Punk'd

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Punk'd
Punk'd Opening (2003-2005)
Created byAshton Kutcher
StarringAshton Kutcher
Country of originUnited States / Canada
No. of episodes64[1]
Production
Running time30 min with adverts.
Original release
NetworkMTV
ReleaseApril 15, 2003 –
May 29, 2007

Punk'd is an American hidden camera practical joke television series on MTV, produced and hosted by Ashton Kutcher, which first aired in 2003. It bears a strong resemblance to both the classic hidden camera show Candid Camera, and to TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes, which also featured pranks on celebrities. Being "Punk'd" refers to having such a prank played on oneself, and to "punk someone" refers to making someone else the victim of the show's style of prank itself.

The final season ended on MTV on May 29, 2007. The series will culminate in early June with the Punk'd Awards. [1]


Formats

Candid Camera format

The show begins with a description by Kutcher of which celebrity will be punk'd, why he feels the celebrity deserves to be punk'd, and what the setting of the joke will be, including the premise and the accomplices. As the show is usually set in Los Angeles, the pranks often take place in common locations such as parking lots, restaurants, hotel rooms, or residences. Occasionally, Kutcher will engineer the prank at a celebrity event at which the target is a prominent guest, as when he led actress Halle Berry believe she had been barred entry to the premiere of her film, Gothika, because the number of the people in the theater exceeded the fire code, or when he pranked Denver Nuggets' Guard Allen Iverson into thinking he could not enter his own 30th birthday party because the President's daughters and Secret Service men were inside. Kutcher will also sometimes use real-life current events as elements in his pranks, as when he pranked tennis player Andy Roddick, who was scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show, by convincing him that his automobile was trapped by the 2004-2005 Los Angeles mudslides. Kutcher sometimes sets his pranks on the sets of movies, TV shows or music videos where his targets are working, as when he pranked Kanye West by convincing him that he could not shoot any footage for his music video for the song "Jesus Walks" on Sundays without a permit, or when he pranked rap artist The Game by convincing him that he could not leave his studio because his crew had repaved its entrance, or pranked Daddy Yankee where he was slapped with a $463,000 fine by the FCC for swearing on live radio. Kutcher has also done holiday-themed pranks, as when he pranked Beyoncé Knowles into thinking she knocked over a 50 foot Christmas Tree, or when he pranked Fall Out Boy's Peter Wentz into thinking he derailed a train at a Christmas festival. After the joke progresses to a point, usually with the celebrity having become angry or frustrated at the outrageousness of the situation, Kutcher or one of the actors will announce to the surprised victim that they just had a practical joke played on them, usually with the line, "You just got Punk'd!", or by revealing a large sign or banner to that effect. Each half-hour episode usually features three pranks.

Road trips

In Season 3, Kutcher and his crew went to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., at an event tied to the release of the film The Prince and Me, and pranked actress Julia Stiles.

In a season 5 road trip to Tony Hawk's hometown Carlsbad, California, Hawk was pranked by son Riley, who destroyed a park restroom with an M-80, supposedly injuring a bystander played by an actress.

In Season 6, Kutcher sent crew members to Moorestown, New Jersey, the town of residence of football player Terrell Owens, in order to prank him there. The crew staged an auto accident in which Owens, believing it to be real, attempted to assist elderly men from an overturned bus. [2].

Red carpet format

A frequent segment during the first two seasons was a Punk'd cast member pretending to interview celebrities at red carpet events, only to mock them instead. During the first season the show had the then fifteen-year-old Ryan Pinkston do the interviewing, where he would pretend to be a reporter from a kid's show who would then hurl insults at the celebrities.[3] During Season 2, the producers then chose a foreign interviewer accompanied by her interpreter who would then ask inane questions to the guests. Out of the 4 times this segment aired during the first two seasons, it received its own segment three out of 4 times. The only time it didn't was due to Halle Berry being punk'd at her own movie premiere.

