The Stradivarius

A Prank Gone Horribly Wrong (Audio Version)

(Note: Some of you may have received this last week when I inadvertently pressed the wrong button in the Substack app. The text has not essentially changed. But this version does include audio and graphics. SS)

Audio Version

I stood in the barricaded kitchen with the rest of the crew watching the three video monitors as our accomplice escorted the mark and his wife into the living room.

When I saw the mark, I whispered to Gary, “Oh, this is going to be easy.”

Totally Hidden Video was the show on the then fledgling Fox network that brought me to Los Angeles. I had been hired to host the first hidden camera program since Allen Funt’s pioneering Candid Camera, which ran on and off since the dawn of the age of television in the late forties.

In addition to introducing the videos from the studio, I participated in the pranks themselves. This was a unique challenge, a special species of improvisation in which I interacted with real people who had no idea they were in a scene. But instead of calling attention to myself as the funny character, I played the straight man to ensure the unsuspecting participants got the laughs.

At the beginning of production that summer of 1989, I starred in many of the field pieces. At an art auction, I sat next to the marks and casually tried to get them to nod or gesture in a way the auctioneer could interpret as a bid, a bid the mark had definitely not intended. In another piece, I played a waiter, who pretended to fall in love with the date of one of our accomplices. Yet another time, we staged a funeral service to which our accomplice brought a friend. Just before the service began, our accomplice excused herself to go to the bathroom and asked the friend to hold her purse, which, unbeknownst to the mark, was filled with beepers and pagers. As soon as the (fake) priest began the service, all the beepers and pagers were activated. The mortified mark couldn’t do anything about it because the purse was sown shut. The bit ended with me popping out of a coffin, declaring, “On second thought, I think it was just gas.” ^*

After the show hit the air in the fall, I became mildly recognizable. The producers didn’t want to use me as much for fear of blowing our cover. When I was in a bit, they had to hire a make-up artist to obscure my features with mustaches and sometimes full beards. This faux facial hair had to fool people up close and in person. The mesh under a typical prop beard was easily detected in the three dimensions of real life, so the make-up person would have to glue clumps of real hair onto my face and painstakingly refresh it after each take. The producers were reluctant to add that time, expense, and risk when they could just hire an unknown actor.

But acting in the bits was much more fun for me than the other part of the job, which was simply reading off a teleprompter to introduce the videos in the studio. So I was always bugging our lead producer, Gary, to find a way to put me in the field.

As the season wore to a close, I had given up hope of being in anymore bits until one day Gary caught me in the hallway of our post-production offices. “We’ve got one for you.”

He explained they had gotten a letter from a woman whose husband owned a Stradivarius violin made in the 1790s. She wanted to know if we could do something with that. Our writers came up with the idea that the wife (now our accomplice) would bring the husband to the house of a violin aficionado, who would be played by an actor named Burt. Burt would bring the wife and the husband to his house to show Burt the violin. I was to play a jealous lover who follows them to the house, storms in, and makes a scene distracting enough for Burt to hide the violin on a bookcase and switch it with a fake one. Once the violin was switched, I would snatch it up and smash it into a million pieces.

Fun, eh?

In truth, doing this show heightened my appreciation of human nature. We discovered that any bit that counted on people being selfish or mean or greedy or even getting angry generally failed. People were more likely to be concerned and helpful, levelheaded to a fault. Composure was our chief enemy.

Most people were good sports when it was revealed “There’s a camera over here and a camera over there…” with the exception of the aforementioned auction piece. One of the marks, who was an acquaintance of someone on our staff, felt so humiliated, he refused to sign the release. A couple of days later, though, our staffer reported that he decided to sign after all. He had been working with his therapist about not taking himself so seriously, and this proved to be the perfect test.

I was worried that smashing a priceless violin would be too mean for the sake of a laugh and told Gary I wanted to meet the wife beforehand, on camera, so she could give us permission to play this potentially traumatizing prank on her husband. Gary agreed that was a good idea.

As far as I was concerned, this was a satisfying cap to a roller-coaster season. I wouldn’t be the straight man this time. I was going to get to act. This was an opportunity to go full De Niro in Raging Bull. Really show my chops.

