I am making part of this up

[nitrah55]

April Fools Day seems a good day to reflect on the life and (to use the term loosely) art of Alan Abel, who has, over the past 40-odd years, made his name as a professional hoaxer.

Through judicious use of TV, newspapers and other media, and his unerring faith in the gullibility of the American public, Abel has perpetrated hoaxes such as these:

- With the help of his friend Buck Henry, created an organization called the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, with the stated goal of clothing all animals, under the slogan "A Nude Horse is a Rude Horse."

- Pretending to be a Chinese-American doctor, he wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine complaining of numbness, palpitations and weakness after eating at Chinese restaurants in the US. In the letter, he wondered if the MSG used at those restaurants might be to blame. As a result, nearly every Chinese restaurant in the US stopped using MSG, and to this day, many advertise that they do not use MSG.

- Abel faked his own death convincingly enough that the New York Times ran his obituary. After owning up to the hoax, he called the obituary editor at the Times, and asked if there was anything he could do to make amends. "Yeah, you could drop dead," was the response.

- During a taping of the Phil Donahue show in New York, several of Abel's confederates in the audience fainted as the microphone was passed to them. Fearing a gas leak, Donahue cleared the studio.

- Convinced several news outlets that he ran a company called Euthanasia Cruise Lines, which gives its passengers a chance to expire in luxury.

These are just some of the stunts he's pulled. And I have just pulled one.

One of the items listed above was not a hoax perpetrated by Alan Abel. It actually happened, more or less as described above.

Guess which one. No googling or other peeking.

April Fool.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

I'm gonna go with MSG as the fake

[peacock2121]

I pick this one:

- Abel faked his own death convincingly enough that the New York Times ran his obituary. After owning up to the hoax, he called the obituary editor at the Times, and asked if there was anything he could do to make amends. "Yeah, you could drop dead," was the response.

[ne1410s]

The horse diapers was real. Iffen I bemember correctly.

[earendel]

April Fools Day seems a good day to reflect on the life and (to use the term loosely) art of Alan Abel, who has, over the past 40-odd years, made his name as a professional hoaxer.

Through judicious use of TV, newspapers and other media, and his unerring faith in the gullibility of the American public, Abel has perpetrated hoaxes such as these:

- With the help of his friend Buck Henry, created an organization called the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, with the stated goal of clothing all animals, under the slogan "A Nude Horse is a Rude Horse."

- Pretending to be a Chinese-American doctor, he wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine complaining of numbness, palpitations and weakness after eating at Chinese restaurants in the US. In the letter, he wondered if the MSG used at those restaurants might be to blame. As a result, nearly every Chinese restaurant in the US stopped using MSG, and to this day, many advertise that they do not use MSG.

- Abel faked his own death convincingly enough that the New York Times ran his obituary. After owning up to the hoax, he called the obituary editor at the Times, and asked if there was anything he could do to make amends. "Yeah, you could drop dead," was the response.

- During a taping of the Phil Donahue show in New York, several of Abel's confederates in the audience fainted as the microphone was passed to them. Fearing a gas leak, Donahue cleared the studio.

- Convinced several news outlets that he ran a company called Euthanasia Cruise Lines, which gives its passengers a chance to expire in luxury.

These are just some of the stunts he's pulled. And I have just pulled one.

One of the items listed above was not a hoax perpetrated by Alan Abel. It actually happened, more or less as described above.

Guess which one. No googling or other peeking.

April Fool.

I'm guessing it's the MSG, since MSG sensitivity has been demonstrated to be true.

[wbtravis007]

I'm gonna guess that the part of the post that you're making up is where you claim that one of the hoaxes is made up. (Otherwise, you haven't really done what I predicted. Yet.)

viewtopic.php?p=48478&highlight=#48478


Anyway, my second guess would be the NYT obituary story.

[nitrah55]

The hoax which was not perpetrated by Alan Abel was the MSG hoax.

Ear and seersuckerguy are correct, although ear's "MSG sensitivity" observation is at odds with this story about the origin and facts of the MSG scare:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/dinin ... ref=slogin

Back to the original topic, yes, Alan Abel did start a phony organization with the stated purpose of clothing animals. He once picketed the White House calling for Caroline Kennedy's pony to get dressed.

And he faked his own death, had confederates faint during a broadcast of the Phil Donohue show, and convinced a few news outlets of the existence of Euthanasia Cruise Lines. And a bunch of other stuff, which you can see at (where else?) alanabel.com.

[peacock2121]

dang

The Times telling him to drop dead - never thought that woulda happened.