The Student Activities Board sponsored Todd's appearance and junior Pop Culture Chair Bryce Vernon said he made the final decision to book Todd on campus.

"There really is nothing out there like the stuff [Todd] does with Improv Everywhere," Vernon said.

Improv Everywhere's home is online, and its viral videos of elaborately-planned pranks have garnered much acclaim and many hits both on improveverywhere.com and on YouTube.

Todd's pranks are unconventional; they involve phenomena far out of the ordinary in the midst of the day-to-day public place. Imagine a host of ordinary-looking shoppers in a mall food court spontaneously bursting into song reminiscent of a musical.

Todd showed and explained "The No Pants Subway Ride," his first and most popular video, which was filmed in 2002. In mid-winter New York City, one of Todd's partners brought a hidden camera onto the subway. Inside the subway car, the hidden camera recorded the reaction of a regular girl passenger as a man wearing a jacket and a scarf, but no pants–only underwear–boarded the train nonchalantly.

If the the man's casualness, as he stood in the cold railcar amidst a group of other passengers bedecked in winter apparel, was not odd enough to elicit a reaction from the girl, the addition of another underwear-wearing man at each stop was.

Todd said the pantless men did not acknowledge each other and kept a straight face when they responded to the questioning of curious passengers; "Oh, I forgot my pants today … I don't know about these other people … looks like they made the same unfortunate mistake as well."

Todd said at the subway car's final stop, someone in on the prank greeted the cold-legged passengers, a pants-salesman with a $1 deal on jeans.

"Oh, thank you very much. I was a little cold," the customers replied.

Todd said his mission is to create pranks that are funny and positive in nature.

"I want to come up with pranks that are ultimately about making people laugh and making good stories," Todd said.

Todd said it all started in 2001 after he moved from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill to NYC, when he was trying to figure out how to express himself as an actor and comedian.

"It's difficult moving into a really big city … nobody knows who you are, nobody cares who you are," Todd said.

One night Todd was out with his friend, visiting bars, when his friend commented that Todd, who was wearing a short-sleeve button down shirt with a plaid design, looked like Ben Folds, the popular, hip musician.

Todd and his friend decided to conduct a social experiment; they went into a restaurant separately and enjoyed their meals alone. After half an hour, Todd's friend approached and exclaimed, "Oh my god, you're Ben Folds." Suddenly, the entire restaurant's attention shifted toward Todd's table; the attractive girls sitting adjacent to him were suddenly interested in him.

Todd said three to four hours of free beer, photos with fans and girls' phone numbers ensued after impersonating Folds. Todd said he thanked the restaurant for a great night and figured that even if people realized they were duped when they read online that Folds was actually on tour in Australia that night, they would laugh and recall what a fun time they had.

One of the audience's favorite videos depicted a prank that a fan had suggested to Todd in an e-mail. The premise: "What if 80 people went into Best Buy wearing blue polo shirts and khaki pants?" And so, 80 people looking almost identical to the corporation's employees entered the store and simply milled around.

Todd said some real employees got the joke immediately and laughed at the cleverness, while others called security. Todd said that one manager grabbed her walkie-talkie and shouted into it with conviction, "Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair!"

"Maybe that really was some code for the store, maybe it was just her gut reaction," Todd said on the funny choice of radio warning.

The Best Buy prank ended when police officers hand-cuffed several of the pseudo-employees. Although the hidden cameras were confiscated, a couple people caught the event on the store's display-use camcorders.

"I like that concept of using someone's technology against them," Todd said. "Ultimately, the police had to explain to the managers that it's not illegal to wear blue shirts and khaki pants."

Todd said, "I don't think anything can ever go horribly wrong in a prank … it's always an experiment."