Alan Abel has been pranking the media since the 1960s.

Originally broadcast June 18, 2012. Prankster Alan Abel has been playing tricks on journalists for five decades. He is the subject of the award winning documentary “Abel Raises Cain” recounting a lifetime of preying on the sloppiness and downright laziness of American media. Then Eddie Pepitone tells us about how he lost his virginity to his college professor. And we kick around an idea for a movie. With Paul Dooley, Frank Conniff, Jimmy Dore, Stefane Zamorano, Jeremy S. Kramer, Dylan Brody and David Weiss.

“Before Stephen Colbert, there was Alan Abel, the man behind the world’s most infamous pranks.”
— The Toronto Star

“Like a reverse Jon Stewart, Abel has been creating fake news… preying on mainstream media’s insatiable thirst for the lurid, the perverse, and the wacky.”
— PBS POV blog

“Alan Abel is a master spoofer with incredibly perceptive insights into the human comedy.”
— San Francisco Examiner

“Abel challenges the obvious and utters the outrageous.”
— New York Times

“Abel is the Franz Liszt of put-on artists, the Rembrandt of the ridiculous”
— Cleveland Press

“The imagination and sheer guts of Mr. Abel are pure delight.”
— Erma Bombeck

“His droll dry wit is hilarious… it’s intelligent humor.”
— New Orleans Times

“Alan Abel is a jester with a serious face bound for an adventure in absurdity.”
— Atlanta Constitution

“Long before the Yes Men satirized Exxon and Halliburton, and before Ashton Kutcher was born, Alan Abel was the undisputed king of media hoaxers.”
— UTNE Reader

“Alan Abel is devilishly clever, perhaps the greatest hoaxer of our times.”
— New York Daily News