Could a bunch of pranksters successfully convince bystanders that the space-time continuum had been shattered? They attempted to do just that when they created a "time loop" in a Manhattan Starbucks. This wild story of improvisation is among those shared in the new book "Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places with Improv Everywhere." Here is an excerpt.
Mission: The möbius
Date: March 22, 2003
Number of agents: Seven
Objective: Have a group of agents create a time loop in a Starbucks by repeating a five-minute sequence of events 12 consecutive times in one hour.
When thinking of the world’s most creative art forms, most highbrow critics tend to leave pranks off the list. Let’s face it: Taping a “Kick me” sign to someone’s back or placing a whoopee cushion on their chair usually fails to inspire in the same way as, say, a beautiful song or a brilliant film.
However, with Improv Everywhere, my objective has always been to push the boundaries of pranks beyond sophomoric high jinks. Instead of embarrassing someone with a practical joke, why not use a prank to create chaos, make people stop and observe their surroundings, and send them on their way with a fascinating story to tell? These were precisely our motivations when we pulled off a mission called “The Möbius.”
Most junior high school students are familiar with the concept of the möbius strip. You can create a möbius by taking a strip of paper, making a loop, and then flipping one side over before taping the two ends. The result is a never-ending loop with one continuous side.
In 1858, two German mathematicians, August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing, discovered this mind-boggling contraption. Almost 150 years after their discovery, seven Improv Everywhere agents attempted to boggle some minds of their own by creating a living möbius — a pattern of events that would repeat as a time loop — in a Manhattan Starbucks. For years, movie audiences have been entertained by temporally repetitive plots, like Bill Murray living the same day over and over again in "Groundhog Day," the Enterprise’s uncanny tendency to encounter temporal rifts in "Star Trek," or the flux capacitor creating time loops in the "Back to the Future" series. With "The Möbius," Improv Everywhere attempted to create a time loop in the real world ... and to boldly go where no prankster has gone before.
I. The plan
"There is the theory of the möbius — a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop, from which there is no escape." — Lt. Commander Worf, "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
In early 2003, Improv Everywhere was still in its infancy and I was acquiring a reputation in the New York comedy scene for being a prankster. As Improv Everywhere’s fan base grew, a steady flow of ideas for pranks started trickling into my e-mail inbox. One of the first missions submitted to me came from Mark Hoffman, who, along with his pal Kevin O’Bryan, concocted the following idea: What if a group of actors replayed the same five minutes as a time loop in a public place?
As a longtime Trekkie, I was immediately intrigued by their idea. It reminded me of an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" where the crew slowly realizes they are trapped in a time loop and the Enterprise keeps blowing up. Creating our own "Star Trek"–style möbius of events in a public place wouldn’t be your typical sophomoric prank — we’d be attempting to fool people into thinking that the space-time continuum had been shattered.
I recruited six agents for the mission and assigned each of them a specific action to replay over and over again. These six choreographed segments of our möbius would play out over the course of five minutes and would be repeated 12 times consecutively in one hour. The six major components to our time loop were:
1) The Argument. Agent Katie Dippold and I enter the Starbucks holding hands. While standing in line and debating what to order, Agent Dippold reaches for her cell phone in her purse, revealing a pack of cigarettes in her handbag. Then we initiate the following dialogue:
Agent Todd: You can’t smoke in here, Katie.
Agent Dippold: I’m not smoking, I’m just getting my phone.
Agent Todd: Give me those! [I attempt to snatch her cigarettes.]
Agent Dippold: Stop it!
Agent Todd: You promised you would never smoke around me. [I make a second attempt to grab her smokes.]
Agent Dippold: I’m not!
Agent Todd: You promised you wouldn’t let me see these.
[Agent Dippold storms toward the door in frustration and turns to address me.]
Agent Dippold: I can’t believe you’re doing this!
Agent Todd: [yelling] Come back! Come back here, Katie!
[Agent Dippold exits the Starbucks and I chase after her.]
2) The spill. Agent Porter Mason sits and writes at a nearby table. Shortly after Agent Dippold and I enter and stand in line, he spills his cup of coffee. Agent Mason then trots across the Starbucks, grabs a handful of napkins and returns to his table to clean up the mess.
