BJ Novak – The Original Prankster
June 1, 2007 by Kath Skerry
We all know that at Dunder Mifflin it’s Jim Halpert that is the prankster extraordinaire, but is Ryan Howard, or at least his alter ego, the one we should be watching out for? During his last appearance on The Tonight Show with Jeno Leno, OFFICE writer/producer/star BJ Novak told the story of a genius prank he pulled in high school which involved the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a Chinese art exhibit and some tape recorders…all the essentials for a good prank no?Here’s the rest straight from BJ himself:
Basically, we took tour of this exhibit of Chinese art. They had one of those audio tours where you put on headphones and get a guided tour of the art (“turn to your left… you will see….” etc.).
We decided it would be funny to replace the tapes of the tour with our own recording. We stole a cassette tape from the tour, took it back home, and transcribed where everything was in the exhibit. Then we wrote our own tour and recorded that. My brother Jesse Novak matched it up with appropriate ancient-Chinese-sounding music in the background.
We made fifteen copies of the tapes and got fifteen friends to take the tour with a new tape in their pocket. On the tour, everyone quietly replaced the original tape with the new tape at some point before returning the headset at the end of the tour. This left the next batch of museumgoers with the new tour we recorded.
Anyway, my friend just put the tour up on iTunes. This link should work, or you can just search the iTunes store for “B.J. Novak” or “Prank Audio Tour.”
This is good stuff people…you should definitely listen.
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256548204
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Filed under BJ Novak, The Office
YES. SO MUCH YES. I love hiiim. 🙂
I wish it was on youtube. I can’t install Itunes on my computer. 🙁
“Anyway, I’m rambling.” Haha. Here’s what I want to know… how far in the tour did people get before they realized something wasn’t right?
I liked the “Shine” part LOL I’m guessing people didn’t realize it for awhile. He doesn’t get going ’til about halfway through. Hokey pokey break LOL
It’s so funny!!!!!!!!!!
I love when he tells them to lift the top off the glass case to smell the scroll. Can’t you just see the museum people freaking out if someone actually did that?
Also, how many people do you think started to do the hokey pokey before they realized what they were doing. That was great.
This was so hilarious because it starts so subtle and then just goes off the deep end. I love it! 🙂
Anyone want to be a really nice, cool, heroic loser and transcript this for all those who can’t get/don’t have/don’t want iTunes?
OK, I totally laughed out loud when the guy kept saying “Shaman”.. Haha. It’s incredible to think he thought that up and wrote it in high school. BJ is great!
Absolutely hilarious! Thanks for putting this up – my chuckle for the day!
I downloaded iTunes just to listen to this – hilarious!!!! Well worth it. I’m just not sure a transcript would do it justice.
I finally found a computer I could download Itunes on and listened. Thanks for the link!!!!
This isn’t on the UK iTunes, sadly. Crushed – I would love to hear what he came up with! What a legend.
I listened to it again and found it even funnier, I love when the guy gets angry at the person helping him.
Oh, and anyone who can’t download it via Itunes, you can download it from the link off of my name. 🙂
Thank you Sara!! I REALLY didn’t want to have to download Itunes just for this.
That was great.
On another note did anyone see the show tonight on Fox, Funniest TV Moments? I happened to turn it on just as they picked the number 11 funniest moment. It was the Diversity Day episode from The Office. They showed clips from the show and Lisa Kudrow and Carol Burnett both commented on how great the episode was. It was a short segment (maybe 3 minutes but it was great).
*sigh* I am not on iTunes, and I wish I could get it, but it hates my computer also… thanks Sara for the little bit… it just sounds hilarious
Jim Halpert’s got nothing on B.J. For goodness sake, the man was on Punk’d!
He’s a genius!!!
Sara – you are the best! Thanks!
Wow this is hilarious.
By the way, just got my issue of Time Magazine — congratulations on being mentioned!
[…] Give Me My Remote has the scoop, straight from Novak’s MySpace: while in high school B.J. and his brother decided to swipe the cassettes used for audio tours at the museum and replace them with their own tour, complete with Chinese music and everything (the tapes were for the Chinese art exhibit). The boys recruited fifteen of their friends to sneakily replace the regular cassettes with the new ones, thus giving museum goers a tour unlike any other. […]
This was said on Leno months ago. Kinda old news for me. But, at least it’s now available on iTunes so I can try it out for myself any time I feel like it.
Jen – Yes, it may have been kind of old news for you, and for other Office fans, but the “NEW” part of this old story is that the audio is now available for download on iTunes.
[…] piece of audiotour history from http://jaredsdayatthemuseum.tumblr.com/ http://bit.ly/12bBuF RT @gmmrtv @ericlongo #mw2010 #mtogo Category: TwitterTags: fresh > […]
Listen/download it here (right-click save as to download)
http://tirania.org/tmp/bmfa.mp3
iTunes? Eh that wont work on my phone. 🙁
[…] Update: Dylan tells me that the cat is out of the bag. Read the interview with BJ Novak here. […]
Great pranks. Sounds like you were able to mess with a lot of people and get away with it. Funny stuff, keep it up.