Phoebe Judge

He wanted to see if they would take his letters seriously and publish them.

They didn't.

But he was still curious if he could get anyone else's attention.

Allen wrote that the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals was founded by a man named G. Clifford Prout, who left his son, G. Clifford Prout Jr., $400,000 to run it.

Apparently, the rest of the Prout family was contesting G. Clifford Prout's will, but his son was determined to carry out his wishes.

Soon Alan decided that writing press releases and pamphlets about Cinna wasn't enough.

He wanted people to be able to hear from G. Clifford Prout Jr.

himself, so he convinced a friend, an aspiring actor, to play him.

Buck Henry would eventually go on to create a comedy show with Mel Brooks called Get Smart.

Then he'd co-write The Graduate, direct Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty, and host Saturday Night Live ten times.

But when Allen convinced him to play G. Clifford Prout Jr., Buck Henry was just starting out.

So no one recognized him when he was interviewed about Cinna on the Today Show in May of 1959.

Or again in June, when the show invited him back.

NBC advertised that G. Clifford Prout Jr.

would return to the Today Show to talk about, quote, his theories of nudism.

Newspapers across the country started writing about Cinna,

In the Austin American, one writer said, quote, If you hope, as we did, that these people are kidding, you're wrong.

This is Alan Abel describing one of the ways SINNA planned to get clothes to more animals.

He did interviews about Cinna too, sometimes posing as Cinna's vice president.

The clothesmobile never existed, but the Ables did make fake Cinna membership cards and some sample outfits.