3) The cell-phone call. Agent Flynn Barrison also sits and reads at a table. Directly after Agent Dippold and I exit, he receives a cell phone call (his ringtone is set to loud and plays “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin). He gets up and walks to the window for better reception. After finishing his call, Agent Barrison returns to his table.
4) The bathroom line. Agent Anthony King sits at another table, sipping his coffee and writing. Shortly after Agent Barrison takes his phone call, Agent King rises and heads to the bathroom line, stumbling and bumping into Agent Mason on the way. After apologizing to Agent Mason, he asks the patron at the back of the line, “Is this the line for the bathroom?” After briefly waiting in line, he returns to his table. Upon sitting back down, Agent King turns to Agent Barrison and remarks, “That bathroom line is too long.”
5) The R.E.M. song. Agent Ken Keech then enters from outside with a boom box playing “Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M. After strolling through the Starbucks while blasting the song, Agent Keech exits the through a door on the opposite side of the coffee shop.
6) The sneeze. Agent Chris Kula sits and reads a copy of ESPN The Magazine. After Agent Keech exits, he sneezes loudly, waits two beats, then clears his throat. Moments after his sneeze, Agent Dippold and I reenter the Starbucks and the loop starts again. (Agent Kula is also responsible for placing the cell phone call that makes Agent Barrison’s phone ring.)
Our goal was to seamlessly repeat this five-minute sequence of events for one hour. “I didn’t know the 'Star Trek' reference, but I did recognize that this was definitely the highest-concept prank I’d ever participated in,” Agent King said. “There was a lot of anticipation and excitement leading into it, because we didn’t know if we could pull off something this elaborate.”
At around 4:40 p.m. on the afternoon of the mission, Agents King, Barrison and Mason entered the Starbucks. There were two open tables in the coffee shop; Agent Mason claimed one, and Agents King and Barrison sat down at the other. After a few minutes passed, Agent Kula entered and, posing as a stranger, asked to sit at Agent Mason’s table. Soon, all four agents were sitting silently, sipping coffee, and minding their own business. At 4:47 p.m., Agent Dippold and I waited outside for the agents to get in place. Everything seemed humdrum inside the coffee shop, but little did the Starbucks patrons know, they were about to enter a bizarre vortex where Improv Everywhere would obliterate the dimensions of time and space.
II. The mission
“If Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in Time as we move about in other dimensions of Space?” — H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine"
4:48 p.m. — The first loop
Agent Dippold and I entered the Starbucks. Ever the gentleman, I held the door open for three ladies before walking in. (I repeated holding the door for the same length of time at every subsequent loop, despite there being no ladies to hold it open for.) We held hands and slowly approached the register, carefully memorizing every step we made, as we would have to repeat each of them 11 more times. As I considered what drink to order, Agent Dippold fumbled through her purse looking for her cell phone. I glanced down in her handbag and spotted the pack of cigarettes.
“You can’t smoke in here, Katie,” I said.
“I’m not smoking. I’m just getting my phone.”
“Give me those!” I snapped, trying to wrestle the cigarettes out of her purse. Agent Dippold slapped my hand away and cried out, “Stop it!”
“You promised you would never smoke around me,” I said.
“I’m not!”
I tried to grab the cigarettes again, seething with anger. “You promised you wouldn’t let me see these.”
Agent Dippold grew frustrated with my attempts to confiscate her cigarettes and stormed out of the Starbucks. But before walking out the door, she turned to me on the verge of tears and said, “I can’t believe you’re doing this!”
“Come back! Come back here, Katie!” I shouted after her, and then chased her out of the coffee shop.
As we exited, Agent Mason spilled his coffee and yelled, “Goddamn it!” He jumped up to get napkins and collided into Agent King on his way back to clean up his table. Agent King was, of course, on his way to the bathroom.
“After Agent King got in the bathroom line, Agent Kula covertly called my cell phone,” Agent Barrison said. “I let it ring, playing ‘The Entertainer’ for 20 seconds. It was really annoying. Then I answered it and moved near the door to get better reception. During a 30-second fake phone call, I made plans to meet a friend at a bar at 9 p.m., and then I went back to my table and resumed reading.”
