Yetta got plenty of press and even an autographed photo from Richard Nixon, but never even made it into the primaries, which is probably just as well, since she didn’t really exist. Yetta Bronstein was one of the many hoaxes sprung upon the media by Alan Abel who began is career pranking the pundits in 1959 with SINA, the Society for the Indecency to Naked Animals. The utter goofiness of group’s name should have been a giveaway that something wasn’t quite right with SINA, but no one caught on and Abel went on numerous television and radio shows to promote S.I.N.A. He hired his friend, Buck Henry, to play the part of S.I.N.A.’s president, G. Clifford Prout, and together they duped such major TV programs as "The Tonight Show," the "Today Show" and the "CBS Evening News" with Walter Cronkite.
While some of the public was outraged by the prudery of SINA, more gullible Mrs. Grundys formed SINA chapters and started covering their pets’ privates! Other hoaxes followed: The Topless String Quartet, the KKK Orchestra, Omar’s School for Beggars, Euthenasia Cruises, multiple pranks on talk shows like Jenny Jones, Morton Downey and Jenny Jones.
Alan Abel loves to have fun, poke fun and shatter the media’s status quo, their desire for anything sensational. His art form is described as intellectual graffiti and his playful disingenuousness called no different from what CEOs and politicians are doing–except that Abel does it out of joy and humor and satire, not to make a profit.
Abel Raises Cain is a loving look at Alan Abel created by his daughter Jenny who documents her unique childhood and her father’s impact on the media–yes, he successfully pranked the New York Times. Abel Raises Cain, which won numerous festival awards, shows how one man with a vision, plus and loving wife and friends, can take America for a joyride.
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Please stay on topic–pranks, hoaxes, the coolest dad on earth Alan Abel, a really heroic and utterly goofy American who made generation think and talk show hosts sweat! Alan’s a hero to me because he is smart funny driven creative and productive–and funny as hell, a true satirist, and it takes brains to come up with pranks and balls to play them–and Alan makes people have knee jerk reactions that show their blind spots and prejudices.
Hi Lisa, It’s me, Jenny. Thanks so much for spotlighting our movie this week!
Wecome Jenny, and tahnks for joining us and showing us your dad! What was it like growing up wiht such a cool pair of parents–we caught some glimpse…
and btw, I type horribly
Hi Lisa, how are you? Alan
This sounds hilarious. I especially like the Euthanasia Cruises.Thanks
Well, I have to say that…for me, crazy was the norm. I really enjoyed the weirdness. I couldn’t have asked for a more interesting set of parents. Nothing was ever predictable, as you can imagine!
OMG, and Alan! What an honor! Thank you for pullng many over on media and public!
I’ve not had an opportunity to see the movie but was wondering if you think your father would have been able to do as many pranks if he wee operating in today’s climate?
Well, I don’t want to blow his cover, but my dad has two pranks that have been ongoing for the past year or so, still yet to be revealed!
The Euthanasia Cruise is set to sail soon aboard “The Last Supper” and only one way tickets are sold. How many do you wish to order?
Ooh!
And I’d wager that those who got prank’d usually aren’t real pleased about it. I look forward to the red faces of those pranked when the reality breaks.
ANd he pulled a great on the NYTimes, which you’ll see in the movie–and I dont want to spoiler it for those who haven’t had a chance to see it at http://www.hulu.com/abel-raises-cain
Alan, many people I am sure want to do what you do, but just don’t have the guts to go for it. I freaking adore your chutzpah!
I loved seeing you piss off Morton Downey..
It is more difficult nowadays with all the fibre optic digital electronic devices. Nevertheless, I’ve had a prank on the internet running for past year that both amuses and angers a few million people. No revelation has yet discovered this hoax that has also appeared in thousands of newspapers. I’m keeping it going!
Alan, did Yetta get involved in the 2008 elections at all?
When we were collecting interviews for the documentary, we met with one reporter who told us a story about one of his colleagues who had fallen prey to one of my dad’s pranks…Omar’s School for Beggars…back in the 80s. Apparently, the guy suffered terrible anxiety and left the news business because of my father!
A lot of news editors have experienced cardiac arrest as a result of giving me a Page One story printed as fact rather than fiction. One reporter from Reuters recently stopped me on the street in New York City and asked rather hopelessly, “Aren’t you ever going to quit?” I told him never.
Yetta gave up politics after to campaigns for running for President of the USA in 1964 and 1968, losing both times by a landslide. However, she did write a best-selling book, “The President I Almost Was” that the British critic, Cassandra said was “the best American satire since Sinclair Lewis’s ‘Babbitt.’”
