1.. This guy comes in to rent a bear costume to scare the kids on their camping trip up on Mt. Charleston outside of Vegas. We tell him he can rent it for $100, or have one of our telegram guys go out to the site and do the job in costume for him, for an additional $100 bucks. He chooses for us to go out, so we go out in costume. The guy in the bear costume can hardly see at night and goes to the wrong campsite and scares all the wrong people. Two gunshots go off from somebody trying to kill the bear. The bear frantically runs through the camp, falls, hits his head on a rock, rips the suit while bruising his whole right side and all scratched up, but manages to get away. Meanwhile the people at the intended site get out of their tents and start running around frantically as well, but never really see the bear. Our guy gets out of there pulls the head off and drives out. The next day the client comes in and tells us that he wants his money back because we went to the wrong site.
2.. We get calls when wives find out that they are pregnant to have our baby telegram go to the work place and relay to the new father the news. That’s all well and good except for the time on the construction site where there were two guys named Mike and the baby has to make his way to the top floor in an open elevator and sing to this guy that they told him was Mike and the baby’s singing away only to find that this Mike isn’t married but he has a girlfriend who he thinks is up to no good to do that to him. Since the telegram was only signed “the one you love”. The next day we get a call from the girlfriend begging us to call him and explain “who it was from” that it wasn’t from her. Meanwhile the other woman calls us to tell us that we screwed up everything and to do it again. Since she found out he still doesn’t know; but her husband tells her about this baby on the site that related to his co-worker that he was a father and you should have seen the look on his face when he found out. The baby goes out the next day!
3.. Then there’s the time that the pregnant girl goes to the airport and tells one of the guys in a group of thee couples that he is the father and she is pregnant with his baby from the last time he was in town six months ago, and of course he tries to explain to his wife that he never met this girl in his life. But the girl knows too much since his buddy set every thing up with all the information that his wife knows is true. What a buddy!
4.. Austin Powers impersonator crashes a wedding during the ceremony and livens things up claiming that he is looking for the James’ wedding and was told that this was it. This is the Clemens’ wedding and he needs to leave however he becomes hard to remove and only with a confrontation and a struggle is he removed still insisting that this should be the James’ wedding and that someone is playing a joke on him. Of course this was all set up by the best man!
5.. Little old lady at the chapel starting to cry with sniffles and then louder and louder until she actually stops the ceremony… then the ceremony begins again and she begins again to cry and again louder and louder. The bride thinks it’s some one the groom knows, the groom thinks it’s somebody the bride knows. The only one who really knows is the guy in Illinois who called and set it up.
6.. Make a wish foundation was making a wish come true for a young girl who was terminally ill to go to Australia. The mom called and ordered a kangaroo to come into the ceremony and at an appropriate time to sing to the girl dance with her and to give her plane tickets to Australia.
7.. It’s Valentine’s day. We go to the restaurant as cupid where a couple are having a romantic dinner. Cupid surprises the gal with an “I love you telegram” from the boyfriend sitting across from the gal at the table. After cupid seems to be done he then says to her “oh yes there is just one more thing,” and cupid opens a jewelry box and exposes a diamond ring which he gives her and says “Joe would like to know if you would marry him.” She’s floored. What a way to pop the question!”
8.. And how about the time this young kid graduates high school, so we go in with a cap and gown costume and sing the congratulations telegram to him, only we give him a little graduation gift which is a small box with two keys inside. When he asks “what’s this,” we tell him it’s the keys to the car parked across the street. Congratulations!
9.. One of my favorites is the sergeant coming back home from Afghanistan. He gets into the States and call us to help him surprise his family at a birthday barbecue in Vegas… It’s his mom’s birthday. So we set it up the surprise gorilla-gram. The messenger meets him a block away from his mom’s house and puts him in the gorilla suit. The messenger goes though the song and teaches him how to dance and move in the suit- never jump up and down but big animated moves with stripper bumps and grinds, and goes through the act with him. Now the messenger goes into the back yard barbecue leading the gorilla with a plastic chain and announces that he has a singing telegram from Michael who everyone thinks is still in Afghanistan. The messenger sings, the gorilla dances to the birthday telegram tune… And now will everybody join me in happy birthday while Emily (the mom) dances with her birthday gorilla! They dance on happy birthday and at the end of the dance the gorilla removes his costume head and surprises his mom …. It was the best birthday gift ever!
10.. Then we have Austin do the wedding ceremony. “Yeah baby it looks like somebody is off the market, baby,” “If I told you, you had a beautiful body baby would you hold it against me?” And so on…
11.. There is always the bride and the last thing she wants at “her wedding” is elvis… needless to say he stumbles in… enter Elvis.
