An American Original

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Hi, it's Phoebe. Today an episode that we originally made for our other show, This Is Love. Sometimes a story will come along and we're not sure whether to make it for criminal or this is love, because it could kind of go both ways. This is one of those stories. We hope you like it. In nineteen sixty-three, Newsday published an article about an organization that thought animals should be wearing clothes. The headline was decency counts.

The article included a sewing pattern, boxer shorts for dog and horse. The pattern could also be used for cats, the writer noted, but with some minor adjustments. Quote, just ruffle the bottom and use a fancy print material. The New York Times wrote about this campaign too, after people showed up and picketed in front of the White House. They wanted the first lady, Jackie Kennedy, to put clothes on her horses. Jean Abel was one of the picketers. Sous-titrage ST' 501

Naked animals. Jean says that during the protest, she held up a sign that said, please put pants on macaroni. That was Caroline Kennedy's pony. He'd been a gift from Lyndon B. Johnson. Jean's husband. Alan Abel was at the protest too. Picketing in D.C. had been Jean and Allen's idea. Actually, the whole thing had been their idea. Cinna, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, was a prank that they'd been running for years. How did you and Alan meet?

Well, I came to New York uh looking for my an acting career. I'd already done summer stock and and studied speech and acting in college, and it was my time to Try my luck. Jean saw a call for actresses in a newspaper. She answered the ad and ended up meeting Alice. He seemed very nice. I at this point I'd only spent maybe a a month or so in New York. Um I'd I'd met with various agents and they all seemed rather abrupt. They didn't want to spend more than five minutes.

Getting to know you. But he took like forty minutes. And I'm trying to figure out why he was being so nice and kind to me. Alan was spending so much time talking to her because he was stalish. There was a man in the hallway waiting to talk to him about a prop tree he'd used for an off Broadway play and never returned. So I didn't learn. processor for quite some time after, but meantime we got, you know, very chummy, what can I say? Jean and Allen were married within the year.

I'm Phoebe Judge and this is Love. Can't say, you know, I fell for him immediately, um, but he certainly grew on me, that's for sure. just had this I i I don't know, I I think a lot of it emanated from his father who He would engage waiters and waitresses in conversation. He would he would step outside the norm to to be kind and to be.

Uh to to find other people interesting. And I I kind of liked that. I thought that was very that was unlike many of the fellows y you would meet, you know. When Jean met Alan, he already knew what he wanted to do with his life. He just didn't know how he was going to do it. I think the thing that all started it all for him Uh when he went to Ohio State, he was giving uh the the new freshman some sort of pep talk or something. In the process he fell off the stage.

And he got laughs. They thought he was being funny. He actually fell off the stage without intent. And um but every time he rubbed his elbow or some other you know, scratched his head or whatever, he got a laugh. And he liked laughter. He liked he thought huh. It was a few years after that when Allen came up with the idea that it would be funny to tell people to put clothes on animals.

At the time, he was driving around the country performing music. He played the drums, and he spent hours on the road. he was in Texas and all of a sudden along a highway in Texas traffic stopped. There were cattle crossing the highway. And two particular a lady and male um cows were having a romantic affair.

and people were just the the various reactions as he saw them in the cars ahead and behind in his rear view mirror were so interesting to him He started writing in his head, he started writing this story, and it was about an association of people who were gonna make animals wear clothes. Alan wrote to a couple newspapers, pretending to be a spokesperson for the association. He wanted to see if they would take his letters seriously and publish them. They did it.

But he was still curious if he could get anyone else's attention.

And so he started r printing up pamphlets and leaving'em along the way in motel drawers and and restaurants and w tables you know, just trying to plant the idea. Allen wrote that the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals was founded by a man named G Clifford Prout, who left his son, G Clifford Prout junior four hundred thousand dollars to run it. Apparently, the rest of the Prout family was contesting G. Clifford Prout's will, but his son was determined to carry out his wishes.

Soon Allen decided that writing press releases and pamphlets about Cinna wasn't enough. He wanted people to be able to hear from G. Clifford Prout Jr. himself. So he convinced a friend, an aspiring actor, to play him. G. Clifford Prout ended up being Buck Henry, our friend. who uh was at that point in his career not only an actor but a writer. Buck Henry would eventually go on to create a comedy show with Mel Brooks called Get Smart.

Then he'd co write The Graduate, direct Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty, and host Saturday Night Live ten times. But when Alan convinced him to play G. Clifford Prout Jr., Buck Henry was just starting out. So no one recognized him when he was interviewed about Cinna on The Today Show in May of 1959. Or again in June, when the show invited him back. NBC advertised that G. Clifford Prout Jr. would return to the Today Show to talk about, quote, his theories of nudism.

