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Hi, it's Phoebe. Today an episode that we originally made for our other show, This is Love.
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Sometimes a story will come along and we're not sure whether to make it for Criminal or This is Love
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because it could kind of go both ways. This is one of those stories. We hope you like it.
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In 1963, Newsday published an article about an organization that thought animals should be wearing clothes.
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The headline was Decency Counts. The article included a sewing pattern boxer shorts for dog and horse.
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The pattern could also be used for cats, the writer noted, but with some minor adjustments. Quote, "Just ruffle the
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bottom and use a fancy print material." The New York Times wrote about this campaign, too, after people showed up
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and picketed in front of the White House. They wanted the first lady, Jackie Kennedy, to put clothes on her
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horses. Jean Ebel was one of the picketers. >> We called it SINAN, the Society for
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Indecency to Naked Animals. >> Jean says that during the protest, she held up a sign that said, "Please put
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pants on Macaroni." That was Caroline Kennedy's pony. He'd been a gift from Lyndon B. Johnson.
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Jean's husband, Alan Ebel, was at the protest, too. Picketing in DC had been Jean and Alan's
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idea. Actually, the whole thing had been their idea. SINAN, the Society for Indecency to
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Naked Animals, was a prank that they'd been running for years. How did you and Alan meet?
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>> Well, I came to New York looking for my an acting career. I had already done summer stock and
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and studied speech and acting in college and it was my time to try my luck. >> Jean saw a call for actresses in a
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newspaper. She answered the ad and ended up meeting Alan. >> He seemed very nice. I at this point I'd
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only spent maybe a a month or so in New York. Um I'd I'd met with various agents and they
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all seemed rather abrupt. They didn't want to spend more than 5 minutes getting to know you.
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But he took like 40 minutes. And I'm trying to figure out why he was being so nice and kind to me.
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>> Alan was spending so much time talking to her because he was stalling. There was a man in the hallway waiting
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to talk to him about a prop tree he'd used for an off-Broadway play and never returned.
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>> So he was being sued for that, a couple hundred bucks. So I didn't learn about of course the
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process server for quite some time after, but meantime we got, you know, very chummy.
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What can I say? >> Jean and Alan were married within the year. I'm Phoebe Judge and this is love.
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>> I I can't say, you know, I fell for him immediately. Um but he certainly grew on me, that's for
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sure. He just had this I I don't know. I think a lot of it emanated from his father who
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had a small general store in Coshocton, Ohio. And Alan was that kind of guy. He would
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engage waiters and waitresses in conversation. He would he would step outside the norm
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to to be kind and to be uh to to find other people interesting. And I I kind of liked that. I thought
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that was very that was unlike many of the fellows that you would meet, you know.
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>> When Jean met Allan, he already knew what he wanted to do with his life. He just didn't know how he was going to
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do it. >> I think the thing that all started it all for him uh when he went to Ohio State, he was
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giving uh the the new freshmen some sort of pep talk or something. In the process, he fell off the stage
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and he got laughs. They thought he was being funny. He actually fell off the stage without a tent. And um but every
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time he rubbed his elbow or some other, you know, scratched his head or whatever, he got a laugh.
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And he liked laughter. He liked He thought, "Huh." >> It was a few years after that when Allan
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came up with the idea that it would be funny to tell people to put clothes on animals.
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At the time, he was driving around the country performing music. He played the drums and he spent hours on the road.
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>> He was in Texas and all of a sudden along a highway in Texas, traffic stopped. There were cattle crossing the
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highway and two particular lady and male um cows were having a romantic affair. And people were just
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the various reactions that he saw them in the cars ahead and behind in his rearview mirror
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were so interesting to him. He started writing in his head. He started writing this story
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and it was about an association of people who were going to make animals wear clothes.
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>> Allan wrote to a couple newspapers pretending to be a spokesperson for the association.
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He wanted to see if they would take his letter seriously and publish them. They didn't.
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But he was still curious if he could get anyone else's attention. >> And so he started printing up pamphlets
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and leaving them along the way in motel drawers and and restaurants and tables and you know,
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just trying to plant the idea. >> Alan wrote that the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals
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was founded by a man named G. Clifford Prout who left his son G. Clifford Prout Jr. $400,000 to run it.