The following is a list of stars interviewed on the red carpet in all 4 segments.

Ryan Pinkston- VH1 Big in 2002 Awards

Ryan Pinkston- Diesel Party

Foreign Interviewer- Gothika Premiere

Foreign Interviewer- Entertainment Weekly

Failed punks

  • In December 2003, Kutcher attempted to "punk" WWE wrestler Bill Goldberg by having a truck run over an exact replica of his prized motorcycle, but the stunt went wrong when the truck clearly missed the bike. When the bike spontaneously exploded without any visible reason, Goldberg quickly realized what was going on, and asked, "Who do I get to kill first?" as Kutcher (accomplice Jesse James walking with him) revealed himself, knowing the joke had failed. This was the only failed punk to actually make it on air. It aired on the Season 2 finale.
  • According to Kutcher himself, he failed to punk Neve Campbell twice until he finally succeeded on his third try in season 6.
  • In June 2005, Kutcher failed to "punk" Lil Jon. He was boarding a plane headed for Las Vegas, but Kutcher used actors to play customs agents to tell him that he was actually headed for Ecuador. Lil Jon quickly identified members of the "customs agents" from previous episodes of the program, and asked for Kutcher to reveal himself. Lil Jon is currently one of four celebrities to thwart an attempted "punking" by Kutcher. Later in an interview Lil Jon quipped, "You can't Punk the King of Crunk."
  • He also has failed to "punk" Nick Cannon, because, according to a quote by Cannon in People magazine, being a TV show producer himself, he "recognized the poor acting and hidden cameras".

Controversy and conflict

  • In late 2003, it had been announced by MTV that Kutcher had decided not to continue production on Punk'd. Some commentators speculated that the announcement was a ploy designed to lower the guard of increasingly wary celebrities in an attempt at another season of pranks. This theory was given more credence when the third season began airing on April 25 2004.
  • Alias star Michael Vartan reportedly refused to sign the release after being pranked by Kutcher, preventing the prank from airing. However, Vartan denies ever being pranked, and claims that the story was completely false.[4][5]
  • Tre Cool drummer for punk band Green Day was supposedly Punk'd but denied broadcasting rights because the prank involved his son being kidnapped.
  • American Pie star Shannon Elizabeth filed for divorce from her husband Joe Reitman, a year after her appearance on the show. She was reportedly furious over his involvement in the prank, which involved leading Elizabeth to believe that they had been filmed on a celebrity porn tape.[6]
  • Pamela Anderson also denies ever being fooled by the attempted prank on her, which involved convincing her that a porn movie was being shot in her back garden, explaining that she realized it was a prank when she confronted a nude model on the premises.[7]
  • New York Yankees third-baseman Alex Rodriguez refused to sign the release after his prank and asked Kutcher to destroy the tape. "It was a good idea. It was just bad timing," Rodríguez said later.
  • During his interview of Kutcher for Interview, actor Brad Pitt advised Kutcher not to prank his Ocean's Eleven co-star George Clooney, a notorious prankster himself. Pitt told Kutcher, "Don't do it. Don't ever go near it. Clooney will kill you and everything you love. I know it's tempting, but don't do it." [8]
  • Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has stated that she does not wish to be Punk'd, and is so paranoid that she often assumes she is being Punk'd whenever any suspicious or out of the ordinary mishap occurs, as when, for example, a valet gives her the wrong car when leaving a restaurant, which Kutcher's crew members did to Simon Cowell during the Season 5 Premiere.[9]
  • Ashton Kutcher has said that the only people he will never Punk are his wife, Demi Moore, and his step-daughters Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah. He has stated this is because he doesn't want them to ever doubt him in an emergency situation.

Influences

In addition to the obvious influences of past hidden camera prank shows such as Candid Camera and TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes, Method Man, Redman and Matt Besser of the Upright Citizens Brigade had a hidden camera celebrity prank show on MTV called Stung in 2002, a full year before the introduction of Punk'd. Whether this was a direct influence on Punk'd is unclear. In an issue of the hip hop magazine S.M.A.C.K. DVD Vol. 9, an interviewer asks Redman about the similarities between Stung and Punk'd, and the rapper replies "Fuck you, Ashton Kutcher," to the delight of the audience, who begin to chant the phrase.

