How does punkd work

Print Subscriptions. Deseret News homepage. Reddit Pocket Email Linkedin. No one is safe. Sign up for the newsletter Morning Edition Start your day with the top stories you missed while you were sleeping.

Thanks for signing up! True, one of the ways MTV fakes reality TV is by scripting scenes, and that didn't exactly happen in this case. Instead, the series was molded by the lawyers who stepped in to control the outcomes of potentially risky situations.

Basically, Punk'd was pranking in a controlled setting. Even the actors weren't really being themselves. Producers had no qualms about cutting up their actual reactions and making it look like host Ashton Kutcher could not be beat. They hid their failures and pranks gone wrong. It may not be the fakest show, but many of the ways MTV's Punk'd is fake have to do with lying by omission. Producers had to deal with so much potential violence on Punk'd that they made a policy : if you see a weapon, shut the prank down and reveal yourself immediately.

Someone actually pulled a gun in a never-aired episode featuring the Black Eyed Peas. A physical altercation broke out when someone in their entourage brought out the weapon. Part of the reason why Punk'd was so great were the celebrity reactions.

Unfortunately, too much of the time, a star's real reaction was left on the cutting room floor. Instead, the Punk'd crew faked an earthquake.

Apparently, Drake jumped and curled up into the fetal position on his friend's lap. In the episode that aired, though, Drake is just shown looking scared. The extent of his fear was only revealed later when Ashton Kutcher shared the story. At the helm of the former was Ashton Kutcher who seems like a polar opposite individual today from what he was 20 years ago.

Somehow, execs around the MTV meeting tables agreed to a pitch from his production team to put together a similar show, except with real people. Perhaps giving too much power to someone like Kutcher at the time was a bit misguided. The micro-format of Quibi's Punk'd keeps episodes tight and to-the-point without the potential for a laugh lost. Candid comedy, much like sketch comedy, blooms best in fast-paced environments and is better off quitting sooner rather than later for maximum effect.

You'll be surprised just how much fits into that small window, and how snappy it is for it. Punk'd and the also-revived Reno ! Most modern prank shows sprung from Candid Camera , with its hidden camera format creating havoc for the general populace to react to for our entertainment.

Punk'd took the idea to a whole new level by putting a specific subset of celebrities under the spotlight: Musicians and actors most recognized by teens of the era and the emerging profession of reality television personalities. The Punk'd will do much the same in poking fun at the lifestyles of the nouveau riche and famous rather than the random passersby on the street.

At the same time, what qualifies for that kind of celebrity has changed a lot in the decade-plus since the OG Punk'd left the air. The teeny-boppers, Paris Hiltons, and college-age-stoner-movie talent of mid-aughts MTV this is not; Quibi's Punk'd pulls stunts on something YouTubers, Migos and Megan Thee Stallion, and actors and actress whom teens these days "stan. Some of the personalities chosen to appear on the new Punk'd would have been in elementary school when Ashton Kutcher took his final bow on MTV, so make of that fact what you will and settle in to enjoy a new generation of silliness.

This content was paid for by Quibi and created by Looper.