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Apparently, the rest of the Prout family was contesting G. Clifford Prout's will
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but his son was determined to carry out his wishes. Soon Alan decided that writing press
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releases and pamphlets about Cenna wasn't enough. He wanted people to be able to hear from
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G. Clifford Prout Jr. himself. So he convinced a friend, an aspiring actor, to play him.
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>> G. Clifford Prout ended up being Buck Henry, a friend who was at that point in his career not only
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an actor but a writer. >> Buck Henry would eventually go on to create a comedy show with Mel Brooks
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called Get Smart. Then he'd co-write The Graduate, direct Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty, and
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host Saturday Night Live 10 times. But when Alan convinced him to play G. Clifford Prout Jr., Buck Henry was just
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starting out. So no one recognized him when he was interviewed about Cenna on the Today
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show in May of 1959. Or again in June when the show invited him back. NBC advertised that G. Prout Jr. would
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return to the Today show to talk about quote his theories of nudism. Newspapers across the country started
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writing about Cenna. In the Austin American, one writer said quote if you hope as we did that these people
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are kidding you're wrong. >> Now, this unusual device here is called a Cenna Clothmobile, a vehicle, a truck
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that we send into small communities with a driver and a CIN member who can spot a
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naked animal at 50 feet. >> This is Alan Abel describing one of the ways CIN planned to get clothes to more
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animals. He did interviews about CIN too, sometimes posing as CIN's vice president.
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The clothesmobile never existed, but the Abels did make fake CIN membership cards
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and some sample outfits. For an interview with one TV show, Alan brought a bag of clothes with him as
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well as some diagrams of animals appropriately covered up. At one point, he pulled a large pair of
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pants out of his bag. They were for an elephant. >> Tell me about the idea for DC picketing
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in DC. What was the plan? >> The plan was basically Alan put out a lot of um print material
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that alluded to, you know, thousands of people showing up to picket. And um we were going to be the
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forerunners. It was Alan, myself, and his doorman. >> And since Alan had made such a big deal
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of the plan, some reporters showed up, too. >> And um people going by in the cars were, you
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know, pausing and asking for leaflets and as it builds, it builds, it builds. Even though there only three of us,
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a few people joined in along the way just for the hell of it. But um it was just three of us, but it
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made all the newspapers. >> In 1962, Alan Abel and Buck Henry visited the San Francisco Children's
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Zoo, which Buck Henry said they called, quote, the burlesque house of the animal
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world. Somehow, the Daily Herald in London picked up the story and wrote that, quote, crowds cheered as G. Clifford
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Prout Jr. attempted to put a pair of pants on a goat. Some reporters were much more skeptical
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about Cenna. When Buck Henry was interviewed by New York's Daily News, the writer said,
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quote, "He's been on several TV shows, and thus far no one has discovered whether he has his tongue wedged in his
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cheek." Alan Abel and Buck Henry told the press that Cenna had tens of thousands of
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members, but they made it clear that Cenna never asked for money. Once, Jean Abel remembers, they actually
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did get a check from a woman in Santa Barbara who wanted to support the cause. The woman sent it to Cenna's supposed
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office at 507 5th Avenue in New York City, which was actually a small closet Jean
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and Alan rented. They sent the check back. In one interview, Alan said Cenna wouldn't accept money because it had
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been founded G. Clifford Prout Jr.'s inheritance from his father, $400,000. But then, Alan heard from the IRS.
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>> Eventually, uh IRS came looking for the taxes on that money. >> Jean says the IRS wanted to see Cenna's
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books. >> And he enjoyed the the fracas one way or another. He would solve all kinds of problems as they came
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up, and I think he was even when the IRS called him in for an audit, you know. He'd be happy about it. I don't know
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why, I wouldn't be, but he he was always felt challenged, and he liked the challenge.
