In a bizarre interview aired Friday morning, “Fox & Friends” apparently got punked by an author who declared that society absolutely has every reason to “destroy the imaginations of our children.”

It’s not quite clear why Anthony Esolen, author of the book “Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child,” responded the way he did, but it’s possible that he had an axe to grind with Fox News.

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Asked about the premise of his book, Esolen flipped the conversation on its head. “First of all, we do want to destroy the imaginations of our children,” he said. “Otherwise our economy would collapse and people would stop buying things they don’t need and don’t really even enjoy.”

“You can’t let your kid be outside, because a single blade of grass out there is a more wondrous object than anything a kid will see on a screen in a month’s time of viewing television and video games,” Esolen continued. “So, absolutely, you’ve got to keep them indoors.”

He added that fairy tales are also not advisable because “they are based on what every culture really knows about human beings.

“It’s archetypal, it’s natural human knowledge,” Esolen said. “And we don’t want that because that really taps in the imagination. So, instead we’ve to replace it with stories about who ever happens to be politically favored at the moment. This trains the child away from participation in politics.”

If Esolen was in fact punking Fox News, it wouldn’t be the first time this particular show has gotten fooled. “Fox & Friends” co-host Gretchen Carlson abruptly cut off an interview in September with a man she claimed to be a “former Obama supporter.” He turned out to be an aspiring comedian who just wanted to prove, as he told Raw Story, that “Fox News is a fake news organization.”

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This video is from “Fox & Friends,” broadcast Friday, November 23, 2012.