punkd
There are few things more satisfying than watching celebrities spiral into madness as they begin to believe all their belongings have been reclaimed by the Internal Revenue Service or that they’ve ruined Christmas.
It’s moments like these that allow people living the most average of lifestyles to realize celebrities are just like us; terrified of confronting authority figures and willing to cry and call their mom as soon as anything bad happens (yes, 2004 Justin Timberlake, I’m looking at you).
From 2003 to 2007, MTV’s Punk’d gifted the public with the strange satisfaction of watching famous people get nervous and upset. Whether it was Zach Braff’s Porsche being vandalized or Demi Lovato getting freaked out by some recording-studio ghosts, the joke never got old.
The show came back for one season in 2012 but didn’t last long. Now that BET has announced it’s planning to revive Punk’d, it looks as if the spirit of mischief and deceit will finally be restored to cable television.
According to Rolling Stone, “BET announced [last] Thursday that it would revive Ashton Kutcher’s MTV hoax show Punk’d as part of the network’s upcoming slate of new shows.”
The network has not yet announced whether Kutcher will be returning to host the show but said it will “tailor” the show to BET’s audience. It also discussed plans to provide more behind-the-scenes looks at how the pranks work.
The behind-the-scenes aspect could add an interesting element to the program, especially considering many of the pranks probably involve weeks of planning and an absurd amount of money.
Although there are many celebrities qualified to host the show, it would be a shame if Kutcher didn’t return. Not many other fully grown men can so convincingly cackle like a sixth-grade boy every time they come to give prank victims a dose of reality.
Plus, there are so many new prankable celebrities the show has to work with. Imagine all of the glorious possibilities we’re talking about here. Let’s convince Kendall Jenner that she accidentally set fire to a quaint farm. Let’s prank everyone in Mumford & Sons by telling them their banjos are all stolen property. While we’re at it, why not prank Grumpy Cat as well? Just to reinforce that no one — human or animal — is safe.
Overall, the news that Punk’d is coming back is almost too good to be true. I hope this isn’t actually part of a strange meta-Punk’d in which Kutcher sits in a control booth somewhere and laughs as the public gets excited over the fact that the show is returning — though that would be a pretty good prank.