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Uh to a an IRS meeting, he would take uh gift wrap tube and put a microphone in it in a shopping bag so he could record
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it. Uh I I never felt worried that he was Well, maybe I felt worried a few times
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that he might get arrested. >> Things started to fall apart after Buck Henry, playing G. Clifford Prout Jr.,
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was interviewed by Walter Cronkite on CBS. It was a risky move because Buck Henry
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was about to start working at CBS as a writer for the Garry Moore Show. >> Well, uh it was found out that Buck was
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kind of right under their noses. He was right there writing for for Garry Moore while he was still
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occasionally playing Buck uh uh G. Clifford Prout. >> Jean says that eventually someone
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recognized him and CBS realized they'd been pranked. Sen. wasn't real. Walter Cronkite was upset and people
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started to realize that Alan Abel was the one behind it all. >> Well, I think CBS also was for a period
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of time was angry with him wouldn't do anything. His his picture was up on some billboard
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somewhere, you know, don't talk to this guy or whatever. >> In 1964, 5 years after Alan started
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Sen., he admitted to a reporter for the Associated Press that it was all made up.
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He also said, quote, "The Internal Revenue Service has no sense of humor." We'll be right back.
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>> Tell me the story about Yetta Bronstein. >> Oh, well, Yetta. Yetta, Yetta, where are you?
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Um this was something I invented. Um Alan once did a radio show uh from the Playboy Club. It was new at
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that time and Hugh Hefner had seen him and put him in that role. And it was a call-in show, and people
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could respond, and I would call in as different characters. And Yeta was one. >> Allan's live radio show for Playboy was
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called Table Talk. When Jean called into the show as Yeta Bronstein, she introduced herself as a
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housewife. Quote, "Yeta lives in the Bronx. She has a boy named Marvin. He plays the drums,
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badly." >> The show with um the Playboy Club didn't last long, I think 3 months.
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But um we thought Yeta can't be hanging out there doing nothing. Yeta has to do something. The campaign was on uh
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Johnson and what was his name? Goldrich to gold something. >> Barry Goldwater. >> So, Allan decided that Yeta should run
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for president. >> Allan later said they wanted to find out if, quote, "America was ready for a
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Jewish mother in the White House." Jean liked the idea, and they started thinking about Yeta's campaign.
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They decided that she would run as a write-in candidate for a party they called the Best Party.
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Yeta's platform would include national bingo and putting a suggestion box on the fence of the White House.
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She also opposed the Vietnam War. Jean and Allan printed posters for Yeta, which included an address for the Best
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Party headquarters, 507 5th Avenue, the same broom closet they'd used as the address for Senna.
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Then, Jean and Allan contacted radio stations so Jean could give interviews as Yeta. She tried to stay away from TV.
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>> I never appeared because at the time I was still in my 20s and um hardly a matron.
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And um Yeta was obviously older, so we ended up using Allan's pic mother's picture when we had to produce
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something. >> Here's Jean as Yetta on WNBC in New York. >> There'll be a change.
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There'll be a change. There'll be a change in the government when Yetta gets to be first lady
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and also president. >> When the Democratic National Convention happened in New Jersey that year,
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Alan and Jean got 20 people to march around the convention center holding signs that said, "Vote for Yetta."
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And also at least one sign with just the question, "Why not?" In November 1964, the New York Times ran
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an article called "The Third Party, Mostly Extreme." The article read, "There appears to be
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no national consensus for Bingo, and Mrs. Bronstein may fail to carry a single precinct."
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That turned out to be true, since Yetta Bronstein wasn't even on the ballot. In 1972, Jean and Alan had a daughter,
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Jenny. By then, they'd spent about 13 years trying to pull off different pranks together.
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And Alan was still coming up with new ideas. Here's Jenny. >> He had just uh dressed up in bandages as Howard Hughes
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right before I was born. >> Alan, with his entire face covered in bandages and claiming to be Howard
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Hughes, announced at a press conference at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City that he planned to freeze himself.
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>> Uh through cryo- cryogenics until the stock market was higher. >> And because the billionaire Howard
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Hughes was usually very private, 36 reporters actually showed up. Jenny remembers that even as a toddler,
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Alan would sometimes bring her in on his pranks. >> I do remember going on to the Bill Boggs
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Show and eating a hair sandwich or refusing to eat a hair sandwich. >> This was when Alan pretended to be a
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doctor investigating the quote food properties of human hair. He said it had good protein.