Parodies and derivatives

MTV shows derived from Punk'd

Parodies and references

  • Dave Chappelle parodied Punk'd and The Jamie Kennedy Experiment in a skit that he called Zapped.
  • The That's So Raven episode "Skunk'd" is a parody of Punk'd.
  • In 2003, the first victim of the show Justin Timberlake spoofed Kutcher and Punk'd when he hosted Saturday Night Live.
  • During the National Hockey League season, the Los Angeles Kings broadcast on Fox Sports West produced a handful of segments called Puck'd featuring practical jokes on various Kings players. The segments were created for pre-game and between-period entertainment. Luc Robitaille, who was retired from the NHL after the season, played the role of Kutcher. Puck'd made a return in the season.
  • During the 2003 NFL Season, Monday Night Football aired a Punk'd type program during its Halftime segment entitled You Got Sack'd.
  • Stephen Colbert parodied the show in his well-known segment on The Daily Show, This Week In God, introducing a new fake program called Baptiz'd.
  • In the television comedy Will and Grace, Jack McFarland, an executive of a gay television network, invents Pink'd, the gay equivalent of Punk'd, in episode It's A Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad World. The first person to be "pink'd" is title character Will Truman.
  • In an episode of the sketch comedy show MADtv, Will Sasso, impersonating Kenny Rogers, did his own version of Punk'd. The jokes involved Kenny botching his pranks and, forgetting what to do next, would simply kick the celebrity in the groin. Targets included Clay Aiken (played by Ron Pederson).
  • In the Family Guy episode "I Take Thee Quagmire", Peter remembers that one time he pranked Kutcher by throwing an axe at him and saying, "You've just been Tomahawk'd! That's my show, Tomahawk'd."
  • The film High School Musical refers to Punk'd in one scene with Lucas Grabeel and his on-screen sister Ashley Tisdale. When Grabeel's character, Ryan, finds out that Troy and Gabrilla (Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens) have made it into the callbacks, he says, "Maybe we're being Punk'd...maybe we're being filmed right now! Maybe we'll get to meet Ashton!" Ashley Tisdale and fellow co-star Zac Efron have since been Punk'd.
  • In 2006, novelist Todd Brendan Fahey created the term funderbunked, indicative of a particularly vengeful and retaliatory strain of the phenomenon.
  • In May, 2006, O.J. Simpson released a candid camera show for pay-per-view and DVD called Juiced. One of the pranks showed Simpson trying to sell a white Ford Bronco like the one he made famous in the slow speed chase in 1994.[11]
  • In an episode of The Adventures of Chico and Guapo, the two title characters decide to come up with a prank show called "You've been Guapo-sized", in order to become stars in the next Punk'd.
  • Carlos Mencia played Ashton Kutcher in a sketch on his show, Mind of Mencia in which he would bust online sexual predators in a skit called "Dateline Punk'd."
  • The Ronnie Johns Half Hour parodied Punk'd on a sketch, instead naming it Pope'd
  • In the episode of Hannah Montana "Grandma Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Play Favorites", the Queen of England remarks after Hannah's rather speedy rendition of "The Other Side of Me", "Have we just been punk'd?"
  • In "Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories" when the main character Adell attacks Axel, before the battle Axel asks the question, "Hey, am I on 'Screw'd'?" in obvious reference to "Punk'd".
  • In the film Epic Movie, after Edward, played by Kal Penn, is kicked by the White Bitch, played by Jennifer Coolidge, David Lehre, along with a camera crew, enters the scene dressed like Ashton Kutcher and annoyingly tells Edward again and again that he has been "Punk'd" (exaggerating how Ashton reacts to the celebrities he has punk'd), until eventually Edward knocks him out in annoyance. Lehre did a Punk'd parody himself for his own studio, Vendetta.
  • In the September 25, 2006 and February 19, 2007 editions of LAMB!, a premier magazine for the young artist community in Michigan, the art news column featured an editorial on the "Ashton Kutcher of the art world", in which the world-famous Leonardo da Vinci's American Horse, a 24 foot high bronze horse at internationally renowned Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, fell victim to a sculpture punk called Paletta Grande ("Big Shovel").[12][13]
  • On the tv show Reba the titular character pranks her son on Halloween, later saying, "You got Reba'd!"
  • On MTV's Wild 'N' Out series, hosted by Nick Cannon, several jokes have been made at the expense of both Ashton Kutcher and Punk'd, including one skit which makes fun of what is perceived as the show's terrible acting, predictible pranks, uncreatively hidden cameras, and now-tired humor.
  • On Drake and Josh, after their house has been robbed, the father asks if he has been punk'd.
  • Season 3 of Entourage features an episode titled "Gotcha" that revolves around the premise of Pauly Shore hosting a Punk'd rip-off named Gotcha! with the catchphrase, "You got GOT!"
  • In the House episode "The Jerk", Dr. Foreman accuses Dr. House of cancelling his job interview at another hospital. House suggests it might have been Ashton Kutcher.