Newspapers across the country started writing about Cinna. In the Austin American, one writer said, quote, If you hope as we did, that these people are kidding, you're wrong. Now, this unusual device here is called a CINAH Clothmobile. A vehicle, a truck that we send into small communities with a driver and a CINAH member who can spot a naked animal at 50 feet.

This is Alan Abel, describing one of the ways Cinna planned to get clothes to more animals. He did interviews about Cinna too, sometimes posing as Cinna's vice president. The Closmobile never existed, but the Abels did make fake Cinema membership cards and some sample outfits. For an interview with one TV show, Alan brought a bag of clothes with him, as well as some diagrams of animals appropriately covered up.

At one point he pulled a large pair of pants out of his bag. They were for an elephant. Tell me about the idea for DC, picketing in DC. What was the plan? The plan was, basically, Alan put out a lot of um print material that alluded to, you know, thousands of people showing up to picket. And um we were going to be the forerunners. It was Alan, myself, and his doorman. And since Alan had made such a big deal of the plan, some reporters showed up too.

And um people going by in the cars were, you know, pausing and asking for leaflets and it builds, it builds, it builds. Uh even though there are only three of us, a few people joined in along the way just for the hell of it. But um it was just three of us. But it made all the newspapers.

In 1962, Alan Abel and Buck Henry visited the San Francisco Children's Zoo. Which Buck Henry said they called quote. of the animal world. Well, the Daily Herald in London picked up the story and wrote that, quote, crowds cheered as G. Clifford Prout Jr. wanted to put a pair of pants on a goat. Some reporters were much more skeptical about Cinna. When Buck Henry was interviewed by New York's Daily News, the writer said, quote, He's been on several TV shows.

And thus far no one has discovered whether he has his tongue wedged in his cheek. Alan Abel and Buck Henry told the press that Cinna had tens of thousands of members, but they made it clear that Cinna never asked for money. Once, Jean Abel remembers they actually did get a check from a woman in Santa Barbara who wanted to support the cause.

The woman sent it to Sinna's supposed office at five hundred oh seven fifth Avenue in New York City, which was actually a small closet Jean and Allen rented. They sent the check back. In one interview, Alan said Cinna wouldn't accept money because it had been founded with G. Clifford Prout Jr.'s inheritance from his father, four hundred thousand dollars. But then, Alan heard from the IRS. Eventually uh IRS came looking for the taxes on that money.

And he enjoyed the the fracas one way or another. He would solve all kinds of problems as they came up, and I think he was Eve even when the IRS called him in for an audit, you know. He would be happy about it. I don't know why, I wouldn't be. But he was always felt challenged and he liked the challenge. To a an IRS meeting he would take a gift wrap tube and put a microphone in it in a shopping bag so he could record it.

Uh I I never felt worried that he was well maybe I felt worried a few times that he might get arrested. Things started to fall apart after Buck Henry, playing G. Clifford Prout Jr., was interviewed by Walter Cronkite on CBS. It was a risky move because Buck Henry was about to start working at CBS as a writer for the Gary Moore Show.

Well, uh it was found out that Buck was kind of right under their noses. He was right there writing for for Gary Moore while he was still occasionally playing Buck uh uh G. Clifford Proud. Gene says that eventually someone recognized him, and CBS realized they'd been pranked. Cinna wasn't real. Walter Cronkite was upset, and people started to realize that Alan Abel was the one behind it all.

Well, I think C B S also was for a period of time was angry with him, wouldn't do anything. His his picture was up on some billboard somewhere, you know, don't talk to this guy or whatever. In 1964, five years after Allen started Cinna, he admitted to a reporter for the Associated Press that it was all made up. He also said that The Internal Revenue Service has no sense of humor. We'll be right back. Thanks to Squarespace for their support.

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Tell me the story about Yetta Bronstein. Oh, well, Yeddah. Yeta, Yeta, where are you? Um, this was something I invented. Um Alan once did a a radio show. uh, from the Playboy Club. It was new at that time and Hugh Hefner had seen him and put him in that role. And it was a call-in show and people could respond and I would call in as different characters. And yeah, there was one. Alan's live radio show for Playboy was called Tabletalk.

When Jean called into the show as Yeta Bronstein, she introduced herself as a housewife. Quote, Yeta lives in the Bronx, she has a boy named Marvin. He plays the drums badly. The show with um the Playboy Club didn't last long, I think three months. But um we thought Yetta can't be hanging out there doing nothing. Yet that has to do something. The p campaign was on, uh Johnson and What was his name? Goldrich, Gold something. Barry Goldwater. So Alan decided that yet I should run for president.

