Chop & Steele Legal Defense Fund

Hi, we're Joe and Nick from the Found Footage Festival and we need your help.  Last November and again in January, we appeared on local morning news shows as a strongman duo called Chop & Steele . We lifted cinder blocks, chopped sticks in half with our bare hands, and crushed baskets with our feet. And in March, we posted short snippets from some of these segments online, hoping to entertain and make a point about how easy it is to get on certain news programs who aren't doing basic fact checking. Then on April 13th, we found out in the New York Post that the parent company of one of the news stations, Gray Television, had filed a lawsuit against us in federal court, claiming copyright infringement, fraud, and conspiracy.

These claims are totally baseless and we've secured a great lawyer, Anderson Duff (that's his real name!), who's working well below his rate to take on these corporate bullies who are trying to suppress our criticism of the news. But even at discount rates, our legal bills are piling up and are expected to reach $100,000 by the end of the trial. We are confident we will win this important First Amendment case but we are suddenly faced with a very real possibility that we'll bankrupt ourselves in the process. In order to continue doing what we do and secure the future of the Found Footage Festival, we need to raise $80,000.

If you've enjoyed our live show or our news pranks or even How to Have Cybersex on the Internet , please chip in what you can. If we meet our goal, we promise to continue serving up the most unintentionally funny videos ever committed to VHS and calling out lazy news stations whenever possible. Maybe in the form of incompetent cat trainers, we'll see.

While you're getting out your pocketbooks, check out some of our previous pranks, like our friend Mark Proksch as troubled yo-yo expert Kenny "K-Strass" Strasser and culinary expert Chef Keith sprucing up holiday leftovers. At various stages of this fundraising campaign, we'll be posting never-before-seen clips from these and other pranks, so please share them and send friends to this page for more.

We never thought we'd say this, but watch this clip from The Talk. All of the women talk about how ridiculous the actions of the news corporation are and Sara Gilbert says we're out of shape. Must-see TV!

Thanks in advance for helping us at this critical stage in the future of the Found Footage Festival. If you have any questions,  feel free to hit us up at [email redacted]. Otherwise, keep working those plaps and give thanks for strenths!

-Joe "Chop" Pickett & Nick "Steele" Prueher