Celebrities who have been Punk'd

Pranks not aired

Name of Prankee Intended Season: Notes
Al Shearer 1 The prank was never seen on MTV but was released on The Complete First Season: DVD
Alex Rodriguez 3 First celebrity to deny Punk'd broadcasting rights, although he was amused by the show's concept. (See above)
Black Eyed Peas 3 Claimed in an interview that they were pranked. They noticed the 'cops' apparently featured in the prank weren't real and got into a fight because they suspected the fake police not of being Punk'd staff, but criminals. [14]
Juliette Lewis 4 MTV forgot to air her on Season 4.
Michael Vartan 4 Denied Punk'd broadcasting rights. (See above)
Pamela Anderson ? Denied Punk'd broadcasting rights (See above)

International versions

References

  1. ^ Punk'd: Is Ashton Kutcher Really Calling It Quits?; TVSeriesFinale.com; March 27, 2007
  2. ^ "T.O. -- You've Been Punk'd!" NBC10.com; November 10, 2005
  3. ^ Soriano, Cesar G,; "MTV prankster Pinkston is a wee bit popular"; usatoday; July 13], 2003]
  4. ^ World Entertainment News Network; "Kutcher's Punk'd Prank Leaves Vartan Unimpressed"; April 10, 2005.
  5. ^ "Vartan: World Entertainment News Network; "I Was Not Punk'd" Internet Movie Database; April 5, 2005.
  6. ^ World Entertainment News Network; "Elizabeth Splits from Husband"; The Internet Movie Database; March 8, 2005.
  7. ^ "PAMELA REFUSES TO BE PUNK'D"; contactmusic.com; May 2, 2004.
  8. ^ "Brad Pitt Warns Ashton Kutcher 'Don't Punk George Clooney'"; celebrityspider.com; March 22, 2005.
  9. ^ "Ellen DeGeneres Refuses to be Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher"; celebrityspider.com; October 4, 2005
  10. ^ "STARS TEAM UP FOR NEW PRANK SHOW"; contactmusic.com; November 5, 2004.
  11. ^ Associated Press; "Treading on the past, O.J. pulls Bronco prank: Simpson pretends to sell vehicle as part of his pay-per-view show"; msnbc.com; May 15, 2006.
  12. ^ Becherer, Dr. Joseph; "Meijer Garden really did get Punk'd" Lamb!; February 19, 2007.
  13. ^ Paletta Grande Exhibit Photos; palettagrande.blogspot.com
  14. ^ "Black Eyed Peas Entourage Gets Physical With 'Punks'!"; sixshot.com; April 30, 2004.

External links

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