Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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When you're ready to launch, use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hi, it's Phoebe. Today, an episode that we originally made for our other show, This Is Love. Sometimes a story will come along, and we're not sure whether to make it for Criminal or This Is Love, because it could kind of go both ways. This is one of those stories.
We hope you like it. In 1963, Newsday published an article about an organization that thought animals should be wearing clothes, The headline was, Decency Counts. The article included a sewing pattern, boxer shorts for dog and horse. The pattern could also be used for cats, the writer noted, but with some minor adjustments. Quote, just ruffle the bottom and use a fancy print material.
The New York Times wrote about this campaign, too, after people showed up and picketed in front of the White House. They wanted the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, to put clothes on her horses. Jean Abel was one of the picketers.
We called it CINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals.
Jean says that during the protest, she held up a sign that said, please put pants on macaroni. That was Caroline Kennedy's pony. He'd been a gift from Lyndon B. Johnson. Jean's husband, Alan Abel, was at the protest too. Picketing in D.C. had been Jean and Alan's idea. Actually, the whole thing had been their idea.
CINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, was a prank that they'd been running for years.
How did you and Alan meet? Well, I came to New York looking for an acting career. I had already done summer stock and studied speech and acting in college, and it was my time to try my luck.
Jean saw a call for actresses in a newspaper.
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Chapter 2: What prompted Jeanne and Alan Abel to picket in front of the White House?
She answered the ad and ended up meeting Alan.
He seemed very nice. At this point, I'd only spent maybe a month or so in New York. I'd met with various agents, and they all seemed rather abrupt. They didn't want to spend more than five minutes getting to know you. But he took like 40 minutes. And I'm trying to figure out why he was being so nice and kind to me.
Alan was spending so much time talking to her because he was stalling. There was a man in the hallway waiting to talk to him about a prop tree he'd used for an off-Broadway play and never returned.
So he was being sued for that, a couple hundred bucks. So I didn't learn about, of course, the process or for quite some time after. But meantime, we got, you know, very chummy. What can I say? Jean and Alan were married within the year.
I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love.
I can't say, you know, I fell for him immediately, but he certainly grew on me, that's for sure. He just had this, I don't know, I think a lot of it emanated from his father, who had a small general store in Coshocton, Ohio. And Alan was that kind of guy. He would engage waiters and waitresses in conversation. He would step outside the norm to be kind and to be...
to find other people interesting. And I kind of liked that. I thought that was very... that was unlike many of the fellows you would meet, you know.
When Gene met Alan, he already knew what he wanted to do with his life. He just didn't know how he was going to do it.
I think the thing that started it all for him... When he went to Ohio State, he was giving the new freshmen some sort of pep talk or something. In the process, he fell off the stage. And he got laughs. They thought he was being funny. He actually fell off the stage without intent. But every time he rubbed his elbow or some other, you know, scratched his head or whatever, he got a laugh.
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Chapter 3: What was the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (CINA)?
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.
Now, this unusual device here is called a SINNA clothemobile, a vehicle, a truck that we send into small communities with a driver and a SINNA member who can spot a naked animal at 50 feet.
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.
For an interview with one TV show, Alan brought a bag of clothes with him, as well as some diagrams of animals appropriately covered up. At one point, he pulled a large pair of pants out of his bag. They were for an elephant. Tell me about the idea for D.C., picketing in D.C.
What was the plan? The plan was, basically, Alan put out a lot of print material that alluded to thousands of people showing up to picket. And we were going to be the forerunners. It was Alan, myself, and his doorman. And since Alan had made such a big deal of the plan, some reporters showed up, too. And people going by in the cars were, you know, pausing and asking for leaflets.
And it builds, it builds, it builds. Even though there were only three of us, a few people joined in along the way just for the hell of it. But it was just three of us. But it made all the newspapers.
In 1962, Alan Abel and Buck Henry visited the San Francisco Children's Zoo. which Buck Henry said they called, quote, the burlesque house of the animal world. Somehow, the Daily Herald in London picked up the story and wrote that, quote, crowds cheered as G. Clifford Prout Jr. attempted to put a pair of pants on a goat. Some reporters were much more skeptical about Sinna.
