B.J. Novak is making amends with a Boston museum nearly three decades after pulling off an elaborate prank.
“It’s official: 27 years after a prank at the @mfaboston in which the audio cassette guides were switched with an ‘original’ tour, I have been granted an official pardon,” Novak, 44, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, March 6.
The Office alum’s prank involved swapping out an exhibit’s audio guides with a voiceover that began like the original narration, but quickly pivoted into something else entirely.
During his recent trip into the museum, Novak spoke about “Arts and Pranks” and shared that he “even got to talk to Edwin, the security guard who was there on the day of the prank.”
“I thought it might be a sting operation at first. But it seems all is well,” he joked. “Thank you MFA for your sense of humor and mercy and to everyone in Boston who came to see it.
Alongside the caption, Novak shared several snaps of his visit to the museum including a photo of the cassette, titled “Tales of the Land of Dragons,” and a snap of him holding the pardon with Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts director Matthew Teitelbaum.
He also posted a pic of an old newspaper clipping explaining the prank, which read, “A handful of visitors who took the audio tour of the Museum of Fine Arts’s ‘Tales From the Land of Dragons’ exhibition last weekend got a less-than-scholarly guide to the display of ancient Chinese art. A prankster switched some of the standard tapes with versions narrated by a man who identified himself as Lev Davidovich Bronstein, a Russian-accented antipedant whose tour begins exactly like the MFA’s, then devolves into a rambling rant.”
The story continued, “‘Bronstein’ makes juvenile jokes and ultimately encourages listeners moving left, right, and around the galleries to the hokeypokey.”
The museum shared the news on Monday, March 4, that Novak was officially back in their good graces.
“We hereby proclaim @bjnovak officially pardoned for the elaborate prank he pulled at the MFA in high school,” the museum shared via X. “Last Friday night we welcomed B.J. to regale a sold-out crowd with stories from his youth, as part of our Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Celebrity Lecture Series.”
The message continued, “In 1997, B.J. recorded over audio guides for an MFA exhibition—a stunt that both confused countless innocent visitors and showed us that even the pettiest and most sophomoric pranksters among us can leave an impact on a historic institution.”