Allen later said they wanted to find out if, quote, America was ready for a Jewish mother in the White House. Jean liked the idea, and they started thinking about Yeta's campaign. They decided that she would run as a write in candidate for a party they called the best party. Geta's platform would include national bingo and putting a suggestion box on the fence of the White House. She also opposed the Vietnam War.

Jean and Alan printed posters for Yeta, which included an address for the Best Party headquarters, 507 Fifth Avenue, the same broom closet they'd used as the address for Cinna. Then Jean and Alan contacted radio stations, so Jean could give interviews as yet. in my twenties and um hardly a matron. And um yet I was obviously older. So we ended up using Alan's p pic mother's picture when we had to produce something. Here's Jean Is Yeta on WNBC in New York. The bird Oh yeah.

Birthday. And also When the Democratic National Convention happened in New Jersey that year, Alan and Jean got twenty people to march around the convention center holding signs that said vote for Yeda. And also at least one sign with just the question. In november nineteen sixty one. The New York Times ran an article called The third part of the Mostly extreme. The article read There appears to be no national consensus for bingo.

It turned out to be true, since Yeta Bronstein wasn't even on the ballot.

In 1972, Jean and Alan had a daughter, Jenny. By then, they'd spent about 13 years trying to pull off different pranks together, and Alan was still coming up with new ideas. Here's Jenny. He had just uh dressed up in bandages as Howard Hughes right before I was born.

Allen, with his entire face covered in bandages and claiming to be Howard Hughes, announced at a press conference at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City that he planned to freeze himself. Uh, through cry cryogenics until the stock market was higher. And because the billionaire Howard Hughes was usually very private, thirty six reporters actually showed up.

Jenny remembers that even as a toddler, Alan would sometimes bring her in on his pranks. I do remember going on to the Bill Boggs show and eating a hair sandwich, or refusing to eat a hair sandwich. This was when Alan pretended to be a doctor, investigating the quote, food properties of human hair. He said it had good protein. Jenny says even though they'd practice together when the cameras were rolling, she refused to eat the fake sandwich.

A little bit later, though, Jenny and Alan got away with something bigger. My dad somehow caught wind of the fact that there was a train car an old caboose, like a nineteen sixteen Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific caboose. that was down at the local train yard. Alan decided he wanted it. I mean it was like I don't know, forty eight, fifty feet long and eight feet wide. This is no small thing. It had the cupola on top and the old classic looks of a uh caboose.

The Apled in Connecticut, and the Local Planning and Zoning Commission wasn't so sure about the caboots. Of course they said, No, no, no, you can't have a caboose, you know, blah blah blah. And my dad had taught me how to cry on cue. And nobody wants a crying kid in the room. So I think they just appeased my dad and said, okay, okay, okay, you got the permit.

The Aples had a caboose christening party for their neighbors. And over the next few years, Jenny grew up playing with it, and Alan often used it as his office. The Abels eventually sold their house, but as of 2023, the caboose is still there. Jenny remembers seeing her parents pull off other pranks too, like in nineteen eighty three when Alan sent a fake referee into the Super Bowl.

The costume. I remember my dad having a fake referee costume. I don't know if he bought tickets. I don't even know how W with security at the time in the eighties, they got through. But my dad had a fake referee and a fake police officer. run onto the field. And I believe the fake referee called a few plays They were pulled off the field. Someone realized it's a it's a joke. They're not real.

A few days after the game, the NFL confirmed that a fake referee had made it onto the field. The Iowa City press also reported that Alan Abel had snuck onto the sidelines wearing a white medical jacket. One of Allen's most controversial hoaxes was in nineteen ninety one. A few years before, David Duke, the former head of the KKK, had tried to run for president, initially as a Democrat.

In nineteen ninety he ran for the US Senate, and in nineteen ninety one he was campaigning to be the governor of Louisiana. And he was actually, you know, taken seriously. And that was what bothered Alan. And then, during his gubernatorial campaign, reports started coming out that David Duke had founded a KKK Symphony, reportedly to rival the New York Philharmonic. When a reporter called David Duke, he wrote he was quote, irritated and said, there is no KKK Symphony Orchestra.

The hoax was eventually traced back to Alan Abel, and he told that same reporter he thought the KKK should be laughed at. He he always just wanted to get people engaged intellectually to to get them to wake them up. Uh a kick in the intellect is what he used to say. We'll be right back.

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I got in the water in the very early morning before the sun had risen and the water was pitch black. I started swimming and I felt the water hollowing out around me and felt like something really big was swimming below. I'm Phoebe Judge and this is Love. A show about the surprising things that love can make us do. More than a hundred episodes. Available now on This Is Love.