When Buck Henry was interviewed by New York's Daily News, the writer said, quote, he's been on several TV shows, and thus far no one has discovered whether he has his tongue wedged in his cheek. Alan Abel and Buck Henry told the press that Sinna had tens of thousands of members, but they made it clear that Sinna never asked for money.
Once, Jean Abel remembers they actually did get a check from a woman in Santa Barbara who wanted to support the cause. The woman sent it to Sina's supposed office at 507 Fifth Avenue in New York City, which was actually a small closet Jean and Alan rented. They sent the check back. In one interview, Allen said Sinna wouldn't accept money because it had been founded with G. Clifford Prout Jr.
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Chapter 4: How did Jean and Alan meet and start their journey together?
And I think he was—even when the IRS called him in for an audit, you know, he would be happy about it. I don't know why. I wouldn't be. But he always felt challenged, and he liked the challenge. To an IRS meeting, he would take— gift wrap tube and put a microphone in it in a shopping bag so he could record it.
I never felt worried that he was, well, maybe I felt worried a few times that he might get arrested.
Things started to fall apart after Buck Henry, playing G. Clifford Prout Jr., was interviewed by Walter Cronkite on CBS. It was a risky move because Buck Henry was about to start working at CBS as a writer for The Gary Moore Show.
Well, it was found out that Buck was kind of right under their noses. He was right there writing for Gary Moore while he was still occasionally playing Buck a G. Clifford Prout.
Jean says that eventually someone recognized him and CBS realized they'd been pranked. Cinna wasn't real. Walter Cronkite was upset, and people started to realize that Alan Abel was the one behind it all.
Well, I think CBS also was, for a period of time, was angry with him, wouldn't do anything. His picture was up on some billboard somewhere, you know, don't talk to this guy or whatever.
In 1964, five years after Alan started Cine, he admitted to a reporter for the Associated Press that it was all made up. He also said, quote, the Internal Revenue Service has no sense of humor. We'll be right back. Thanks to Squarespace for their support. Making a website can be intimidating, especially because it's often the first thing people see about your business.
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Chapter 5: What inspired Alan Abel's idea to clothe animals?
And then my teacher actually approached me and said, I'm so sorry, Jennifer. And I really didn't know what she was talking about, honestly. I said, what do you mean? And she said, well, your dad died. And I was like, what? I just played basketball with my dad. I don't know what you're talking about. I wasn't really phased because I think a part of me knew that it was another hoax.
Jean says Alan eventually called to say he was alive, but she doesn't remember exactly when. Did you have to confirm to anyone?
Did anyone call you up and say... Well, somebody left flowers. And we never knew who that was. And there were calls from some of his friends. But that took another day or so. So by that time, I knew he wasn't. But I guess I kept his, you know, I kept it quiet. I didn't divulge. And some of them said, I was just writing you a note when I thought, wait a minute. This is Alan Abel.
And they threw it in the garbage instead.
Allen waited a couple of days, and then he organized a press conference to announce that he was alive. On January 4th, the New York Times ran another article, Obituary Disclosed as Hoax. It was the first time in the newspaper's history that it had to retract an obituary. Alan and Jean Abel were married for almost 60 years. What do you think was the key to your long marriage?
Well, I guess I was tolerant for wanting. What was I going to do? I love the guy. It was hard sometimes. We went through a lot of different things up and down. And, I mean, we lived sometimes on, you know, on the tip of a pin for lack of money or whatever. We, it's amazing how things happened.
Their daughter Jenny says her parents were always talking to each other about ideas and writing them down. She remembers that one prank involved throwing real money out the window of a fancy hotel suite.
It's almost like it's symbolic of their whole relationship where they weren't fixated on money. My mom and my dad loved each other and the money didn't matter. They just wanted to do their art together.
Sometime around 2001, Alan was recording an interview with a TV show that wanted to talk about his pranks over the years.
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