But yet Alan, some producers also LOVED you and would call on you to help them out…
Given how badly many of the editors have been pranked by politicians, it’s a wonder any of them are still capable of being shamed by things.
I’m gonna shamelesly plus the DVD available at abelraisescain.com which features cool stuff not on Hulu, including The ‘Powerball Hoax’ …so what exactly is the Powerball Hoax?
Morton Downey, Jr. was putting on an act, just like Jerry Springer does. They are fairly intelligent, decent men off camera. But they don’t mind dipping their hands in the toilet because, although money talks, BS walks, they have emerged with ratings….and that’s money in the bank!
Was Morton Downey aware that you were YOU pulling these pranks, or did you sucker him?
Yes, I would sometimes work with a producer to “humiliate” a guest; for example on “The Great Debate” a CBC network show with Pierre Burton as host, I pretended to be a US censor determined to put PLAYGIRL magazine out of business by charging higher rates to mail magazines with male nudity. The editor, on the program with m, Marin Scott Milan, was furious as we debated the issue of male nudity on TV. I claimed that more men committed suicide clutching an issue of PLAYGIRL. That’s how ashamed they were to be less endowed. The audience went crazy on that one with hoots, boos and generally catcalls. Oh well. It was fun.
Thanks, Lisa! I’m sure my dad will throw in some shameless plugs, too. The Powerball Hoax was more of a PR stunt than a socially significant prank, although it DID poke fun at the Lottery and the media. The prank ’starred’ my father’s good friend, Bob Pagani, playing the truck driver who picked the winning numbers at random from a ‘book’ he was reading at the time. He treated the entire town of Lincoln, Nebraska to lunch at the local diner. The media arrived in swarms.
Hi Jenny.
Are you related to the Alan Abel who was a sportswriter in Toronto for many years?
He came from NYC.
Hi Alan. Are you the Alan Abel the sportswriter?
The competition is so keen among newspapers, magazines and cable TV news, most editors would eat their grandmothers to get a tragic story first. They thrive on calamities and tragic families. I think the Romans are to blame.
Hi Alison! No, it’s a different Alan Abel. What’s funny is that there is a THIRD Alan Abel who must curse the fact that he shares a name with my father. I’m speaking of the Alan Abel in Philadelphia, who is very similar in age to my father and also plays the drums.
There was an Allan Abel sportswriter in Canada, no relation. However there is another Alan Abel who is a retired percussionist from the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, after 40 years. He received a lot of my mail…and blame…for my stunts over the years. We met only once in New York for dinner. We’re same age, look somewhat alike, I also play percussion, but he doesn’t approve of pranks!!!
Alan, Jenny are there plans to release Sex After Death on DVD?
He’s a very good writer. You should all have lunch one day. You would like it.
And will Faking of the President be out on DVD anytime soon? Both that and Sex after Death look AWESOME
YES! We’d like to independently release Is There Sex After Death, now that the rights have reverted back to my parents. When my mom and dad were here in LA last, we recorded the director commentary with them recounting many of the behind-the-scenes adventures. This project is in the works, along with a soundtrack of the documentary, which people have expressed interest in. All of the music was either composed or performed by my father.
Shrub did it! For Eight Years~!!
It’s a wonder the Mob didnt put a hit on you for this one..what was the up shot?
During the 1983 Super Bowl game between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Redskins, Abel snuck a fake official onto the field. He called four plays before being chased down the sideline by a cop. The game was halted and the crowd went wild as the policeman escorted the impostor off of the playing field. It was later revealed that the cop was also an accomplice of Abel’s.
The Faking of the President might be a bonus addition on the Is There Sex After Death DVD, I’m not sure. The problem is, only one 16mm film print exists. It’s currently stored at Anthology Film Archives. The premiere was a total bomb back in 1974. People rioted, destroyed the theater and my dad had to be escorted out of town by the police.
Welcome Jenny & Alan!
Thanks for hosting, Lisa-
Reading this thread reminds me of the pranksterism that Andy Kaufman was famous for. Did either of you have any contact with Andy?
Who was the whistleblower?
People have often asked where the money came from to finance my pranks. Well, from 1965-1985 Maxwell Sackheim was my principal backer. He made millions when he founded the Book-of-the-Month Club. Then the day before he was retiring to Florida, his wife asked him to ride the New York subway just once…because he never had. That was the day we both accidently met and started talking and he became my backer. It was serendipity; i.e. our meeting on his first and only subway ride.
As a kid, I vaguely remember Andy calling the house once or twice and talking in a funny voice. My dad and he were friends for a bit. I think that they fed off of one another’s creativity.
Wow, what a beautiful proof of Fate and coincidence!.. Also..if i recal, you did influence Andy Kaufman…and don;t you have a book about your exploits as well?
