Fake yo-yo master tricks news stations

[MIB]

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Here's a cunning variation on the old yo-yo maneuver "around the world": Go to a series of local TV stations professing to be a master yo-yo practitioner, and when they have you come in for a live studio sequence, go through a comically botched series of tricks. In other words: Ron Burgundy, meet your worst nightmare!

Here's the hoaxster in action on "Sunrise Seven" on the CBS affiliate WSAW in Wausau, Wis. Before the full interview, you'll see WSAW's segment on its own investigation of how it got duped:

The trickster in question goes by the names Kenny Strasser and Karl Strassburg — K-Strass for short. In his local interview segments, he poses as a twice-divorced recovering addict with family issues so severe that he's sometimes forced to take calls from his father in the middle of live broadcasts. According to WSAW and other reports, the duped television stations each received an email from someone named Joe Guehrke claiming to be the agent for K-Strass, a "master yo-yo artist" and purported representative of ZimZam Yo-Yo, supposedly the world's first green nonprofit toymaker.

In making his pitch, Guehrke informed the stations that K-Strass uses his "zany sense of humor" and an assortment of yo-yo and juggling tricks to promote an environmentally friendly message to children. The email solicitation also reels off a laundry list of fictional accomplishments, such as a nomination for the (nonexistent) "Walt Greenberg Award" for yo-yo excellence.

Then, once producers have booked him as a guest, K-Strass shows up for his studio spot wearing green pants or shorts, a yellow cap and suspenders. It doesn't take long to see that he is anything but a yo-yo master.

After K-Strass' appearance on WSAW's "Surnrise Seven," the station contacted Guehrke for an explanation. His response: "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience, Kenny is growing through some rough times and we wish him well in the future." The station also got in touch with K-Strass, who maintained that he is indeed a yo-yo expert who takes his environmental advocacy work very seriously. However, WSAW isn't buying it.

"We got punked," Sue Ramsett, news director at WSAW, told Yahoo! News. "After he set us up with elaborate layers of fake PR people and websites vouching for him, he shows up and tells us that his dad just had a stroke and he needs to keep his phone on him during the broadcast." Ramsett says the station alerted a sister station that had also featured K-Strass as a guest about his status as a hoaxster.

You can see more by K-Strass — who may have something cooking for May 31, judging by the spare webpage parked at zimzamyoyo.com — at Deadspin.com's collection of his greatest hits

MIB