Punk'd

Punk'd is an American television show on MTV, first aired in 2003. It centers on the old Candid Camera idea of hidden cameras, but more closely resembles TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes in that the show pulls pranks on celebrities, making them look ridiculous in the process. It is hosted by Ashton Kutcher. Although a couple of segments during the first season depicted unknown random people being punk'd, subsequent seasons have focused entirely on celebrities.

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One of the best-known pranks involved convincing Justin Timberlake that the U.S. government was seizing his property and boarding up the doors and windows of his home for not paying his taxes.

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A frequent segment during the first season had then?fifteen-year-old Ryan Pinkston pretending to interview celebrities for a kids' show, only to mock them instead.

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The show has spawned the catchphrase "You just got punk'd".

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In late 2003, it was announced by MTV that Kutcher had decided not to continue production on Punk'd. Some commentators speculated that the announcement was a ploy designed to lower the guard of increasingly wary celebrities in an attempt at another season of pranks. This proved to be true when the third season began airing on April 25 2004. The television audience itself had been "punk'd".

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In June 2005, Ashton Kutcher failed to "punk" self-proclaimed King of Crunk Lil Jon. He was boarding a plane headed for Las Vegas, Kutcher used actors to play as customs agents to tell him that he was actually headed for Ecuador. Lil Jon quickly identified members of the "customs agents" from previous episodes of the program, and asked for Kutcher to reveal himself.

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In July 2005, Punk'd set a new record, when Indiana Pacers' Jermaine O'Neal was "punk'd" by four people, including Kutcher, Allen Iverson, and Todd Bridges.

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By the end of the fifth season, a total of seven non-American/non-Canadian stars had been Punk'd: Ozzy Osbourne's daughter Kelly, Mexican actress Salma Hayek, Dallas Mavericks' Dirk Nowitzki, British singer Joss Stone, American Idol judge Simon Cowell, Sofia Vergara, and That '70s Show star Mila Kunis have also been "punk'd" by Kutcher's crew members. (For Hayek and Kunis, they were "punk'd" by Kutcher.)

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Some controversies arose in seasons 3 and 4, when New York Yankees' third-baseman Alex Rodriguez and actor Michael Vartan threatened to sue Kutcher if the prank was aired on MTV or MTV2. Alex Rodriguez was Punk'd by Kutcher but, according to some people, he told Kutcher to destroy that tape and never to air the prank on MTV (it was destroyed).

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Dave Chappelle parodied Punk'd in a skit from his show called Zapped! a more disturbing version of Punk'd.

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In June 2004 O.J. Simpson, on the tenth anniversary of his ex-wife's and Ronald Goldman's murder, announced in interviews on Fox News and NBC that he was producing a straight-to-DVD, Punk'd-styled prank show of his own called Juice'd. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/199730p-172443c.html http://www.defamer.com/topic/oj-simpson-is-coming-to-juice-you-015697.php

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American: :This page disambiguates the many uses of American. For an article about those various uses, please see Use of the word American....

Television show: REDIRECT Television program...

MTV: MTV (abbreviation for Music Television) is a cable television network which was originally devoted to music videos, especially popular rock music. MTV later became an outlet for a variety of different material aimed at adolescents and young adults....

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