Year(s): 2004
President George W. Bush, flanked by his loyal Cabinet and special friends, made a rare public spectacle of himself taking care of business in New York City’s Washington Square Park on July 4, 2004.
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The Final Curtain was an over-the-top parody of the death care industry, designed to provoke people to think about their feelings about life, death and burial in a new light–before it’s personally too late.
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Year(s): 1999
On December 4, 1999, Joey Skaggs and a team of co-conspirators marched into Washington Square Park toting a 10’ x 14’ painting of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the Madonna and a large vat of elephant dung. The painting was a satirical replica of the Chris Ofili painting “Holy Virgin Mary” which was part of the Brooklyn Museum’s “Sensation” show. The Mayor had recently attempted to defund the museum because, to him, the artist’s use of elephant dung instead of paint was offensive. Skaggs’ plan was to offer the public an opportunity to doody Rudy with Dumbo’s dung.
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Year(s): 1995
In February of 1995, Baba Wa Simba–Swahili for the Lion King–arrived in London ready to meet with his London Pride and later with the press. Born the son of American missionary parents in Kenya, Baba Wa Simba had grown up with the Masai at a lion sanctuary. His parents had been killed and eaten by lions, and, drawn to disenfranchised and troubled youth, he had developed his own philosophic approach to therapy, to heal the wounded animal within. Or, so he said. Baba Wa Simba was actually Joey Skaggs and the hoax was on the international media.
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Year(s): 1994
After The New York Times Magazine published John Tierney’s article, Falling For It, about Joey Skaggs’ Dog Meat Soup hoax, the National Enquirer called Skaggs and told him they were doing a profile about him. They wanted an exclusive photo shoot. They had covered Skaggs numerous times before and should have known what he looked like. He decided to send an impostor.
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Year(s): 1994
In May of 1994, Kim Yung Soo (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs), president of Kea So Joo, Inc., sent 1,500 letters to dog shelters around the U.S. soliciting their unwanted dogs for $.10 a pound. The outrage was instant.
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Year(s): 1994
For April Fool’s Day in 1994, Joey Skaggs wrote a script and produced a 30 second TV commercial in which he portrayed a psychic attorney called Maqdananda to satirize the proliferation of both New Age psychics and ambulance chasing attorneys. The commercial aired 40 times throughout the last week of March on CNN Headline News in Hawaii.
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Year(s): 1993
In 1993, Joey Skaggs was invited to give a presentation called “The Media: Politics, Power and Persuasion” at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. When the local NBC TV News called to interview Skaggs before the talk, Skaggs sent Assistant Professor Beauvais Lyons, creator of a collection of mock-archaeology and curator of the Hokes Archives, in his place.
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Year(s): 1993
Joey Skaggs couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hoax the Faith Daniels Show when they sought couples who use sex tapes to appear in a segment called “Sex Tapes — Do They Work?”.
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Year(s): 1991
Joey Skaggs was invited to appear on Geraldo’s TV talk show. They also asked him to bring a journalist he had previously hoaxed. The topic was to be media hoaxes. Skaggs instead brought a friend posing as an Associated Press journalist, who said she had been hoaxed by him. Geraldo fell for the hoax hook, line and sinker.
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