Each one of these pieces operated like a stake out. Video technology had come a long way since Allen Funt first stuck a camera through a hole in a wall. Our set designers constructed kiosks that blended into the scenery to hide the cameras. They set up three cameras in a rented house in Toluca Lake. Sliding glass doors looked out onto the lake. The short bookcase stood in the back of the living room. Gary brought me in and walked me through the scenario. They had set up a couple of breakable props around the living room, an ashtray and a vase. I was to burst in yelling about how our mark was having an affair with my wife. It didn’t need to make total sense. I just had to be crazy scary enough to distract the mark while Burt switched the violins. I was to pick up the ashtray, smash it, then make my way to the vase, smash that, then find the prop violin that Burt had left on top of the bookcase, the real one stashed on a shelf below.

Gary said, “You have to make sure you really smash it into a million pieces.”

I hefted the fake Stradivarius and assured Gary he need not worry. That would be the easy part.

But I did point to the sliding glass doors, concerned that if I scared this guy too much, he might run right through them and hurt himself. Gary consulted with the set designer, who told him they would put some gaffer’s tape on the glass that would serve as a marker.

As promised, the wife stopped by while the make-up artist was applying my moustache. We rolled a camera on me asking her if this was really okay to do to her husband. She told me it would be fine. He was a good sport. I accepted it without much question, which you do when you hear what you want to hear. With my mind now at ease, she left to go join her husband where they had agreed to meet Burt for lunch at a nearby diner.

I was ready, but as would happen with pieces like this, things go wrong. One of the cameras was malfunctioning. They had to get word to Burt to delay their arrival at the house until they could fix it. This just increased the tension amongst the crew. The more time that goes by, the more chance something else could go wrong, our cover blown. Unlike the theater or movies, you can’t control every variable on a live shoot. Life has a way of intruding on your well-laid plans. A series of marks would not be coming through the door every half hour with a priceless Stradivarius. We had one shot.

Finally, the camera was fixed and the game afoot. We all moved into the kitchen, which was barricaded from the living room, and awaited the arrival of our trio, “aficionado” Burt, the man’s wife, and the Stradivarius owner himself.

The front door opened and Burt led them into the living room. The mark was a short, balding man in his fifties, carrying a violin case and wearing a bow tie.

“A bow tie?”

This guy couldn’t have looked like more of a nebbish. At the time, I was a strapping 32-year-old, at the height of my physical power. I was going to scare the living shit out of Mr. Bow Tie Stradivarius. I grinned at Gary, waiting for the signal to sprint out the back door to the front door and burst in with my best “Are you fucking my wife?” routine. Although I would have to resist the urge to curse. After all, this was network television.

I whispered to Gary, “Are we sure the front door isn’t locked?” Because that was just one of those dumb things that could go wrong in a scheme like this. Gary shrugged and said he had told Burt not to lock it, but whether Burt remembered, we couldn’t know for sure.

The three of them settled onto the couch opposite the glass doors, and Mr. Bow Tie opened the violin case. He gently and lovingly presented the Stradivarius to Burt, who took it into his hands and examined it. Gary turned to me and nodded. Shit’s on.

I bolted out the back door, raced around to the front of the house, then blasted like a cruise missile through the blessedly unlocked front door. I don’t even remember what I started yelling, but I’m sure it was some B-movie bullshit like, “There you are!”

The nebbish was truly startled. He yelped and sprang up from the couch, thinking this was a home invasion robbery, this despite my purple monologue on the topic of infidelity. He scrambled over the couch and tossed his wallet at me.

“I don’t want your money!” I sneered.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Burt quietly back away toward the bookcase with the violin.

I picked up the ashtray and smashed it on the coffee table. The nebbish screamed at the abrupt violence of it. His wife hid behind him. I made my way toward the vase, all the while spouting gibberish about how I know he was having an affair with my wife. The nebbish, flummoxed, confused, frightened, yelped again as I demolished the vase.

By this time, my instincts told me I could dial it back a bit. This guy was coming apart. Composure was not an issue here. He was reacting like we hoped he would. I picked up the violin on the bookcase just as we had planned and took a quiet moment, like the excellent actor that I am.

Lowering my voice to a menacing rumble, I said, “Is this how you wooed her?”

The nebbish could see what was coming. “No… no… no…,” he sputtered. He held his hands out toward his precious Stradivarius as a mother would to her baby being kidnapped.

Louder now, I repeated, “Is this how you wooed her?”

He screamed, “No!” and leapt toward me, but he was too late.

I slammed the prop violin over my knee and into a million pieces. Just like Gary told me to.

“No!”

He fell to his knees, sobbing, scrambling to pick up the splintered pieces of what he thought was his priceless Strad. This was no longer funny, if it ever was. It was now officially pathetic. I had done my job too well.

