Scare Tactics is yet another idea originally performed as a sketch. It’s been streamlined a bit to get to the nuts and bolts of the joke, but even so the sketch was only about a minute long. It was one of our quick “stinger” type sketches and I had to cut some of the lines that I kinda wish I kept. In particular there was a line about how “your buddy Dave put you up to this” and a reassuring comment about how the guys “family is waiting in the other room.” The crux of the joke is how everybody on those hidden camera shows tend to get real angry or overreact emotionally in some other way, but when someone points out the camera… the “victim” laughs it off. I wanted to give this bald guy that same sort of false confidence. He’s obviously been tortured and beat up, but he’s still so quick to laugh it off when he’s told he’s on Scare Tactics.

I know it’s a little dated now since the show “Scare Tactics” isn’t on the air anymore. I considered going with a generic name but I really like “Scare Tactics” and assume that it’s still ingrained in pop-culture enough to still be recognized.