Now that is what i call a gravy train. /s
Question, who are some of your favorite bands these days?
Jenny, the riot in Salt Lake City by devout Mormons who resented the liberties taken against the fallen President Nixon for Watergate, created a lot of news. There were threats against my life and the police escorted me to the airport that Sunday night for a ride to safety in Reno aboard John Wayne’s private plane. John and I sat together and he laughed all during the 40 minutes as I described the “Faking of the President” and the riot at our debut. Oh well. someday this pseudo documentary will be available for the public.
Oh please tell us about your IRS prank!
I don’t know who Jenny’s favorite bands are. I’m from an “older” school of music. When I was wheeled into surgery to have my gall bladder removed the surgeon asked me if I was allergic to anything. I told him, “just country and western music.” I do love the Beatles’ music, all of it, and I would appreciate Barry Manilow more if he didn’t almost run me down when I had the cross light in New York and he drove around the corner at high speed in his Porche, giving me a dirty look as I stopped on a dime for my safety.
You also pulled a huge Iran Contra prank…could you tell a bit about that, and the after effects0– if any?
When soundtracks to your films were mentioned above… I immediately thought of the the Tiger Lillies. *s*
When I was audited by IRS a few years ago in NYC, they spent all day pawing over my books and records, finally decided I owed Uncle Sam $30. The two agents said to forget it, that it wasn’t worth the paperwork for me to pay. But I resented having these two bookkeepers spend hours with a taxpayer, and they weren’t even CPAs!! So I filed suit against the US Government, as a taxpayer, to examine THEIR books and records and demanded in court papers for them to bring all their cancelled checks to my house so I could spot check the expenditures. Uncle Sam never experienced this before and hired a law firm with 12 attorneys to question me under oath for hours for a full week. I managed to get through that, barely. The case never came to trial because the judge dismissed it as being “frivolous and without merit.” Following year I was called in by IRS but it was a mistake. The same two agents were waiting at the NY headquarters on the front steps with coffee and donouts for me. They wanted nothing to do with me and waved me away.
Dad, where were you when I was audited?
best tax protest ever!
During Iran/Contra scandal, the President of Iran’s playboy son was being hunted in the USA because he was such an ambarrassment to his father’s reign. Mehdie Bahramani, the playboy, went underground. I decided to find an actor to play him at a news conference, claiming he sold guns to Contras and was going to return his five million dollars in commissions to the USA. This made news worldwide, on TV and in the papers, Page One in the New York Times. I found my actor accidently on a cross town bus in New York. He was from Morroco, spoke Farsi, Creole, French and English. A perfect subject to play the role, and he did it was flair and believability. As to this day, there has never been a revelation that it was all a grand hoax!!!
One of my dad’s more recent crusades was a National Fat Tax, whereby everyone would weigh in at the post office on 4/15 and pay a tax determined by his/her BMI. He teamed up with Esquire to promote the campaign. Here is a link to the reveal by the Washington Post: http://tinyurl.com/njmz4m
That is astounding! So no one wondered why the $5 million was never delivered? I also enjoyed you creating a fake Salman Rushdie–and thus diverting attentin away form Nancy reagan at a book expo! That must have been FUN!
As to the music sound track in “Abel Raises Cain,” I was pleased that Jen and Jeff chose all my past music over the years and incorporated it into the documentary with skill. (That’s what nepotism is all about). They plan to release the music track on CD in the near future, with or without my permission. My lawyers are standing by.
Jenny, are you planning to carry on the family tradition?
Oh, Bev. I don’t know. My mom and dad’s shoes are pretty difficult to fill. I will admit that I AM a ham and I enjoy the spotlight from time to time…but a prankster, I’m not. The only jokes I’ve ever pulled were pratfalls back in grade school!
Lisa, the Salman Rushdie lookalike was a ringer for the real guy…at that time in the UK under protective custody…so my Rushdie, whom I found on the subway, a med student from India willing to play the role at a news convention in Washington, DC outside the National Book Fair being held in Convention Hall. Nancy Reagan was meeting the press..about 100 of them…and they left her en mass when they received word that Salman Rushdie was across the street at the Radisson Hotel for a news conference. “Rushdie” had his mistress and they staged a huge verbal fight…she didn’t want him to come out of hiding…they then jumped into a limo and disappeared with a flock of reporters following in cars and taxis. My team all met up in Georgetown for dinner and an hour of intense of laughter over the charade that made the WASHINGTON POST and wire services. Great fun!
