Hoax ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
True confessions time here at The Ed Zone. We’re not moving to Iowa (the deal fell through, I was canned and a twister hit those swanky new digs over the weekend.) Either that or the notice of our relocation was simply put - a timely piece of news that played only in that specific moment. To come clean, I’ll let you listen in on a conversation I had with Joe shortly after Saturday’s shocking news broke.
Joe: I can’t believe it.
Ed: What?
Joe: You guys are moving to Iowa?
Ed: Oh yeah. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.
Joe: You couldn’t tell me in person? I had to read about it on your site?
Ed: Well… I just couldn’t tell anybody before today. Not you. Not Sean. Not my parents. Nobody. I couldn’t tell anybody before today, because yesterday was Friday March 31st. Yesterday wasn’t April Fools Day - so how could I have told you yesterday.
Joe: You sick muthaf… (and then it just goes on like that)
Anyway - the move to Iowa? My big fat April Fools Day sham. And happily, this spider caught many flies. It’s documented in the Comments section that Jeanne fell for it. By the way, several of those Comments are fake - I wrote them and edited the time stamps to make the news seem more legit. Yup, it’s true, my Dad does not have a place for me to stay in MA. Sean also conspired with me and sent out an inspired piece of intel to our friends - expressing shock at the news and looking to plan a going away party.
Also, I returned home from a screening of V for Vendetta last night (review forthcoming) and was told by Andi that a full 36 hours later, we were still getting calls looking to hear about the move. My Mom and Dad were the latest victims. Look, if this site is good enough to announce to them the birth of their grandchildren, it can certainly herald our new home purchase.
That wasn’t the only joke. Below that post was a piece regarding my recent development deal with New Line. That joke was two-fold - it posited that I had sold a screenplay and it wasn’t written by me. Instead we had a ghost author, my cousin Jason Clarke, on loan from the fine ship Biggerboat. Jason and I decided to switch positions and post on each other’s site. Much like that body switching flick with Kirk Cameron and Judge Reinhold, it was uncomfortable for all around. Follow the link to the piece I ran on his site, that I wrote. I’ll probably steal it back and post it here to add to my life’s work (hey if I doodle Mapquest annotations on a cocktail napkin, I’m posting it here.)
Finally, the Aside concerning Mookie’s impending nuptials was also a joke. Mookie getting married? We live in the great progressive state of Massachusetts where the Commonwealth has shown great judgement and a refreshingly open mind in allowing all types of people to get married. But Mookie? C’mon!
We gotta’ draw a line somewhere.
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This post has 5 comments (now closed):
Jen
Monday, April 3, 2006 1:01 pm
If I recall correctly, Joe was also convinced that you and Andi were having a “Renaissance-themed” wedding…
Joe
Monday, April 3, 2006 2:24 pm
I never fell for that one of yours there Ms Pope…. could you imagine Ed in tights?
JFCC
Monday, April 3, 2006 2:56 pm
I feel used. My piece was the first part of a double-bluff! But it worked, so I have to hand you that.
While Ed’s piece on my site either fooled no one or, more likely, fooled them so completely that most never even considered that it might have been written by someone else (or there’s that third possibility–that no one read it, or anything else on my site, at all), a little hoax we did on OAFE in which we reviwed a nonexistent variant action figure got more than a few collectors in a tizzy until they remembered that a.) It was April 1 and b.) they were primarily males living in the twenty-first century and not, contrary to popular belief, women of marrying age from the nineteenth century, and as such were not allowed to be in a tizzy.
Sean
Monday, April 3, 2006 6:49 pm
So, I’ll have everyone know that I wrote my own comment on that post and it’s all true! I love that dog and I don’t care who knows it, except maybe Chatham. I don’t want her getting jealous. No, people, it’s a wholesome kind of love. Not that Mookie kind of love where he gets on the floor and rolls around with them after they give his hairy feet and Jesus sandals a good tongue bath.
Okay, so if you took the jokes of the day with a good natured chuckle or a, “Oh, you got me good!,” then bully for you. If you took offense, got your panties in a bunch or were angry, then I think you need to take a step back and evaluate your sense of humor. It’s a day for fun my friends and a good laugh does you some good once and a while.
Oh, and then there’s this kind of reply to the e-mail I sent some Scoobs:
oliver
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 8:16 am
As usual, I was “out of touch”: out of touch with reality, the blog, your sham…but it was a good one, and you really got everyone! It looked like a nice house you chose. kind of like the one in Fargo. I was even going to buy you a wood chipper just in case you got cabin fever out there.
I was actually in the Carribean last week, so I did not have a clue about this crazy scheme Ed and Sean hatched. As usual thanks for the break from reality…