This is what had me cracking up with hoops of laughter in the middle of the night.
Jenny Abel's wonderful documentary on the life of her father Alan Abel (and her mother as well!) who has probably perpetrated more hoaxes than most third world governments and done about 95% of them with the complete and completely idiotic cooperation of the American media.
If you think the American media are careful about checking their sources or have a healthy bullshit-detector, this documetnary will be an alarming (and hilarious!) eye-opener.
Here's the trailer.
If you search for this on YouTube, there is a link I think where you can go to a different site and watch this for free, I believe.
If the documentary is correct, Abel is the only man to ever have his obituary printed by The New York Times while he was still alive. (I think they said that's the only retraction they ever issued.)
He's done so many hilarious stunts.
I think my favorite is when he had Idi Amin (an actor portraying him!) wedding a Jewish gal from Long Island so he could gain American citizenship when he was being hunted for mass genocide.
The press showed up for the wedding in droves!
He just comes up with this stuff, throws it out with a large shovel, and the major networks like NBC, CBS and CNN just put it right on the air.
If that doesn't make you wonder, maybe you should wonder why you're not wondering!
Back in the sixties or early seventies, he did some sex films which were really comedies and hoaxes as well....like he pretended to film a Sexual Olympics, in which couples representing various countries raced to achieve orgasm in record time. These were actually films featuring filmed sex and many people (and reviewers, censors, etc.) didn't know whether this was porn, comedy or both.
That's Abel's gift in general: blurring the distinction between categories of thought and levels of reality.
He's probably one of the most brilliant critics of mass media America has ever produced, and I had never even heard of him before I saw this wonderful documentary.
Bravissima, Jenny Abel!
What a great work of art you have produced on the lives of your father and mother, who are themselves great works of art!
Some Abel hoaxes...
The mass faintings that shut down Donahue's show back in the day...
He created a "fake lottery winner"...the media ate it up...
When Howard Hughes was alive and very much a recluse, Abel impersonated him and said he was going to be cryogenically frozen and thawed "when the Stock Market peaked."
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