♪ (ragtime music) ♪
(in video, Russian accent) Yes. Is this the people?
Here.
Your life, your choice. 60 seconds.
- ♪ (Schubert, "Ave Maria") ♪ - (laughs)
(chuckles) The suspicious suitcase, man.
They both took off. I don't blame them.
"Ave Maria" in the background?
(in video) Your life, your choice. 60 seconds. Thank you.
(laughs)
I don't know. Maybe I'm just old.
I think I would've picked it up and handed it back.
He throws that thing. (chuckles)
The old bomb detector. (makes whipping sound, chuckles)
♪ ("Ave Maria" continues) ♪
I think that-- oh, oh.
Oh, this guy's ticked off.
(laughing) He's gonna go after him.
(laughing) Go get him.
(laughing) This poor guy.
He's going down! (laughs)
That'll teach you to do pranks, buddy.
Oh my god.
(laughs)
(laughing) Look at the guy with the camera. He's like,
"Oh crap, he's after me too."
That was funny.
That was cute.
That was a riot!
Sitting down on the kiosk, a gray and red sweater.
Yeah, he's trying to look real casual.
- I think he's onto us. - Oh my god, this is just mean.
(fake agent) How're you doin', buddy?
- Yeah, send 'em. Send backup. - (laughing) Oh no.
(fake agent) He's coming toward me.
(laughs)
- (fake agent) I'm in position. - (chuckles)
(fake agent) Uh, yes.
Oh, right. That they would be this overt?
- Pff. - (fake agent) Orange hat, sunglasses.
Uh, looks like some sort of pizza and french fries.
It's a quiche. Get him.
Men don't eat quiche! It's a dead giveaway!
(fake agent) Uh, some sort of a strangulation device
- he's winding up in his hand. - (laughs)
- (whistling casually) - (laughs)
- (fake agent) What's that, pal? - (man) You're scaring me.
(fake agent) Oh, don't mean to. Sorry about that.
(cop) Where are you working right now?
- (fake agent) Uh, CIA. - (cop) Okay.
- (fake agent) Central Idiot Agency. - (cop) Okay.
(cop) All right, we're just making sure.
Okay. He's talking to the real guys. He's talking to badges now.
- (cop) I appreciate that. - (fake agent) All right.
(cop) Just let them know that we're the good ones, all right?
(fake agent) You're doing your job, all right.
Appreciate it, fellas. Be safe.
(laughs)
(laughing) Who's for real and who isn't?
Oh. Oh, oh, oh. This could be very upsetting.
(foreign speech)
Oh no.
(chuckling)
(in video) Can you please come over here? My friend--
He's not feeling very well.
Take this. Take this.
(laughs)
(laughing) Oh!
(in video) Just help us. 55,000 [bleep] dollars.
I'll take the shovel and whack your ass.
You're not gonna get me into that.
(laughing)
Man, what would you do?
How unconscious are some of these people?
They got to figure it out.
(laughs) Oops.
Oh! Ho-ho! Graphic!
Run, dude, run.
I'll tell you, that's a frightening thing to come across.
(in video) I'm sorry you have to see this.
(laughing) Oh, god!
Decapitado!
It actually looked like a piece of fruit.
Of course, if you took a moment,
you'd see it was a watermelon.
But who's gonna take the time?
I would run like hell too, man.
That was so good! (laughing)
(movie reel clicks)
(Finebros) So what did you think of those pranks?
I thought they were pretty darn good, actually.
I'm a prank guy. I love pranks.
They were very funny, because someone else was being traumatized.
I don't think it would have been very funny
if I'd been one of those people.
The last one, though, if you got an older person walking there,
you might have a problem.
What do you do if somebody stands there and has a heart attack?
(Finebros) If you were handed a briefcase
by a Russian man in a suit saying,
"Your life, your choice. 60 seconds," what do you do?
Well, I'd probably say, "What the [bleep]?"
I would throw it and haul ass.
If the briefcase looked like it had any value,
I'd probably steal it and run.
I'd probably open that sucker.
"What's in there? Is it something worthwhile?"
You know. If it goes "kaboom," oh well, I screwed that one up.
(Finebros) And if you came across people
with what seemed like a dead body or someone being beaten,
what would you do?
I'd run. I'm not no hero.
I would try and go for help.
There's no point in saying stop,
because it's too late if you see the body's dead already.
Now, that's a time when my past military training
might have been in effect.
Attack.
I definitely would take the shovel, because then I got him.
(chuckling) You know?
They're gonna be laying there next to the guy he killed.
- ♪ (heavy metal) ♪ - (explosions)
- (eagle cries) - (gunfire)
(Finebros) Some of these dealt with spy situations.
Can you talk about, when you were growing up,
what a spy meant to you?
Spies meant to me, like, James Bond movies.
A spy to me was certainly someone from a foreign country.
Well, I always wanted to be one.
I mean, that's great fun, dressing up as something you're not.
You know, a good spy you'll probably never see,
because they're trained to blend.
They'll be your next-door neighbor who's lived a perfect life.
We grew up in the '50s,
and there was this whole thing about the Cold War.
And I always thought it was fascinating
how spies could actually be double-agents.
It was very, we were the good guys
and everyone else were the bad guys.
Whereas now, you're not really sure
about who's the good guy and who's the bad guy.
(Finebros) What about living through the Cold War?
What was the worry that people had in the U.S. about spies?
That was mostly missiles.
There was a bigger word out there: "communism."
Before I came to the United States, a lot of my friends said,
"How can you go to a country that has McCarthy there?"
During the '50s, what it was,
they were saying that Americans were spies for the Communists.
Un-American activities, and Joe McCarthy accusing just Americans
of being spies for Russia.
Then many people lost their livelihoods as a result.
That's part of our life.
And it's been part of life since history became.
(Finebros) Talk about the idea of how you
or people felt at the time that maybe their neighbors
or celebrities might be spies?
I don't think it was that predominant.
I was raised in Montana.
A spy would kind of stick out pretty hard, you know?
The "commie pinkos" used to have sleepers.
And they could live their entire life, have a nice job,
and yet their mission was to blow up New York.
(Finebros) Do you think about spies in our country today at all?
Yeah, I believe there are.
I believe there's spies all over the place.
I think it's okay,
because the same way we have spies in other countries.
If we do it to them, they can do it to us.
It's very disturbing to me,
because we don't have any luck keeping secrets.
(Finebros) So back to the videos, do you think pranking
in relation to something serious is an okay thing to do?
Of course it is.
No.
I think these could be dangerous.
Someone is killing somebody or they've staged the killing.
I think that crosses a line.
I think it's okay.
You have to do something where people feel pretty threatened
to get a really good reaction.
(Finebros) And then finally,
why do you think pranks are so popular overall?
Well, they love to see other people get caught off-guard.
People have an inherent mean streak
that they don't get to act out.
And when they see somebody else acting out,
they get to laugh about it without having to go through it.
Thank god we all still have a sense of humor.
It reminds you of how you would behave as well.
It's good every now and then to just laugh at ourselves.
Thanks for watching this episode of Elders React.
Let us know in the comments what video we should react to next.
Goodbye, everybody.
Bye, guys. Watch your backs. (chuckles)
♪ (ragtime music) ♪