In the case of Strasser the yo-yo master, the duo didn't even include any photos or video of his feats, Pickett says. Simply, they send out press releases making an outlandish claim by a person with an easily Google-able name to the stations and wait for a bite. Or as the lawyers are calling it, 'fake news.'īooking these characters is not an elaborately composed hoax. The accusation: Prueher and Pickett's gag appearances were an act of fraud. A pending lawsuit from Gray Television, a broadcasting company that owns TV and radio stations all over the US, could stop the show in its tracks. In the past, these bits have occasionally earned them sternly worded complaints, but hadn't landed them in hotter water until now. When they're not searching for pre-internet viral fodder, the two book appearances for colorful (and entirely fictitious) characters on segments of the local-affiliate news shows in the cities on their tour route. The pair have turned their 6,000 discoveries into the Found Footage Festival, a touring clip show that proves one man's trash is another's outsider-art treasure.īut the festival's existence is in jeopardy, due to Prueher and Pickett's lightweight side-gig: pranking local TV stations. For 14 years, Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher have scoured thrift store VHS piles for comedic gold - the public access mayhem, odd workout videos, shot-on-video Christian proselytizing, and other sorts of ephemera that only the dawn of home video can provide.

VHS by Joe Pickett