I decided it was time to let him in on the joke. That’s when it occurred to me that this man probably had no idea what Totally Hidden Video was. Before I could give him the standard, “There’s a camera over here and a camera over there” speech, I was going to have to explain the entire premise of this stupid, lowbrow TV show while this distraught man of refined taste wept on his knees, collecting the ragged shards of his shattered dreams.

I retrieved the genuine Stradivarius Burt had switched on the shelf and tried to calm this poor bastard down.

I dropped the Raging Bull act and adopted the soothing tone of a parent trying to convince a small child that there are no ghosts under the bed. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay,” I reassured him. “This is not real. This is a TV show. It’s called Totally Hidden Video. It’s a hidden camera show. On Fox. It’s a new network. Kind of. Just on Saturday and Sunday so far. We were on Sunday until they moved to Saturday to make room for this new show called The Simpsons. Anyway. Your violin is fine. I have it right here. Here it is. This is your violin. The other one was a prop.”

The nebbish, still breathing heavily, slowly stood as I held out his precious baby.

“See? Here it is. It’s okay. It’s all right. Your violin is right here.”

Still befuddled, he took the violin in his hands and turned it over, examining the body.

“See? It’s all good.”

Then he said, “This is not my violin.”

“Hm?”

His voice shook. “This is not my violin.”

“Of… of course it is. Burt switched it.”

“No. My violin had a special marking on the back. This doesn’t have the marking.” His voice now rising. “This is not my violin!”

I turned to my fellow actor.

“Burt?”

Burt’s eyes widened.

“Did you switch the violin?”

Burt just stared at me, sheepish.

My jaw started shaking involuntarily.

The nebbish began hyperventilating.

“What kind of person are you?” he yelled at me.

“Burt!”

“What! Kind! Of! Person! Are you!” he raged between breaths.

Holy shit. This wasn’t a camera malfunction. This was a fuck-up of epic proportions. I turned to one of the hidden cameras.

“It’s the wrong violin!” I yelled. “It’s the wrong fucking violin!”

Then I turned on Burt.

“Burt! You had one fucking job to do!”

Burt shrugged apologetically.

Meanwhile the angry nebbish called into question every aspect of my obviously appalling character. I backed away from him, because now, this little old bald man with a bow tie was the one scaring me. And he wasn’t playacting.

“What kind of person would do such a thing?”

I had to admit he had a point.

Fingers gripping my temples, I whirled around and took a step. Right into the sliding glass doors. Bang! The tape had made no difference.

I pinballed in the opposite direction where one of the writers who had arrived on set tried to put his arm around me. I shrugged him off and proceeded to the corner of the room, but there was nowhere to hide. I realized that from this time forward, I was going to be known as Steve “Stradivarius” Skrovan. What had I done with my life? What had I done with my Ivy League education? My classmates were doctors and lawyers and captains of industry. I was a nightclub comic turned TV host who just destroyed a priceless Stradivarius for a joke!

Finally, Gary appeared and announced, “Don’t worry. We have insurance.”

“Insurance? For what? To build a time machine to go back to 1790?”

Then Gary said, “Steve, this is something I’ve been wanting to say to you all year.”

He took a beat.

“There’s a camera over here, and a camera over there….”

Wait a minute. What?

“You’re on Totally Hidden Video!”

I turned to the angry nebbish, disbelieving. “Who are you?”

He held my gaze, giving up nothing.

“Who are you?” I repeated.

Finally, he broke into an evil grin.

I had been the mark all along. There was no Stradivarius. They were all actors. Mr. Bow Tie, his “wife,” they had all fooled me. The writer who tried to put his arm around me when I was pacing around the room wasn’t trying to comfort me. He was trying to keep me from walking out of camera range. They had to be laughing their asses off back in that barricaded kitchen. I was reacting like they hoped I would. Composure was not an issue here. Gary had played on my desire to be in the field skits, and it worked beyond all expectation.

This turned out to be one of the most intense experiences of my life. I had gone from being a cocky man to a fake angry and potentially violent man to a genuinely regretful man to a scared man to a truly angry man to a dazed and confused man to a humble man. I showed quite the range in those ten minutes.

Finally, I was a relieved man, because, ironically, being the butt of the joke was my only escape.

I turned to one of the cameras, tilted my head, turned up my palms in surrender.

And grinned.

You know… like a good sport.

---

^* That scenario got huge laughs when we played the video for the studio audience, but the Fox execs thought it was in bad taste and refused to air it.