By around nineteen eighty, Alan Abel's hoaxes had made him a little famous. And Jean says there were conversations about making a movie about his life. When Alan went to meet with some producers about selling the rights to his life story, he ended up in an elevator with people who were talking about him. They didn't recognize who he was.

And they're talking to each other about, well, if we if we wait around, you know, till he dies, uh, we can talk to the mudo, you know, and get it cheaper. It was basically that c train of of thinking. And uh that's what sparked him to figure, well what if I die? Let's see what you do, you know. So Alan decided to fake his own death. He came up with a story that he died in Utah at a ski resort. He got in touch with some trusted friends to help him pull away.

There was a whole like really involved production. Like he had telephone number and his friend in Utah. would corroborate the story that had skied and lost control and like landed in the woods and died of a heart attack. They had a fake funeral home directory.

The funeral director would corroborate his story when the newspaper was Alan submitted news of his death to the New York Times, which published its obituary on January 2, 1980, with the headline Alan Abel, satirist, created campaign to clothe animals. He was fifty years old and lived in Manhattan, and Westport, Connecticut. mister Abel made a point in his work of challenging the obvious and uttering the outrageous. In addition to his wife, he survived by a daughter, Jennifer.

Alan hadn't told Jean about the plan to fake his own death. He didn't keep me waiting forever. I mean, knowing my husband as as I did, I know he couldn't have been out skiing out out in wherever it was supposed to be, some western state. So I figured as one more of those. Jenny was seven years old, and Alan didn't tell her either. The way that I remember it, I had gone to school that day and Everyone was looking at me with these

Sorrow-filled eyes and expressions. And then my teacher actually approached me and said, I'm so sorry, Jennifer. And I really didn't know what she was talking about, honestly. Like th that I I said, what do you mean? And she said, Well, your dad died. And I I I was like, what? I my I just played basketball with my dad. I don't know what you're talking about. I wasn't really fazed because I think a part of me knew that it It was another hoax.

Jean says Alan eventually called to say he was alive, but she doesn't remember exactly when. Did you have to confirm to anyone? Did anyone call you up and say Well, somebody somebody left flowers? And we never knew who that was. And uh there were calls from his s some of his friends, uh, but that took another day or so, so by that time I knew it wasn't but

Uh I I I I guess I kept his you know I kept it quiet, I didn't divulge. Uh and some said I was just writing you a note when I thought, wait a minute. This is Alan Abel. And they threw it in the hot garbage instead. Alan waited a couple of days, and then he organized a press conference to announce that he was alive. On january fourth, the New York Times ran another article, obituary disclosed as hoax.

It was the first time in the newspaper's history that it had to retract an obituary. Alan and Jean Abel were married for almost 60 years. What what do you think was the key to your long marriage? Well, I I I guess I was tolerant for wanting What was I gonna do? I love the guy. Um it was hard sometimes. We went through a lot of different things up and down And um I mean we lived sometimes on uh you know, on the tip of a pin, for lack of money or whatever. We it's amazing how things happened.

Their daughter Jenny says her parents were always talking to each other about ideas and writing them down. She remembers that one prank involved throwing real money out the window of a fancy hotel suite. It's almost like it's symbolic of their whole relationship where they weren't fixated on money. They just my mom and my dad loved each other and the money didn't matter. They w just wanted to to do their art together.

Sometime around 2001, Alan was recording an interview with a TV show that wanted to talk about his pranks over the years. And apparently my father saw that the camera operator was Suppressing laughter. And after the interview was over, my dad said, Hey, do you want to go out to dinner? The cameraman was named Jeff. Allen thought he might get along well with Jenny.

And my dad was he was relentless. He's like, did you call Jeff? Did you call Jeff? Did you call Jeff? Over, over. It just he wouldn't stop. So I finally called Jeff. We went on a date. I I don't know if I would say it was love at first sight, but by the end of the night I the deal was sealed. Like I just I can't believe that my dad set me up with him. Jenny and Jeff have been together for about twenty four years. They have a son who Jenny says reminds her of her father.

And s September September fourteenth, twenty eighteen, my dad died for real. And we got more than one call from the New York Times to make sure he was really dead. It was you know, my mom and I were still grieving. But that part I found to be so it was almost like funny. You know, I feel like If he saw that obituary that the New York Times inevitably printed when he actually died, like, he wouldn't believe it. It was like almost a full page.

It ran with the headline Alan Abel, Hoaxer Extraordinaire, is parentheses on good authority, dead at 94. He was the news media conceded with a kind of irritated admiration, an American arrival. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer, Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Zujico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.

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