Mad Scientist Rank the Prank

Except for the laughs!

Imagine if you had the chance to play epic pranks

on an unsuspecting public -

and access to the best special effects artists in the world -

and imagine if a panel of Ranksters thinks your public prank is so good,

you get to stage a mega prank on a target of your choice.

Well, quit imagining. This is Rank the Prank.

Which teams are pranking it up today?

-Let's meet the green team.

-I'm Emilie.

-And I'm Mathieu.

BOTH: And we are the Firebirds!

-We're smart...

-Tricky.

We love playing tricks on people.

And we love to laugh.

Our prank today is going to be

a delivery man that comes up at the door.

And there's going to be a digital butler.

We want the delivery man to think

he came in the dumbest smart house in the world.

It's really important that we win

because the guy that we want to prank in the mega prank...

Well, he's my brother's friend, James.

At school, he always tells me horror stories,

and he says he never gets frightened,

so we decided to give him a fright.

BOTH: We're the Firebirds. We're coming for you.

Whoa, those Firebirds

are bringing on the heat!

Blue team, what have you got?

-I'm Christopher.

-And I'm Roselyne.

BOTH: And we are the Extreme Pranksters.

Christopher and I have been friends since fourth grade.

I really, really love being with him because he's really

fun and funny and we do, like, crazy stuff together.

What we love about pranking is the reactions that we get

after is just funny and makes us laugh.

Well, our prank today is that we want to shock people

when they walk into a house full of wild animals.

When he opens the door,

there's something weird going on in the house. Like a jungle.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

If we make it to the mega prank,

we want to prank Roselyne's sister Stephanie.

All of the years in our childhood and everything,

she would do mean stuff to me.

I think this prank is really going to get my revenge.

We are the Extreme Pranksters. And if you don't watch out...

We're coming after you next.

Who me? What?

Never!

But if they want to impress

the Ranksters,

they're going to need some very special effects.

Effectors, show yourselves.

I'm Adrien Morot and I do special effects make-up

and prosthetics for movies.

I've worked on over 100 movies, tonnes of TV shows,

from zombies to mutants to monsters, everything.

I really get excited by what I do. Why wouldn't I?

I get to make stuff, like, awesome weird stuff.

Weird, awesome, cool stuff.

That's what I do.

Come on, pranksters, give me an idea and I'll serve you

a slice of pepperoni and prank like you've never seen before.

Mm, pizza!

That's the prosthetics delivered.

All we need now is a slice of digital delight.

I'm Eliane Achkar.

I'm an art director, illustrator and animator.

With my team, I create interactive visual experiences.

We do a lot of stuff.

We do immersive animation and storytelling,

and I think we're pretty good at it.

But, hey, this is just my opinion.

Or maybe my virtual opinion.

Pretty cool, huh?

Well, we're virtually ready for the pranks.

Today, we're basing ourselves at a suburban house.

A perfect backdrop to do some pranking.

Welcome, Firebirds and Extreme Pranksters.

You guys are not aware of what's going on

in each other's team.

So Firebirds, you're first.

It's time for you to spill the beans

and actually show what you've got to the Extreme Pranksters.

First, the delivery man comes in

and he sees a digital butler.

The digital butler will pay the delivery man with silly stuff.

But then he won't accept it because it's not money,

and the alarm will go off,

and he sprays the delivery man with the fire extinguisher.

-That's very good.

-That's awesome.

I think that their idea is a little too confusing.

Too much is happening at once

and it doesn't always make sense.

Extreme Pranksters have a great idea too, so go ahead.

So the delivery man comes and rings at the doorbell,

and then he comes into the house,

and he sees a snake and a tiger,

and there's a monkey hidden in the closet.

The monkey jumps out of the

closet to reach out for him to scare him.

The other team's idea was pretty good,

but I think maybe ours is just a little better.

Who do you think's going to win?

-Us.

-Oh, we don't know about that.

Actually, I think it's us.

-OK, we'll see.

-We're going to bring you down.

All right, all right.

Technology versus extreme animals. Let's get going.

Let's go.

So we have a digital dizzy butler

versus a jungle madhouse.

But only one team can go through to stage the mega prank,

and only the Ranksters will decide

who faces the ejector button of doom.

Firebirds, light it up!

-I'm really excited to work with the Effectors.

-Me too.

The Firebirds had an idea, which is to create this smart house,

but it's going to be the dumbest smart house ever.

For that, we're creating a digital assistant

that's going to be right in the entrance of the house.

And we're going to have an actor transmitted into that screen,

giving the impression that we're talking to a computer, basically.