Agent King returned to his table when Agent Barrison sat back down and remarked, “That bathroom line is too long.” At this point, Agent Keech entered the Starbucks with his boom box blaring “Shiny Happy People.” He walked in one door, slowly strutted across the store, and exited through a door on the opposite side. “I came awfully close to cracking up the first time Agent Keech walked in,” Agent Kula said. “Not so much because, you know, here’s a dude in a Starbucks with a boom box kicking out the jams, as it was, here’s a dude in a Starbucks with a boom box kicking out ‘Shiny Happy People.’ ”
As soon as Agent Keech was out of the Starbucks, Agent Kula sneezed loudly, looked up from his copy of ESPN The Magazine, and cleared his throat. On cue, I held the front door open for three invisible ladies and reentered the Starbucks with Agent Dippold.
4:53 p.m. — The second loop
As soon as we stepped back in line, Agent Dippold and I repeated our argument about her on again/off again smoking habit word for word and then stomped out of the Starbucks in a huff. Only a few people stopped what they were doing to watch our second tiff, but for all intents and purposes, it most likely appeared that Agent Dippold and I had resolved our first conflict, reentered the store, and had another flare-up.
As we exited, Agent Mason howled, “Goddamn it!” yet again as he spilled his drink, and we sloshed through the puddle of coffee he created on our way out. I heard “The Entertainer” ring on Agent Barrison’s phone as the door shut, and as Agent Dippold and I circled the block, Agent King waited in line in vain for the bathroom, and Agent Keech grooved through the store once more to the pleasing sounds of “Shiny Happy People.” A few heads turned to observe the oddity of an identical five-minute chain of events occurring twice in 10 minutes, but nobody seemed to be too concerned by it. That is, not until Agent Kula cleared his throat and Agent Dippold and I entered the Starbucks for a third time.
4:58 p.m. — The third loop
When Agent Dippold and I got in line for the third loop, it felt like every pair of eyes in the coffee shop was watching us. Every movement we made was identical to our first two trips through the Starbucks.
“You can’t smoke in here, Katie,” I said for the entire coffee shop to hear. As Agent Dippold and I launched into our argument for a third time, two curious men moved to another table so that they could get a better view of our altercation. After Agent Dippold exited the Starbucks, an old man turned to his buddy and announced, “Katie’s gone out of here three times!”
“On the third loop, things got interesting,” Agent King recalled. “A lot of people recognized that something weird was going on, but they were apprehensive to say anything out of fear that maybe this bizarre repetitive pattern was all in their own heads.”
5:03 p.m. — The fourth loop
As soon as I opened the door, I heard the old man say to his friend, “Uh-oh! Look who it is! Here comes Katie again!”
“You can’t smoke in here, Katie,” I said, re-initiating the loop.
The old guy turned to his friend. “Watch this. She’s gonna go stormin’ outta here.” On cue, Agent Dippold ran out of the Starbucks.
“Come back! Come back here, Katie!” I shouted. The old men started laughing. “See, I told you,” one of them said. “ ‘Come back, Katie!’ Ha! Ha! It’s like that every time!”
“What are we, in some sort of time warp?” the other old man asked.
After Agent King gave up on waiting in line for the bathroom and right before Agent Keech entered with his boom box, a Starbucks patron called out, “Here comes radio guy!” And sure enough, Agent Keech walked through the door playing “Shiny Happy People.”
5:08 p.m. — The fifth loop
“They always come back holding hands,” the old man told his buddy as Agent Dippold and I walked in yet again.
“Wouldn’t you give up after the second time?”
“If I was him, I’d say, ‘Fine! Leave! I’ll just be right here.’ ”
Another table of onlookers pointed at Agent Keech as he entered for the fifth time blaring R.E.M.’s feel-good song. “Look! The guy with the boom box keeps coming in that door. Here he comes! Here he comes!”
5:13 p.m. — The sixth loop
A Starbucks employee, obviously hip to our antics, approached me and asked for the time.
I glanced down at my watch and replied, “Five twenty-five.” He smiled and said, “Thanks. I hope everything is going OK.” For the remaining five loops, I looked at my watch and said, “Five twenty-five,” at the exact same moment. It had now been incorporated into our sequence.
5:18 p.m. — The seventh loop
After spilling his drink on himself for six consecutive loops, Agent Mason was sopping wet by the seventh go-round. As soon as his puddle of coffee was cleaned up, he’d go right ahead and spill his drink again.
