MISSION: Anton Chekhov DESCRIPTION: Russian writer signs books at Barnes & Noble, despite dying in 1904. DATE: 2/28/04

Mortification was also the key element in College Humor’s Prank War, which started innocently enough, but has since escalated into a nuclear arms race of mutual humil­iation. The war reached its apparent culmination in September 2007, when Amir Blumenfeld tricked Streeter Seidell’s girlfriend into thinking she had been proposed to via the JumboTron at Yankee Stadium. In front of 50,000 fans, she said yes. The relationship did not survive, but the clip drew more than 800,000 hits on YouTube. (“That was just mean,” says Seidell.) To all appearances, that was that, until Seidell got his revenge this spring when Amir was convinced he had won $500,000 for sinking a halftime half-court shot at a University of Maryland basketball game (he didn’t). That video was viewed more than a million times.

“Nothing is off-limits,” argues Blumenfeld. “I mean, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life, but still.” (The dark side of pranking emerged in April when two Domino’s employees posted a video of them blowing their noses into sandiches being prepared for delivery. They were fired and now are facing criminal charges for health code violations.)

This is territory Todd does his best to avoid. He is still not entirely comfortable with how far Improv Everywhere pushed the boundaries of human kindness when, in 2004, he came up with the “Best Gig Ever” caper, wherein he called on his growing militia of agents to memorize the lyrics to a randomly selected band’s songs, make T-shirts with their name on it, and descend upon their Sunday-night gig. Thirty-five die-hard Ghost of Pasha “fans” turned out to give the no-name band the gig of their dreams. When the band was tipped off to the prank, they were a little bummed out.

That prank came close to breaking with the spirit of IE’s missions: causing an authentic scene that gives people an excuse to break out of their ordinary daily routines. This philosophy was put to the test this spring, when IE staged a mission titled “Best Funeral Ever.” A variation on “Best Gig Ever,” the prank saw Todd and 30 other agents crash the burial of a recently deceased New Yorker. The goal, Todd stated, was to give the dearly departed and his loved ones the awesomest funeral imaginable, but the response was unlike anything Improv Everywhere had seen before. As soon as the video was posted, it was clear from the comments that Todd and company had finally gone too far: “You guys have done some great pranks, but this is just plain fucked-up.” “I am ashamed to think that I was actually a fan of yours.” “This prank is sick.” That night the local WPIX newscast ran a segment on the mission, asking, “Did one local improv group go too far?”

MISSION: Best Buy DESCRIPTION: Dozens of agents wearing khakis and blue polos storm a Best Buy DATE: 4/08/06

What all of these offended observers failed to notice was the date: April 1. There was no funeral, no mourning family. They were all agents, and the joke was on all of us. Given the date, the whole ruse should have been obvious, but in a follow-up posted April 2, Todd apologized to anyone “fooled into thinking we had lost our minds and done something this horrendous.”

For Todd, whose extravagantly titled book, Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places With Improv Everywhere, hits shelves this month, the art of the prank, and the motivation behind it, is pretty simple. When he gives lectures at college campuses around the country these days—last September he taught a seminar in Russia—students always hunger for the counterculture message behind his work. “They’re like, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ And they have a hard time accepting the answer: ‘It’s really fuckin’ fun.’”