-That is awesome!

-This is my make-up station.

This is how I set up usually when I work on movies.

And we've made a bunch of prosthetics to make our guy

look like a digital butler.

Let's try it on - on you, actually.

-What is it made of?

-It's made with silicone. There we go.

Look at that.

The costume is made out of foam. It's very light-weight.

Classic clothes like this,

and it makes it look like it's made of plastic.

So that's what our butler's going to look like.

I think the digital butler's just a fake guy,

cos with the hair and stuff.

Eliane's probably going to make him look a little more digital.

It's just going to be perfect. It's going to be super.

Hello. My name is Buzz.

How we are going to bring Firebird's idea to life

is by taking the footage of the character

with all the make-up on

and create some visual effects and sound effects

so that it looks like a digital character like a butler.

-Oh, here she is. Are you ready to see what's happening?

-Yes.

-Can you see it?

-Mm-hm.

-You see, it's black and white.

First effect.

-Do you like the dots?

-Yeah.

Sometimes the screen does "ksshh",

like if it were losing the connection or something.

Or we could even put sound in the background,

like an alarm sound.

-Hi, Buzz. Can you hear me?

-Hello. My name is Buzz.

I'm pretty sure we got this.

Yeah.

Well, let's hope so. It's time for public prank number one.

The hidden cameras are rolling and the pranksters

are in the control room, ready to direct the action.

-What do you think will happen?

-I don't know.

I'm a bit nervous.

I don't know about you, but I'm hungry.

Should we order some takeout?

-He's here.

-Oh!

-Let's go.

Hope it's going to work.

DOORBELL RINGS

When these delivery guys drop off the food,

they're in for a massive surprise.

Hello. My name is Buzz.

How may I assist you?

Buzz, my organiser, my security system. Don't mind him.

How much do I owe you for this?

Mom, Mom, the toilet's overflowing! Mom, come, fast!

What? I'm just going to check...

Say, "Cash drawer," and take it all. Just say, "Cash drawer."

-Cash drawer.

-I'm sorry. I do not know what that means.

-Cash drawer.

-Open the trash door.

-Opening trash door.

Cash drawer.

Closing trash drawer.

-He's buying it.

-You must speak at a louder volume.

Cash drawer.

Please, do not scream.

Opening cash drawer.

Did you get the money?

-No.

-OK, Buzz, get ready with the fire extinguisher.

What's in the drawer?

A wire...

-Fire! Fire! Fire!

-Cue fire extinguisher.

-Fire! Fire!

-Oh, boy...

Oh...

-Intruder! Intruder!

-OK, that totally worked. OK.

That was so funny and hilarious.

-They were all different.

-Some were a little like, "Uh...

"What is happening?"

-Hi.

-Hello. My name is Buzz.

How can I assist you today?

Mom, the toilet's overflowing! Mom, please come!

-OK...

-Come fast!

-Intruder! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

Fire! Intruder!

-Sorry...

-Yeah! We got him.

Please approach the monitor and enter your request.

Open cash drawer.

Opening trash drawer.

-Isn't the money in there?

-No, it's empty.

-Well, what's in the drawer?

-It's like a wire. That's it.

Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

-Fire!

-We got that. We got that.

Intruder! Intruder!

Let's go up to let him know he got pranked.

-Intruder!

-Do you know what happened?

BOTH: You've been pranked by Rank the Prank!

-Whoa! It's crazy. I don't know what happened.

-Intruder!

Anyone would be freaked out about that.

You did great, Firebirds.

-So happy. It went really well.

-We could say it went perfectly.

That was pretty cool! Extreme Pranksters, your turn.

What do you got?

It's going to be very interesting

-to see all the stuff that they're able to do.

-I'm very excited.

Extreme Pranksters want the delivery people

to think there's a live tiger in the house.

So how we're going to make this happen

is by projecting a tiger, as if it's a real tiger.

And this is the part of the animation that's the most difficult.

Hey, guys! Have you seen what's happening outside?

The challenge is to be able to project during the day,

-so we built a black tent.

-OK.

So then I put the projector inside the black tent

and we're going to project from the outside on the window.

She showed us the tiger projection that they were

going to project to scare the delivery man

and it was really cool.

We took a picture of the house and the swimming pool,

and then we can add the tiger on top of it.

It's really fascinating how it's going to transfer to,

-like, a huge projector.

-You ready? One, two, three.

Open your eyes.

BOTH: Whoa!

Oh, my...

It's so cool!

-You happy?

-BOTH: Yeah!

-We made it.

