If you’re going to pull TV pranks, it helps if you’re punching up. And you can’t set your sights much higher than the president of the US. Furthermore, if you’re going to prank any US administration, it may as well be the leadership grouping centred around the uniquely unstable cocktail of ego, malevolence, incompetence and absurdity that is Donald Trump. Sacha Baron Cohen’s new series, Who Is America?, may not make it as far as the big man, but his ambition is clear. He did get as far as Sarah Palin who, hilariously, has complained that Baron Cohen “duped her”.

Baron Cohen and Trump have previous. Somehow, Trump not only survived but prospered after his 2003 encounter with his character Ali G, who tried to pitch him a glove designed for wearing while eating ice-cream. This encounter has only acquired resonance in retrospect. Ali G’s various provocations rarely carried much in the way of moral weight. For nostalgic lefties of a certain age, there’s still a great deal of pleasure to be derived from watching him being gently schooled by a magnificently earnest Tony Benn (“Is it called the welfare state because it’s well fair?”). But, in fact, most of Ali G’s work was just gloriously daft.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Deadly satire ... Chris Morris in Brass Eye. Photograph: Channel 4

With Candid Camera having launched way back in 1948, the ambush prank show has deep roots. But variations on the format went into overdrive in the 1990s, a decade that, surely not coincidentally, saw celebrity culture spiral out of control. The form divided into three distinct strains. There were celebrity botherers, such as Paul Kaye’s berserk red carpet wraith Dennis Pennis. There were the old-school public pranksters, still taking their cue from the decidedly trad likes of Game for a Laugh. And then there were the worthy likes of Mark Thomas, who used pranks to punctuate and enliven admirable but often slightly dry activism.

Then Chris Morris changed everything. In 1997, Brass Eye redefined the notion of TV celebrity pranking and rendered it almost obsolete. Brass Eye was ludicrous, hilarious and satirically deadly. The true colours of many public figures were revealed – they only fell for Morris if they were gullible (David Amess), careless (Bruno Brookes), desperate (Wolf from Gladiators) or all three (too many to mention).

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Brass Eye was one of those very rare TV programmes to actually cause a change in media law. An amendment informally known as the Brass Eye clause – which allowed interviewees to be misled for the purposes of entertainment – was incorporated into the broadcasting code. Artistically, Brass Eye opened up a space into which dozens of imitators duly leapt. Many were dismal, but Baron Cohen instantly stood out, for his immersion in character, his eye for the absurd and his sheer nerve.

So, what makes a prankster work? What separates Ali G from Trigger Happy TV? Often, it’s intangible: you either warm to them or you don’t. But there are a few ground rules. For a start, the softer the targets, the funnier, swifter and more generous the prankster has to be. Humiliating unwitting and undeserving members of the public is rarely a good look. For example, Billy Eichner’s periodically inspired Billy on the Street works because his marks are usually laughing, too.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Berserk red carpet wraith ... Dennis Pennis. Photograph: Nick Simpson/Rex Features

Second, understand your shelf life. Pranksters are TV’s fireflies. Like a punk anthem in human form, Dennis Pennis was obnoxious, brutally effective, frill-free and over in a flash. Baron Cohen effects regular and complete metamorphoses. Morris has simply moved on. Also, the stakes have to be reasonably high. Baron Cohen’s Borat singing what he claimed to be “the Kazakhstan national anthem” in front of a horde of furious rednecks at a rodeo in Texas definitely qualifies. The rag-week japesters of Revolting trying to make a point about the Daily Mail by harassing bewildered BBC employees during their lunch breaks definitely does not.

Finally – and perhaps most importantly – always go slightly too far. Morris did not only attempt to buy fictional drugs off real-life drug dealers. He attempted to buy fictional drugs off real-life drug dealers wearing a nappy and a massive red balloon on his head.

It’s here that Baron Cohen usually wins and, it appears, has won again. Who is America? has been billed as “the most dangerous show in the history of television”. Normally, this would sound hyperbolic. But, in this case, who knows? Like it or not, in satirical terms, the Trump White House (and its many bottom-feeding minions who Baron Cohen seems to have duped) represents the biggest of big game. If Baron Cohen is going to top this, Vladimir Putin had better keep his eyes peeled for an unfamiliar Ukrainian diplomat with an unplaceable accent and a slight air of mischief. Go on, Sacha, we dare you.