You’ve just got to love a prank that goes off perfectly. Five days of patience paid off for two Montreal radio station comedians who managed to keep Sarah Palin strung along for six minutes thinking she was talking to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Have a listen:
Actually the pair are carrying on a long Quebecois tradition of making famous people look like twats. One of the funniest assignments I ever had was a book signing by the late Montreal author Mordecai Richler in 1992, back in the day when I was scribbling for a weekly newspaper for free just so I could build up some clippings to show around to people who just might want to pay me one day.
Half-way through the signing a Quebec comedian known for celebrity ambush interviews burst into the store with a camera crew to try to interview Richler, who was busy signing copies of his controversial new book Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Richler enjoyed antagonising the Quebec separatist community and held little back in his criticism of anyone supporting Quebec independence.
The comedian’s schtick was simple: Arrive with a book and propose a trade. Richler gives him a copy of Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! and the comedian gives Richler a copy of Final Exit – a book on how to commit suicide.
Richler was so pissed off he stormed off in a huff. The Montreal Gazette got the better photo:
But I did the more complete write-up:
The banner photograph shows the town of Britannia Beach, BC, Canada, where I grew up. It's home. But I don't live there anymore.
I heard about this, but didnt know there was a video. Thanks for sharing. Fascinating background, too.
Cincinnati had Gary Burbank who did similar things, usually calling up company hotliens with ridiculous complaints to see how they’d react. I think he went national with his sketches, but not yet international – so not hearing him much in Germany.
Did you notice that Ms. Palin didn’t know the names of the Canadian or Quebec Prime Minister and the other wrong facts spoken by the prankster? Thankfully, she doesn’t speak French, so she didn’t catch the fact that the song Carla created for her was called “lipstick on a pig”. The skit really made me wonder how familiar and cosycosy Ms. Palin’s meetings with other state officials have been. A French president mentioning how hot his wife is in bed… it just boggles the mind.
What?! No, FBI investigation for zee international stalking and harassment? I guess zee GOP iz finally to get a sense of humour.
But seriously, Sarkozy’s English sucks. She should have known it was fake out of the gate.
Canada is still a sovereign country I hope!
So no FBI rummaging around up there just yet. I’d like to see what happens next time either one of them tries to cross the border though.
australia has The Chaser team for that sort of thing
http://www.chaser.com.au/
Hahahhahah! Thank You Nurse!
That site reads like The Onion with an Aussie twist. – Imaginary lotto winnings spent on imaginary girlfriend – Man goes on trip of a lifetime to decide where to end it (Picture of Golden Gate Bridge.)
That one’s going in my reader for sure.
That recording totally made my day yesterday.
hey Ian, you can even buy dvds of the series….
I would gladly accept YouTube links in lieu, should you find any.
Priceless!
I love how our Canadians do these things 
Politics, schmolitics … it’s your turn at scrabble!
Scrabble! Haven’t forgotten, az – but been writing a mini-novel about the trip to Turkey.
Fantastic stuff. Politicians love publicity. No publicity is bad publicity and look at her now.
She’ll run for president next.
If it comes to that and she wins, I hope the predictions for December 2012 come true.
BTW, spammers dropping links have them removed before publication.