Kimmel Fools Internet With Video of Twerking Gone Wrong
Jimmy Kimmel revealed on his late-night talk show on Monday that he was the brains behind one of the best Internet pranks in recent memory.
The prank involved a video of a young woman recording herself practicing various provocative “twerking†moves for the benefit of her boyfriend, which results in disaster: her roommate enters the room, knocks her over onto a glass coffee table covered in mood-setting candles and her yoga pants catch fire â€" instigating terrified screams from the victim.
The video, with the hard-to-skip title “Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire!,†was a sensation on YouTube, attracting more than nine million views. More than that, the video became a favorite feature piece for local TV shows around the country â€" as well as for some national ones like “The View†and “Inside Edition.†All were taken in by the prank.
Video by Jimmy Kimmel LiveJimmy Kimmel Reveals "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire" Prank
On his ABC show Monday night, Mr. Kimmel introduced a segment by saying that he had scored a coup by securing a Skype interview with the star of the video, identified as “Caitlin.†In the course of the Internet interview, Mr. Kimmel ventured behind the curtain and sat next to “Caitlin†during the interview, where she revealed that she is actually a professional stunt performer named Daphne Avalon.
They then showed the “director’s cut†on the video, which ended with Mr. Kimmel, in matching pink t-shirt and yoga pants, entering to put the flaming “Caitlin†out with a fire extinguisher.
Mr. Kimmel said that he and his staff came up with the idea and shot it several months ago (long before the twerking controversy stirred by Miley Cyrus’s raunchy performance in late August at the MTV Video Music Awards). The show quietly posted the video more recently on YouTube to see what would happen. What it did was far beyond what they expected, as viewers quickly passed the video around.
On Tuesday, in an e-mail, Mr. Kimmel revealed a few details about the prank. He said that he sometimes tries to come up with ideas “to keep my writers interested.†In this case, he divided them into three teams and asked them to “come up with a video idea that would make national news without using the muscle of the show, our Facebook page, Twitter or YouTube channel.â€
Three writers, Jeff Loveness, Bess Kalb, and Eric Immerman hatched the twerking idea.
The crew shot three takes of the scene, Mr. Kimmel said, “because we only had three tables with breakaway glass.â€
He joked that he found his pink yoga pants in the “husky section†at Lululemon.
The effort toward verisimilitude included one other little touch. The label sticking out from the victim’s underpants? An idea of the video’s director, Brad Morrison.