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Jenny says even though they'd practice together, when the cameras were rolling, she refused to eat the fake sandwich.
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A little bit later though, Jenny and Alan got away with something bigger. >> My dad somehow caught wind of the fact
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that there was a train car, an old caboose, like a 1916 Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific caboose
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that was down at the local train yard. >> Alan decided he wanted it. >> I mean, it was like
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I don't know, 48, 50 ft long and 8 ft wide. This is no small thing. It had the cupola on top and all the old
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classic looks of a a caboose. >> The Abels lived in Connecticut and the local planning and zoning commission
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wasn't so sure about the caboose. >> Of course, they said, "No, no, no, you can't have a caboose, you know, blah,
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blah, blah." And my dad had taught me how to cry on cue. And nobody wants a crying kid in the
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room. So, I think they just appeased my dad and said, "Okay, okay, okay, you got
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the permit." >> The Abels had a caboose christening party for their neighbors. And over the next few years, Jenny grew
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up playing with it and Alan often used it as his office. The Abels eventually sold their house,
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but as of 2023, the caboose is still there. Jenny remembers seeing her parents pull
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off other pranks, too. Like in 1983, when Alan sent a fake referee into the Super Bowl.
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>> I just remember the costume. I remember my dad having a fake referee costume.
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I don't know if he bought tickets. I don't even know how with security at the time in the '80s
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they got through, but my dad had a fake referee and a fake police officer run onto the field.
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And I believe the fake referee called a few plays before they were pulled off the field. Someone realized it's a it's
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a joke, they're not real. >> A few days after the game, the NFL confirmed that a fake referee had made
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it onto the field. The Iowa City Press also reported that Alan Abel had snuck onto the sidelines
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wearing a white medical jacket. One of Alan's most controversial hoaxes was in 1991.
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A few years before, David Duke, the former head of the KKK, had tried to run for president, initially as a Democrat.
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In 1990, he ran for the US Senate. And in 1991, he was campaigning to be the governor of Louisiana.
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>> And he was actually, you know, taken seriously. And that was what bothered Alan.
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>> And then, during his gubernatorial campaign, reports started coming out that David
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Duke had founded a KKK Symphony, reportedly to rival the New York Philharmonic. When a reporter called David Duke, he
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wrote he was, quote, "irritated" and said, "There is no KKK Symphony Orchestra."
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The hoax was eventually traced back to Alan Abel. And he told that same reporter he
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thought the KKK should be laughed at. >> And he always just wanted to get people
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engaged intellectually to to get them to wake them up. Uh a kick in the intellect is what he
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used to say. >> We'll be right back. >> By around 1980, Alan Abel's hoaxes had made him a little famous.
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And Jeanne says there were conversations about making a movie about his life. When Alan went to meet with some
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producers about selling the rights to his life story, he ended up in an elevator with people
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who were talking about him. They didn't recognize who he was. >> And they were talking to each other
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about, "Well, if we if we wait around, you know, till he dies, uh we can talk to the widow, you know, and
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get it cheaper." It was basically that train of of thinking. And uh that's what sparked him to
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figure, "Well, what if I die? Let's see what you do, you know." >> So, Alan decided to fake his own death.
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He came up with a story that he died in Utah at a ski resort. He got in touch with some trusted
00:22:06
friends to help him pull it off. >> There is a whole like really involved production. Like he had
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a fake telephone number, and his friend in Utah who would corroborate the story that he had skied and lost control and
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like landed in the woods and died of a heart attack somewhere in Utah. And they had a fake funeral home director.
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>> The funeral director would corroborate his story when the newspaper called. Alan submitted news of his death to the
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New York Times, which published its obituary on January 2nd, 1980 with the headline
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"Alan Abel, satirist, created campaign to clothe animals." It read, "He was 50 years old and lived in
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Manhattan and Westport, Connecticut. Mr. Abel made a point in his work of challenging the obvious and uttering the
00:23:01
outrageous. In addition to his wife, he's survived by a daughter, Jennifer. Alan hadn't told Jean about the plan to
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fake his own death. >> He didn't keep me waiting forever. I mean, knowing my husband as as I did,
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I know he couldn't have been out skiing out out in wherever it was supposed to be, some western state.
