Alan Irwin Abel (August 2, 1924 – September 14, 2018) was an American hoaxer, writer, and mockumentary filmmaker famous for several hoaxes that became media circuses.
Education and early career
Abel was born to a Jewish family in Zanesville, Ohio, on August 2, 1924, and grew up in nearby Coshocton, Ohio. He graduated from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in education. One of Abel's earliest pranks took place in the late 1950s; he posed as a golf professional who taught Westinghouse executives how to use ballet positions to improve their games.
Beginning May 27, 1959, with a story on the Today Show, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), was Abel's most elaborate hoax. SINA's mission was to clothe naked animals throughout the world. They are best known today for their tagline: "A nude horse is a rude horse". As a spokesman for the group, Buck Henry appeared as "G. Clifford Prout" on television and radio several times, including the CBS Evening News on August 21, 1962. Abel himself appeared on The Mike Douglas Show to discuss the SINA mission. The hoax began as a satire of media censorship, but took on a life of its own with sympathizers offering unsolicited contributions (always returned), citizen summonses for walking naked dogs, and sewing patterns for pet clothes. He orchestrated protests, such as picketing the White House in 1963 to demand Jackie Kennedy's horses wear pants.
He invented a fictional housewife named Yetta Bronstein who ran as a write-in candidate for president of the United States in both 1964 and 1968. A member of "The Best Party", Bronstein ran with the slogan "Vote for Yetta and things will get betta" and a platform which included National Bingo and a suggestion box in front of the White House. On January 3, Abel held a news conference to announce, "[the] reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated", a reference to the similar statement by Mark Twain. It was the first retracted obituary in New York Times history.
In 1997, Abel launched CGS Productions to promote gift-wrapped pint jars of Jenny McCarthy's urine. (A parody of McCarthy's role in a shoe commercial where she appeared sitting on a toilet.) The name of the communications director for CGS Productions was Stoidi Puekaw – "wake up idiots" backwards.
Abel once ran for Congress on a platform that included paying congressmen based on commission; selling ambassadorships to the highest bidder; installing a lie detector in the White House and truth serum in the Senate drinking fountain; requiring all doctors to publish their medical-school grade point average in the telephone book after their names; and removing Wednesday to establish a four-day workweek.
Later years
In 1994 he appeared on The Jenny Jones Show to tell a fabricated story about his wife gluing his penis to his butt while he was asleep. Abel, who initially appeared in the video as "Bruce the musician" (later versions of the documentary changed this to reflect that Abel was a prankster), did not disrobe for the documentary crew, and said that he would only do so if they were to have group sex afterwards.
Abel died on September 14, 2018, at his home in Southbury, Connecticut, from complications of cancer and heart failure; he was 94. Owing to Abel's previous death hoax, The New York Times sought independent confirmation of his death from his family, a hospice organization, and a local funeral home before publishing an obituary.