The Pig

I was the release coordinator/APOC for a reality tv's aftershow. One of the cast members spent the whole season trying to find a pig to buy as a pet, but never found one. The producers decided it would be a brilliant idea to surprise him with one at the aftershow. I had to escort the pig and her two handlers into a room off the stage to keep her a "surprise". When I finally got the cue from the stage manager to get the pig ready, the pig got nervous and freaked out. It started squealing and making a ton of noise so the stage manager tried to call her on earlier. This made the pig even more nervous, causing her to poop as she walked up to the stage, leaving a trail of pig shit from her room all the way through the studio and the stage. (Did I mention that the stage was a bunch of sand?)

Once they wrapped shooting about 15 minutes later, I escorted the pig and her handlers out of the studio and then rounded up a couple of PAs. Between the three of us, we spent a good half hour cleaning up the pig shit. Later, when I went to watch the episode, the pig didn't even it make the final edit of the show.

Yup.

The Prank

The last few years of my production life, I've spent a great deal of time with one celeb-reality family in particular. My first gig with the show and the family was spent wrangling talent, meaning an abundance of time with the cast. Over the years, we've all become one big family. I have countless stories to share, but I thought this one might be worth writing.

One weekend, some time ago, the crew followed one of the male cast members and a group of his friends to Vegas. It was a fun one, but on the last day, as we were filming a scene around the breakfast table in the hotel, our favorite cast member decided it would be hilarious to pull one of the biggest pranks of all time on me in particular.

For starters, let me just tell you, I was working as the Release Coordinator at the time, and spent most of the scene running around getting background folks to sign releases. I tell you this, because, well, it's part of the reason the prank worked so well. I was totally oblivious as to what was about to happen.

As I frantically run after someone to get them to sign a release, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I didn't bother taking it out to look, but then I feel the vibrate again. And again. And then I pull out my phone. In one minute, I've had 11 missed calls and 30 something texts. I attempt to slide open my iphone to unlock it, and then my phone just freezes. The calls and the texts just keep coming in, and they won't stop.

Then I look over, and I see everyone, and I mean EVERYONE on the crew and the cast laughing hysterically and watching me. I'm so confused! The texts that I can see (for about half a second, before the next one comes in) say something like, "Cheer up!" and "It'll get better."

Finally, someone explains what's going on. This favorite cast member of mine decided to post MY phone number on his Twitter with a message saying, "My friend is having a hard day, you should call and text her to make her feel better". (At this current moment in time, the guy has 3.3 MILLION Twitter followers.)

So... when all was said and done, my phone died in about 10 minutes from the non-stop text and phone calls. For a few days, I had to keep my phone plugged in to to the charger to even attempt to use it, and I ended up with hundreds and hundreds of texts and calls. Pictures of people defecating, people yelling at me to get over it because the Tsunami in Japan had just happened, plenty of uplifting messages, just so much crazy! I STILL get them to this day, and that was a couple of years ago. Mark that down as one of the most successful pranks EVER.