BJ Novak - The Original Prankster - Give Me My Remote : Give Me My Remote

BJ Novak – The Original Prankster

June 1, 2007 by  

BJ Novak

We all know that at Dunder Mifflin it’s Jim Halpert that is the prankster extraordinaire, but is Ryan Howard, or at least his alter ego, the one we should be watching out for?   During his last appearance on The Tonight Show with Jeno Leno, OFFICE writer/producer/star BJ Novak told the story of a genius prank he pulled in high school which involved the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a Chinese art exhibit and some tape recorders…all the essentials for a good prank no?Here’s the rest straight from BJ himself:

Basically, we took tour of this exhibit of Chinese art. They had one of those audio tours where you put on headphones and get a guided tour of the art (“turn to your left… you will see….” etc.).

We decided it would be funny to replace the tapes of the tour with our own recording. We stole a cassette tape from the tour, took it back home, and transcribed where everything was in the exhibit. Then we wrote our own tour and recorded that. My brother Jesse Novak matched it up with appropriate ancient-Chinese-sounding music in the background.

We made fifteen copies of the tapes and got fifteen friends to take the tour with a new tape in their pocket. On the tour, everyone quietly replaced the original tape with the new tape at some point before returning the headset at the end of the tour. This left the next batch of museumgoers with the new tour we recorded.

Anyway, my friend just put the tour up on iTunes. This link should work, or you can just search the iTunes store for “B.J. Novak” or “Prank Audio Tour.”

This is good stuff people…you should definitely listen.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256548204

Filed under BJ Novak, The Office

Comments

27 Responses to “BJ Novak – The Original Prankster”

  1. MozartsFriend on June 1st, 2007 2:37 pm

    YES. SO MUCH YES. I love hiiim. 🙂

  2. Mannie on June 1st, 2007 3:50 pm

    I wish it was on youtube. I can’t install Itunes on my computer. 🙁

  3. Rae on June 1st, 2007 4:09 pm

    “Anyway, I’m rambling.” Haha. Here’s what I want to know… how far in the tour did people get before they realized something wasn’t right?

  4. Carli on June 1st, 2007 4:12 pm

    I liked the “Shine” part LOL I’m guessing people didn’t realize it for awhile. He doesn’t get going ’til about halfway through. Hokey pokey break LOL

  5. Jen on June 1st, 2007 4:38 pm

    It’s so funny!!!!!!!!!!

  6. Sara on June 1st, 2007 4:38 pm

    I love when he tells them to lift the top off the glass case to smell the scroll. Can’t you just see the museum people freaking out if someone actually did that?

    Also, how many people do you think started to do the hokey pokey before they realized what they were doing. That was great.

    This was so hilarious because it starts so subtle and then just goes off the deep end. I love it! 🙂

  7. Angie on June 1st, 2007 5:14 pm

    Anyone want to be a really nice, cool, heroic loser and transcript this for all those who can’t get/don’t have/don’t want iTunes?

  8. CrazyGringa on June 1st, 2007 5:45 pm

    OK, I totally laughed out loud when the guy kept saying “Shaman”.. Haha. It’s incredible to think he thought that up and wrote it in high school. BJ is great!

  9. Michele on June 1st, 2007 5:47 pm

    Absolutely hilarious! Thanks for putting this up – my chuckle for the day!

  10. Kat on June 1st, 2007 6:19 pm

    I downloaded iTunes just to listen to this – hilarious!!!! Well worth it. I’m just not sure a transcript would do it justice.

  11. Mandy on June 1st, 2007 7:07 pm

    I finally found a computer I could download Itunes on and listened. Thanks for the link!!!!

  12. Thistle on June 1st, 2007 8:30 pm

    This isn’t on the UK iTunes, sadly. Crushed – I would love to hear what he came up with! What a legend.

  13. Sara on June 1st, 2007 9:41 pm

    I listened to it again and found it even funnier, I love when the guy gets angry at the person helping him.

    Oh, and anyone who can’t download it via Itunes, you can download it from the link off of my name. 🙂

  14. Jenna on June 1st, 2007 10:00 pm

    Thank you Sara!! I REALLY didn’t want to have to download Itunes just for this.

  15. Stephanie on June 2nd, 2007 12:12 am

    That was great.

    On another note did anyone see the show tonight on Fox, Funniest TV Moments? I happened to turn it on just as they picked the number 11 funniest moment. It was the Diversity Day episode from The Office. They showed clips from the show and Lisa Kudrow and Carol Burnett both commented on how great the episode was. It was a short segment (maybe 3 minutes but it was great).

  16. Emily on June 2nd, 2007 8:42 am

    *sigh* I am not on iTunes, and I wish I could get it, but it hates my computer also… thanks Sara for the little bit… it just sounds hilarious

  17. sabrina on June 2nd, 2007 2:35 pm

    Jim Halpert’s got nothing on B.J. For goodness sake, the man was on Punk’d!

    He’s a genius!!!

  18. Emily on June 2nd, 2007 4:05 pm

    Sara – you are the best! Thanks!

  19. Steve on June 2nd, 2007 4:06 pm

    Wow this is hilarious.

    By the way, just got my issue of Time Magazine — congratulations on being mentioned!

  20. B.J. Novak, your museum tour guide | TV Show News on June 4th, 2007 7:46 pm

    […] Give Me My Remote has the scoop, straight from Novak’s MySpace: while in high school B.J. and his brother decided to swipe the cassettes used for audio tours at the museum and replace them with their own tour, complete with Chinese music and everything (the tapes were for the Chinese art exhibit). The boys recruited fifteen of their friends to sneakily replace the regular cassettes with the new ones, thus giving museum goers a tour unlike any other. […]

  21. Jen (Peng9803) on June 5th, 2007 1:06 pm

    This was said on Leno months ago. Kinda old news for me. But, at least it’s now available on iTunes so I can try it out for myself any time I feel like it.

  22. Give Me My Remote on June 5th, 2007 5:50 pm

    Jen – Yes, it may have been kind of old news for you, and for other Office fans, but the “NEW” part of this old story is that the audio is now available for download on iTunes.

  23. #mtogo: Fantastic piece of … : MuseumMobile Wiki on April 16th, 2010 3:25 pm

    […] piece of audiotour history from http://jaredsdayatthemuseum.tumblr.com/ http://bit.ly/12bBuF RT @gmmrtv @ericlongo #mw2010 #mtogo Category: TwitterTags: fresh > […]

  24. dude on September 29th, 2010 10:25 pm

    Listen/download it here (right-click save as to download)

    http://tirania.org/tmp/bmfa.mp3

  25. casper on September 30th, 2010 1:53 am

    iTunes? Eh that wont work on my phone. 🙁

  26. Netmedia Blog : We Post IT – The Mystery Behind the Hacking the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on October 5th, 2010 12:57 pm

    […] Update: Dylan tells me that the cat is out of the bag. Read the interview with BJ Novak here. […]

  27. Boston Girl on February 5th, 2011 11:51 am

    Great pranks. Sounds like you were able to mess with a lot of people and get away with it. Funny stuff, keep it up.