12.. This girl was leaving the company and there was a going away party in her honor at an Italian restaurant. Well nobody could really stand her especially the girl that came into our store asking to do this going away prank where we would definitely give the honoree a time she would never forget. I went into the party as the boyfriend of the girl that hired me. I was very obnoxious at the table with poor manners, arguing over the prices and the menu items, and nothing was good enough. Wine was on the honor system but i fooled this establishment I brought my own flask… food was great there, but I fooled them again- I put a rubber roach in my spaghetti and made a big scene that i was gonna sue, and made the waiter come and take it back. I was loud, opinionated, critical, and low class. The girl finally got up and ran to the bathroom where she called her mom to come and gather. “Mom this strange guy who i don’t even know is ruining my going away party. Please mom, come and get me now.”
13.. She returns to the table and announces to everyone that this is her party and that she would really appreciate it, if I would leave. I got up, went around the table and told her “I would leave, but before I go I would just like to say one last thing.” I then burst into the congratulations song… she started crying and then came around with a big smile on her face. I congratulated her, mentioned that everybody loved her, kissed her on the cheek, and told her she was a great sport and good luck and left the restaurant. I’m sure she tells this story to everyone… as do I!
14.. Then there was the time for his birthday, his wife set up a surprise birthday stunt. This company had been robbed before, so she was going to stage another one. The wife asked us to call her husband on his cell phone and disguise ourselves as the security company, who looks after the store. We did. We told her husband to get down to his store and meet us in the parking lot; only I meet him in the parking lot as a cop. Acting as if he were part of the robbery, I asked him to come in the store and stand up against the wall as I handcuffed him, and then told him to remain silent in front of his friend that knew nothing of what was going on. I asked him if he would come with me handcuffed and show me where the lights switches were, since it was all dark inside. He did, and when we turned the lights on in the big room, everyone stood up and yelled surprise… his whole company was there hiding in the dark. The wife ran over to him and asked him if he was really fooled. I remembered he could not speak while i took the cuffs off.
15.. What about the grim reaper that did a roast for someone’s 50th birthday telling him all the intimate and embarrassing things in his life since he was born… especially the time that he sleep- walked one night and peed in the night stand drawer.
16.. Jimmy Kimmel orders telegrams from us but sets us up instead and records it for his shows… like the time he sent a girl in our costume store to order the batman crew. She took the joker the Penguin and Robin. Then Jimmy has someone else call on the phone and order Batman for a birthday telegram to come to his house where he has all these hidden cameras. Batman comes in and they tell him to sit down and wait a minute or two. He sits down and the three characters start to move in on Batman and ask him all kinds of questions. Then little by little they start to hint that Batman should hold the Penguin and to say sexy things to Robin and then kiss the Joker. Batman runs out of there down the block to his car where his girlfriend awaits him. The Joker and the Penguin and Robin run after him begging him to come back and sing to the birthday boy. Our Batman will have nothing to do with it. The three characters take off their masks and tell him all about the show. As batman puts it to this day, “there was the time that Jimmy Kimmel punked me good! I was majorly punked.”
17.. Jimmy also ordered a banana that he threw into a pool, and a cupid that did an anniversary telegram where the couple started fighting in front of cupid as he was singing, and then started to break things all over the room and hit each other over the heads with break-away bottles, while cupid was doing his act. Cupid could not wait to get out of there.
18.. We go out as Princess Kamannawannalaya and the great Kahuna, who picks the birthday boy as the next chief to succeed him. I, as Kahuna, blow the great seashell and asked the birthday boy to dance the ceremonial dance with the chief. There is a nylon fishing string attached to the chief’s wrist so that when the chief picks up his arm to place it on the birthday boy’s shoulder to dance, up comes the chief’s big rubber penis though the grass skirt. Everybody screams with laughter and now the birthday boy pulls back to question, what is going on? Only as he pulls back the chief drops his arm and the birthday boy sees nothing. Once again, the chief starts the ceremonial dance. They get close… Chief sings… up goes the arm and everybody looses it. After the third time, the birthday boy continues dancing until he looks down. Birthday boy never forgot chief.
19.. A forty year old man calls up and plans a girl to come out of the cake for his father’s 65th birthday. His father has been a widower since his wife died 20 years ago. So now, when the cake in brought in and everyone sings happy birthday, the old man would expect some nice young girl to pop out of the cake. Instead the son arranged for his fathers first flame that his father has not seen since he was in high school 47 years ago to pop out of the cake. Everyone knows except the 65 year old birthday boy. When he finally discovers just who she is, tears start to run down his face from the joy of finally seeing her again.
20.. This lawyer calls up and wants something to entertain everyone at the party including the birthday recipient. We tell him how about a girl singer doing Marilyn going in with a professional pick pocket. Before and while Marilyn is doing her act and all eyes are on her the pickpocket goes around and fills a paper bag with watches and wallets from the guests at the party. After Marilyn finishes her song, Marilyn says that she went around and got people to give some gifts for his birthday. Of course no one had seen her do it. She then says that she doesn’t remember who gave her what gift, so when she holds up the gift will the person who gave it raise their hand and acknowledge themselves… of course everyone wants their gift back, while they go nuts figuring out how that happened