New York in the closing years of the nineteenth century. A beer enthusiast is presented by his neighbor with the original recipe for Brown's Ale, salvaged decades before from the wreckage of the old brewery--the very building where the Star-Spangled Banner was sewn in 1813.
These stories have two things in common. They are tailor-made for viral success on the internet.
And they are all lies.
posted by Sebmojo
on May 15, 2012 -
203 comments
Circa 1850.
A curious document that had been filed away in a box for over a century.
Hundreds of pages of strange, crudely drawn figures, resembling stick figures, many of them appearing to be urinating, copulating, whipping each other, and displaying enormously swollen genitals. An extremely important document that revealed much that was previously unknown about Native American history and culture?? The scribbling book of a German child, "the leisure pencillings of a nasty-minded little boy"?? We may never know.
[more inside]
posted by ecorrocio
on Jul 28, 2011 -
44 comments
Clive James on Scams and Hoaxes. "
If the flim-flam man is sensible enough to offer you a return of only twice as much, the scam might even work. I was once defrauded of a heartbreakingly-large sum by a fellow writer who was smart enough to offer no return at all. True to her word, she didn't return my money either."
posted by Blue Stone
on Apr 9, 2007 -
18 comments
Yikes! In light of approaching finals do you find yourself excogitating WTHHIBD (what the hell have I been doing) over and over, and wondering if your lost time may have been due to
circumstances beyond your control? While the vindicating qualities (obviously you would have been more productive if you hadn't been somebody else's science experiment) of this alibi are usually ephemeral, it is still curious to think is all this talk of sightings/abductions/misplaced keys just a
hoax,
an elaborate cover up, or some yin yang amalgamation of the two? Is the mystery surrounding
Area 51 nothing more than conspiracy, (even if well
positioned)? To what extent are we inexorably skeptical or prepared to sort through the overflowing, spooky coffers of galactic mystery?
posted by superposition
on Dec 7, 2004 -
6 comments
Any experts out there? Have you been asked to do a show, called "The Debate Show" on "an MTV network"? Well look out: IT'S A TRAP! "The Debate Show" is actually a new Comedy Central program called
Crossballs, a "smart, comedic spoof of programs such as Crossfire, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and the entire Fox News Network..."
A second amendment activist emerged from a taping with extremely twisted knickers, whilst a
privacy advocate barely escaped (this account via
bOINGbOING). I'm torn: part of me wants to see the show, and part of me wants to see if enough attention on the web can ruin it...
posted by PinkStainlessTail
on Jun 21, 2004 -
62 comments
sniggle.net :: calls itself a 'Culture Jammer's Encyclopedia' -- its a fabulous compendium of forgeries, fakes, hoaxes, counterfeiting, spoofs, pseudoscience, and just plain weird stuff. Perfect fodder for killing time on a Friday afternoon.
posted by anastasiav
on Apr 23, 2004 -
6 comments
Hot Abercrombie Chick? Maybe
not,
"Something was amiss, and I had to prove that Hot Abercrombie Chick was either a) a totally different girl, b) a guy or c) some team of people creating an identity. And I was devoted to outing this fraud."
posted by cedar
on Apr 21, 2004 -
51 comments
There's a lot of scammin', griftin', and chicanery going on in the world and
Snopes has always been there, but they usually take some time to do their investigations. But for the quick hit, they've just launched
a new daily scam page carrying just that day's latest scam news from around the country. It's really amazing
how many major scams take place every day, and it helps to know how to spot a scam when you hear about it.
posted by mathowie
on Apr 10, 2004 -
4 comments
Rainbow Innuendo Episode Evidentially Rainbow was a children's show in Britain (Canada?) in the Late 70's - early 80's. (I never heard of it till now here in Ohio.) Anyway, wether this went on the air or whether it was just a gag reel for the cast and crew... I doubt anyone will know. I went out and found the full 16MB MPEG version for downloading, because I love ya. Must be seen to believed. Possibly NSFW. Maybe.
Can't believe your ears/eyes? Want to see the script?
Here ya go.
posted by Dome-O-Rama
on Feb 26, 2004 -
11 comments
Punk the National Review - a potentially-petty exercise in journalistic credibility. The
National Review has recently engaged in printing anonymous e-mails from readers who "used to know" the Democratic candidates and just happen to have damaging stories about them. Blogger Ted Barlow is offering a $10 Amazon gift certificate to anyone who can get their anonymous story published. "If you possess an email address and an eye-opening story, you've passed the rigorous fact-checking that has made
National Review and the
Penthouse Forum world-famous."
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Feb 3, 2004 -
26 comments
Who was that masked man? A bunch of friends decide to fool their local paper into thinking there is a real-life superhero in Tunbridge Wells.
Local paper falls for it hook line and sinker. Swiftly followed by
national media. This thread on a Divine Comedy discussion board describes the whole dastardly plot unfolding. The fun starts on page 2.
posted by salmacis
on May 27, 2003 -
13 comments
As a brief distraction from all the death and destruction, let's head over to the museum of hoaxes, where we'll find the top 100 April Fool's day pranks of all time.
Good luck with your own respective hoaxing.
posted by jonz
on Mar 31, 2003 -
5 comments
How would you like to control the entire universe, both what goes within you and what happens with others?
As you can imagine when you can knock down attackers from 10 feet away or heal someone dying from something just using your own energy- that is true personal power!
Others are
skeptical. I think I will hold on to my $19.99. The movies are entertaining, though.
posted by hockeyman
on Feb 15, 2003 -
19 comments
This news item turned out to be a hoax. Has Reuters been
fooled again? I certainly smell a rat...
(I know the original mefi link pointed to the BBC, but the BBC picked it up from Reuters)
posted by titboy
on Oct 19, 2002 -
10 comments
It starts with Delaware... Over at Google Answers, a Microsoft Games Studio employee has posted a most interesting puzzle to solve. Over the course of the last twenty
months a list of states has been gradually revealed by his boss, but under what criteria are they listed? He's giving $200.00 to the winner; just think of
what you could
buy. The fine folks at the
Straight Dope are already on the case. To the Googlemobile! [via
Cardhouse]
posted by thewittyname
on Aug 22, 2002 -
75 comments
For anyone in "the know," it's no secret that
Jack + Meg White are not brother and sister but actually are a divorced couple posing as siblings.
Glorious Noise has posted a copy of their marriage certificate.
But aren't we all brothers and sisters in rock n' roll?
posted by modularette
on May 26, 2002 -
31 comments
Are You Ready For April Fool's Day? Better read the
Museum of Hoaxes's March Newsletter to find out. Certain
pranks are already in progress, while
other recent hoaxes - of which at least one was seriously discussed here on MetaFilter - remain fresh in our minds. Real aficionados and sleuths, of course, will head straight for the
hoax websites pages, where some seem too good - or too awful -
not to be true. In Southern Europe, April Fool's Day is known as
Liars' Day and everyone is entitled - nay, compelled! - to invent at least one big
whopper. Any ideas?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Mar 30, 2002 -
35 comments
Fake or Foto? Try to guess which are photographs, and which have been cleverly computer-generated. Sure it's a game, and it's interesting on that level, but I was wondering if anyone was seeing any patterns in the kind of objects they were able to recognize as one or the other. I know I did.
posted by Hildago
on Nov 14, 2001 -
33 comments