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So, I figured it's one more of those. >> Jenny was 7 years old, and Alan didn't tell her either.
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>> The way that I remember it, I had gone to school that day, and everyone was looking at me with these
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sorrow-filled eyes and expressions. And then my teacher actually approached me and said, "I'm so
00:23:52
sorry, Jennifer." And I really didn't know what she was talking about, honestly.
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Like I that that I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "Well, your dad died."
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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."
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I wasn't really phased because I think a part of me knew that it it was another hoax.
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>> Jean says Alan eventually called to say he was alive, but she doesn't remember exactly when.
00:24:28
>> Did you have to confirm to anyone? Did anyone call you up and say >> Well, somebody somebody left flowers,
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and we never knew who that was. And uh there were calls from his some of his friends. Uh
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but that took another day or so. So, by that time I knew it wasn't, but uh I I I I I guess I kept his, you know, I
00:24:51
kept it quiet. I didn't divulge. Uh and someone said, "I was just writing you a note when I
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thought, wait a minute. This is Alan Abel. And they threw it in the garbage instead.
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>> Alan waited a couple of days, and then he organized a press conference to announce that he was alive.
00:25:16
On January 4th, the New York Times ran another article. Obituary disclosed as hoax.
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It was the first time in the newspaper's history that it had to retract an obituary.
00:25:32
Alan and Jeanne Abel were married for almost 60 years. >> What What do you think was the key to
00:25:39
your long marriage? >> Well, I I guess I was tolerant for one thing. What was I going to do?
00:25:48
I loved the guy. Um It was hard sometimes. We went through a lot of different things, up and down.
00:25:56
And um I mean, we lived sometimes on you know, on the tip of a pin for lack of money or
00:26:05
whatever. We It's amazing how things happened. >> Their daughter, Jeanne, says her parents
00:26:13
were always talking to each other about ideas and writing them down. She remembers that one prank involved
00:26:19
throwing real money out the window of a fancy hotel suite. It's almost like it's symbolic of their
00:26:27
whole relationship where they weren't fixated on money. They just My mom and my dad loved each other, and
00:26:33
the money didn't matter. They would just wanted to to do their art together. Sometime around 2001, Alan was recording
00:26:44
an interview with a TV show that wanted to talk about his pranks over the years.
00:26:49
>> And apparently my father saw that the camera operator was s- suppressing laughter.
00:26:58
And after the interview was over, my dad said, "Hey, do you want to go out to dinner?"
00:27:04
The cameraman was named Jeff. >> Alan thought he might get along well with Jenny.
00:27:09
>> And my dad was he was relentless. It's like, "Did you call Jeff? Did you call
00:27:14
Jeff? Did you call Jeff?" Over over just he wouldn't stop. So, I finally called Jeff. We went on a date.
00:27:22
I don't know if I would say it was love at first sight, but by the end of the night
00:27:28
it the deal was sealed. Like, I just I can't believe that my dad set me up with him.
00:27:35
>> Jenny and Jeff have been together for about 24 years. They have a son who Jenny says reminds
00:27:41
her of her father. >> In September September 14th, 2018, my dad died for real. And we got more than one call from the
00:27:52
New York Times to make sure he was really dead. It was you know, my mom and I were still
00:27:59
grieving. But that part I found to be so it was almost like funny. You know, I feel like
00:28:08
if he saw that obituary that the New York Times inevitably printed when he actually died, like
00:28:15
he wouldn't believe it. It was like almost a full page. >> It ran with the headline, "Alan Abel,
00:28:23
hoaxer extraordinaire, is {parentheses} on good authority dead at 94." Quote, "He was the news media conceded
00:28:32
with a kind of irritated admiration, an American original." Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and
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me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.
00:28:52
Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lilly Clark, Lena Sillison, and Meghan Canane.
00:28:59
Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. This episode was mixed by Michael
00:29:04
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I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.