There’s a great timeline of hoaxes here http://abelraisescain.com/alan_abel/timeline.php. They are so creative and well thought out. Alan, I wil say it again, you re a great American hero!
along wiht your poltical pranks, I appreciate your poking fun at celebrity–like the fake sheik and the Jenny McCarthy pee! Do tell us more about those!
Reminds me of the first few days of Desert Storm… some very quick printing press and footwork by activists… they created a false front page of the San Francisco Chronicle – Baghdad Burns, Dow Soars… etc., and managed to place it in the front of thousands of newspaper vending machines.. including over several of the top copies in each machine. They also included rolls of extras.. copies for the next few days so folks like myself could come back and keep the game going.
It was a brilliant stunt, very fast, very organized, and no small feat.
I love how you have an in and an out, exit strategies are VERY important! ANd you have such luck wiht public transportation!
Hey Jenny, don’t duck the issue. When you were 5 yrs. old you put your jeans in my closet so I would think I had shrunk. Ha ha ha. Not bad for a smalll tyke. And you won’t ever forget that when born, we had you without a name, only “Baby Abel.” And we could have sold you in the black market for a ton of money. But we decided to keep you. No regrets.
Alan, have you appeared as yourself on talk shows?
And what advice to you have for aspiring pro-hoaxsters?
Ah, this is perhaps where The Yes Men received their inspiration for the fake New York Times distributed with the headline: “Iraq War Ends” late last year!
I do enjoy others who jump into the news void, so to speak, in between the axe murders and serial killers who dominate the front pages. The Onion continues this trend to spoof the media; and the “Yes Men” had a full year to put out that fake issue of the New York Times. Brilliant! In 1981 I published a limited edition of my NEW YORK HAROLD. It was 16 pages of satire and now a collector’s item. Everything was a fake…the ads, a crossword puzzle you couldn’t work, cartoons that weren’t funny and my favorite was an obituary that said in part: “Harvey Westfall died today of a heart attack while mowing his lawn. He was 61 years old, a bagger at Stop and Shop for 30 years, was never liked, always had a sour body odor, never married, no relatives and his body remains unclaimed in the city morgue. Good riddance!
I hope you get Sex After Death out soon on DVD– we want ot have you back!
Could be… we need so much more action of this nature. Love the Yes Men too.
I can’t wait to see your movie(s). Is there a place on a web site where i can leave my email addy and a request to be notified when more movies become available?
I guess making a film about my parent’s lives and having others appreciate their pranks for many years to come is my way of carrying on the family tradition…
Hoaxing is difficult today because the media has instant access to information via the internet. In 2 seconds or less you can log a few million pieces of information to debunk a fake story that someone is trying to perpetrate. I’ve found ways around such discovery…such as mentioned before with the present hoax on the inernet that remains undiscovered by the media. They bought the story, including the International Herald Tribune, Reuters and a hundred other news services worldwide. Also, to would be hoaxers, it takes funding to stage a realistic hoax. And some luck with good timing.
Thnkas!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful family with us.
Thnkas for responding! And for being here…I frwaking LOVE this mivie and the whole family! Jenny, what an awesome film and family and legacy!
Please keep us posted on your exploits and on the upcoming releases of your past oeuvres!
I hope you enjoy Abel Raises Cain! I just added a Mailing List sign-up area on our home page at http://abelraisescain.com. And of course you’re always welcome to email my dad and I directly!
Also, rememebr that you can get the DVD (great for family gaterings!) at abelraisescain.com
`Lisa, I have appeared on many talk shows over the past half century. In fact I have thousands of audio and video tapes in storage. There are 180 boxes, trunks and filing cabinets with letters sent and received, photos, films and recordings at all speeds. This memorabilia is quite a treasure as I often peer into a box and recall the turmoil I created. But the intent is always to amuse, not defraud, no money changes hands and there is usually a lot of response from the public in appreciation for the many laughs. After all, laughter is the only tranquilizer without side effects. So, onward and upward!!
Thank you both so much for being here! ANd being part of our country’s weird and beautiful modern social history! America needs people like you Alan–and you too Jenny!–congrats on such a great movie and parents!
Thank you, again, Lisa and Bev. I’m beyond elated that not only are people enjoying the documentary and my dad’s story, but that a whole new audience has discovered his work. I think the film has been a culmination point and rebirth for ALL of the Abels!
I hope you will consider this awesoem archive going to the Museum fo Film and television or a major library! You are an increible force in society as wel as a morror for its foibles, Alan
Thanks!
We must say good bye for now, and THANK YOU both so much for this. I am in awe of you Alan (and Jenny you to for beng such a great filmmaker and so cool!)
What a great American! Thank you all for tonight, firepups!
Great salon.. even better knowing we might meet here again.
watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: Words Certainly Can Kill.