The comedy group known as Improv Everywhere has launched a new series on YouTube called “Movies in Real Life.” The latest episode features the movie “When Harry Met Sally” and it has caused quite the stir in New York and on the internet. The group, which is famous for videos such as the Food Court Musical, No Pants Subway Ride and Frozen Grand Central, is the mastermind behind a new YouTube series that is a very clever idea. Each episode follows a specific format – to bring a well known scene from a well known movie to life for onlookers.
The group began the series some time ago with a couple of videos that were intended to be stand alone pranks, like the rest of their more than 100 videos. The “Star Wars Subway Car” featured an actress dressed as Princess Leia, reading a “Galactic Rebellion for Dummies” book on the subway, who is then arrested and taken down the car to meet Lord Vadar. The video was well acted and caused a major reaction among the New Yorkers in the subway car. However, it also caused a sensation online, and has become one of the group’s most popular videos.
The other prank that is unofficially part of the “Movies in Real Life” series is a prank that they were asked to pull by the New York Public Library. So, they recreated a semblance of a scene out of the Ghostbusters movie, and had three ghosts, sheets and all, enter the library and act like regular patrons. Then, they had actors dressed as Ghostbusters come in and chase the ghosts out. Actors isn’t really the word here, since the improv players in the group are known as Agents. The stunt was well received by the library patrons that were in the library at the time.
The other “Movies in Real Life” episodes that the gang has already produced include a puppet dinosaur and a look-alike Jurassic Park jeep that recreates the scene from the movie where Grant, Ellie and Malcolm get to see the dinosaurs for the first time, and Hammond grandly tells them “Welcome to Jurassic Park,” as well as a scene from LOTR where Gandalf won’t let anyone pass a bridge in New York. They also created a scene from Indiana Jones, complete with giant boulder. But the most recent was from “When Harry Met Sally” and recreated the famous fake organism scene at Katz Delicatessen. They even used the same table at Katz that was used in the movie.