-Good job.

-High five.

The Extreme Prankster's idea is a pretty fun one, actually.

There's all those exotic animals all crammed into one house.

-The snake, it is a real one.

-It's a really big boa.

He is so beautiful. I love snakes.

-Hey, Adrien.

-Hey, there.

-Oh!

I didn't realise, and then I saw it

and it's pretty amazing how we can do that.

The monkey arm, it needed to be durable to punch through the wall.

I was hiding in the closet with the monkey arm on my arm

and Adrien came to talk to Roselyne to show the painting

that they hung on the wall.

Argh!

I did not know how to react.

-No!

-Well, I think the prank is going to work.

I'll get him back one day.

Gotcha.

You got her good.

But now it's time for public prank number two.

The hidden cameras are set. Adrien's got the actors ready.

Argh! Just kidding.

And the pranksters are in the control room.

I'm very excited to see what's going to happen.

-Another day, another takeout.

-Car's coming.

But this time our delivery guys better be animal lovers.

Confused! He looks confused.

DOORBELL RINGS

Hi. Come in, come in.

I'm having a really interesting day.

My friend who's an animal trainer,

he's bringing some animals from an animal sanctuary

to another sanctuary because now they're retired.

Tiger?

Is everything OK, Eddie?

OK, look, I'm just... Uh, there's a tiger outside.

He's just like, "What the..."

-Where's the chimp? Where's the chimp?

-I don't know. Jojo!

Did you hear that? Is he outside?

What's in that closet?

CHIMP SCREECHES

Argh! Argh!

What the heck?!

The best reaction was the second one,

when the guy came in and he got so scared that he ran out.

Did you see any animals out there?

ROAR

Argh! Argh!

CHIMP SCREECHES

Watch out! Argh!

We have a tiger out there. It's a big one.

GROWLING

Is there a monkey in the closet?

Jojo?

-Bad monkey!

-Not well trained.

-Jojo!

-Jojo!

CHIMP SCREECHES

What's going on here?

-He's trying to look cool.

-Exactly!

He's trying to be cool.

You've been pranked by Rank the Prank.

I just got pranked by Rank the Prank.

I was like, "Something's going on here."

That was so fun.

We loved seeing the reactions of the delivery guys.

BOTH: Our prank went amazing.

Well, let's hope our Ranksters agree.

The public pranks are over, but which prankster pair

will go on to play a mega prank on a target of their choice?

It's time...

To Rank the Prank.

Let's meet today's prank-loving panel.

Ranksters, show yourselves.

The funnest part in the Firebirds

was when the system was talking.

I would have never thought of that idea,

so I think it was really original.

Yeah, he's getting stressed out.

I really liked when the chimpanzee arm

sticks out of the wall.

The funniest part was the reactions.

That's the part that I laughed the most.

It was really hard to decide which prank was better.

But we had to make a decision.

The Ranksters' votes have been cast.

I'm pretty nervous. This isn't going to be an easy win.

And one team will be going home.

I just really hope they pick us because we did a good job.

While the other goes on to stage a mega prank.

Green or blue, pranksters, it's down to you.

We made our decision.

The team going home today is...

..the Firebirds.

BOTH: We won!

They had a really great prank idea.

Yeah, it was kind of hard to beat.

But this isn't the end of us.

Hopefully, our mega prank will go super well.

The Extreme Pranksters have extinguished the Firebirds!

Now the Effectors need to create a mind-blowing mega prank

for the target of their choice.

Our prank target is Stephanie, Roselyne's sister.

We have a really close relationship.

We used to share the same room for, like, several years.

We're really close as sisters.

If you pull a prank on her, she'll believe you.

I think she's going to react pretty confused.

Inside, she will be, like, terrified.

Stephanie sounds like an awesome target.

But now for the location. A local gallery.

Special effectors, time to sprinkle some of that good, good prank magic.

This is what we have in store for you.

We did a little storyboard.

Stephanie and your mom are coming over

to what they think is an estate sale.

However, the only thing they're going to find there is really,

-really weird stuff.

-OK.

-Super weird stuff.

The collection today comes from Dr Rosario.

He's a scientist who mixes the DNA of different animals.

Stephanie will see sketches and photographs of hybrid animals,

and this will convince her

-that what she's going to see next is real.

-OK.

She's going to be led to the back of the store,

where she's going to meet a half-squirrel, half-man.

He's going to pop his head out of the nest and he's going to

be like, "Hello, Stephanie!"

This is going to be really fun to watch.

I'm really excited to see her reaction.

I think she's going to be very scared and confused.