“It was the perfect blend of hilarious and pitiful,” Agent Kula said. “People wanted to laugh, but at the same time they felt so bad for this poor guy whose shirt kept getting more and more soaked. Every single time after Agent Mason brought back the napkins and toweled himself off, I’d look up from my magazine and we’d share one of those half-smile/half-shrug looks as if to say, ‘Yep, it’s just one of those days ...’ ”
5:23 p.m. — The eighth loop
“And it all begins again!” I heard someone shout out as Agent Dippold and I entered.
By this point, some people started freaking out. Total strangers were chatting across tables, acknowledging that something really weird was happening.
“This is scary,” one man said. “Everything is happening over and over again.”
5:28 p.m. — The ninth loop
After Agent Dippold and I barged out of the Starbucks for the ninth time, a woman turned to her boyfriend and asked, “Would you chase after me like that over and over again?”
“Hell no!” he said. “You can chase your own damn self around the block!”
5:33 p.m. — The 10th loop
Because my argument with Agent Dippold and Agent Keech’s “Shiny Happy People” stroll through the Starbucks were the most noticeable patterns in the möbius, many people didn’t notice the more subtle loops until our 10th repetition.
“There was a young girl sitting beside Agent Barrison and me,” Agent King said. “She noticed the lovers’ quarrel repeating on the third time through but didn’t notice me repeating, ‘The line for this bathroom is really long,’ until much later. As the loops continued to progress, she started rubbing her face and shaking her head ... just looking really confused.”
5:38 p.m. — The 11th loop
“What is going on in here?” I heard someone say in frustration during my argument with Agent Dippold. “The same thing is happening over and over again!”
The sense of fear and confusion had totally evaporated. Everyone in the Starbucks began calling out what was going to happen next, as if they were a band of psychics with the ability to forecast the future.
“He’s gonna run after his girlfriend!” one man predicted right before I bolted after Agent Dippold.
“Cue the guy spilling his drink!” a woman said, like a symphony conductor, just before Agent Mason made a mess of his coffee.
At the end of this loop, nearly everyone in the Starbucks shouted in unison, “Here comes the radio guy!” And in walked Agent Keech playing “Shiny Happy People.”
5:43 p.m. — The final loop
Another Starbucks employee approached Agent Dippold and I upon our 12th entrance into the shop.
“Hello there,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure that everything is OK with you guys.”
“We were just going to get something to drink, if that’s OK,” Agent Dippold said.
“Yes, of course,” the Starbucks employee said. “I’m so sorry to bother you ...”
“No problem.”
“It’s just that all these people back there,” he said, pointing at the other agents, “it feels like this is some kind of instant replay. Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you.”
As soon as the employee walked away, I spotted Agent Dippold’s cigarettes again and we engaged in our final fight of the afternoon. For one last loop, Agent Mason spilled his coffee, Agent Barrison answered his cell phone, Agent King waited for the bathroom, Agent Keech blasted “Shiny Happy People,” and Agent Kula let out a big sneeze. Without acknowledging our stunt or each other, the agents exited the coffee shop, leaving behind a Starbucks full of puzzled people.
III. The aftermath
“We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time — of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances — of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it!” — Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
After the mission, all of the agents met up at a Starbucks across the street from the one where we had just pulled off our hour-long time loop. It was exciting to hear how well the mission had gone. I really had no idea whether our living möbius was working or not because I spent about 75 percent of the mission running around the block chasing after Agent Dippold. “When I stormed out each time, I’d walk around the corner and fix my hair in the window of the Gap,” Agent Dippold said. “I wonder if the Gap employees had their own déjà vu thing going with this girl who kept appearing in the window every five minutes to fix her hair.”
While time was looping over and over again in the Starbucks, Agent Dan Winckler filmed the entire stunt with a camera hidden in his duffel bag. Even though the quality of the video is pretty terrible, this mission went on to become one of the most popular pranks on Improv Everywhere’s Web site.
“The Möbius” resonated with a lot of people because it’s a simple, victimless prank that gives innocent bystanders a great story to tell. Other prank collectives in Newberg, Ore., Clemson, S.C., and Ann Arbor, Mich., have performed their own versions of this prank in public places. Thanks to these spin-off missions, “The Möbius” is a loop that will never end.
Mission: Accomplished