This is what we want!

Are you ready to get going with your prank?

-BOTH: Yes.

-Super excited.

-All right, cool.

Anybody who's afraid of squirrels is going to get it.

Mike is a natural clown. He's really, really funny.

I think it's a perfect candidate for the squirrel man.

We tried to take, like, a real squirrel head

and basically morph it onto Mike's head.

He's going to have to sit in the chair for about, like,

two and a half hours, having glue stuck to his face,

prosthetics all over, contact lenses, dentures,

he won't be able to move, it's super hot.

It's going to be really, really, really hard for him.

Argh!

Pretty cool, eh?

-That looks so real!

-Doesn't it?

-Yeah.

The squirrel mask, it is insanely, like, creepy,

but it's amazing.

-This looks so real.

-Look at his eyes.

Roselyne's sister is 18,

and this had some influence on our drawings.

How we are going to sketch this to be realistic.

I thought that the drawings that the Effectors drew

were really beautiful and really pretty.

I found that they represented our prank really well.

Coming up, prank fans, it's the moment you've been waiting for.

Right, is everyone ready?

-Because here comes our target, Stephanie.

-Hi.

-Hi.

-Whoa!

This is amazing.

She's accompanied by Roselyne's mom,

who's in on the whole thing.

I'm sweating because it's my sister, it's my mom,

I really didn't know what was going to happen.

So do you know who Dr Raphael Rosario was?

He's actually better known internationally

than he is here. He's a bit of a pioneer in his field.

DNA splicing. Take a look. Come on over.

Our made-up doctor Rosario's speciality

was creating hybrid animals -

but how will Roselyne's sister react to his creations?

In this case here,

he's got an eagle and a rabbit that he's going to put together

and a moose and a tiger... What would you call that?

-A mooser?

-Keep the name.

-A mooser.

-I think the actor is doing amazing.

-Wow.

I would never be able to do that.

Yeah, if I was my sister, I would never know this was a prank.

Like, seriously, he's doing great.

So far, so weird - but it does seem as if Stephanie

is buying our animal switcheroo.

Time to crank it up a level with some physical examples.

So these are some of the early prototypes that he put together.

What do you think this is?

She's trying to guess what it is.

Well, a bird, obviously, and a ferret. Check this one out.

It's an iguana. It's dead, it's not alive,

so you don't need to worry about it.

Your sister's probably creeped out.

Yeah, she's like, "What is this place?"

But you can feel its scales, right?

And the feathers.

So he combined that together. Unusual.

Stephanie looked pretty confused and a little grossed

out, because, like,

a lizard with wings isn't very normal to see.

Dr Rosario was also an inventor.

This is a chromosome parsing scope.

It's one of four or five that are still in working order.

Could you do me a favour and plug that in?

It seems this prank's starting to heat up a little!

She broke the machine.

So we've introduced Stephanie to some bizarre hybrid

creatures and explosive inventions.

Ladies and gentlemen,

could you come up here, please?

But will we be rumbled when she discovers that one of these

animal mash-ups is in fact alive?

He crossed human DNA and animal DNA.

More specifically, a squirrel.

My sister just heard squirrel. She was like, "What?

"Squirrel?"

He had kept something very special all to himself,

and I'd like to show you something.

You have to be very quiet.

Avoid any sudden gestures or any aggressive gestures...

..and come on over.

Squirrel's coming.

My sister looks interested. This is going to be so fun!

She's thinking about stuff, like, "What am I doing here?"

Can you see? Can you see it?

When's the squirrel going to come out?

I don't know, but it's... The tension!

Come in.

Oh, my sister's scared! And my mom! My mom is running away.

OK, he's up. He's awake. OK, just back off slowly, slowly.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

People started to get scared because the hybrid animal

started to get a little aggressive.

My sister, she was terrified.

Oh, no, no, you don't have to... OK, easy, easy.

Go ahead.

Come on, come on, come on, hey.

That's so funny.

I knew that she was very,

very creeped out and she was just looking at it and she was,

"OK, there's an animal," and it was hilarious.

Hi, Stephanie!

You just got pranked by Rank the Prank!

It was amazing to watch.

It's hard to scare me,

but I was really scared today.

She got scared and she looked confused

and it was just perfect for me.

The prank went super good. Beyond our expectations.

The actors were amazing. Everything went perfectly.

At the end, she fell for it.

It was so funny to see my sister react

-to all these weird things.

-Yeah, I was so surprised.

I didn't know until I saw Christopher and Roselyne.

I just got pranked on Rank the Prank.

CHEERING