The Peculiar Truth about the Craziest Prank on Film

• 2003: Los Angeles-based wanna-be comedian and actor Perry Caravello was looking for his big break. Then he got it. It was his dream come true. After auditioning, he was cast as detective Stone Fury in a crime drama movie titled Windy City Heat.

• Although he had no prior film experience, Perry was hired as the lead over Robert DeNiro, Brad Pitt, and Harrison Ford. His would-be friends and personal tormenters, Big Lou (Don Barris) and Mole (Tony Barbieri), were hired, too. Together, they called themselves the Big Three, as in the new Three Stooges. The trio was about to enter big time showbiz.

• Or so Perry thought. In truth, the unbelievably guileless actor/comic was the centerpiece of the wildest prank ever made into a movie.

• In the mid-1990s, Barris and Barbieri met Caravello at a LA comedy club. They found him to be callow and full of himself. So they engaged in what they called The Perry Project in which they played pranks on Caravello, including hiding their real identities from him. Barris warmed up studio audiences for The Man Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live, so he and Kimmel conceived hiring Perry to star in a fake film.

• It was produced by Kimmel and Adam Carolla for Comedy Central. Bob Goldthwait directed; he had also directed The Man Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live in its earliest years.

• The 90-minute movie is one long hoax on Caravello. He was told that the camera crew that followed him around was capturing behind-the-scenes footage to promote Windy City Heat. In truth, that’s the entire film. He really thought he was part of a major motion picture.

• The cast included Carson Daly, Dane Cook, Tom Kenny, and others. Goldthwait both directed and played the director who only spoke via bullhorn. Also in the film were William the Refrigerator Perry and Tammy Faye Bakker.

• Nothing about the movie was subtle. The acting was often over the top as were many of the scenarios. Much of the humor was sophomoric and mean. Other times absolutely hilarious.

• Memorable gags included Perry having to perform his own stunts in which he was repeatedly tossed into a dumpster full of garbage. But during a sex scene that he eagerly anticipated, he was swapped out for a stunt man.

• Every character had obviously fake names - Roman Polanski, Susan B. Anthony, Burt Ward, John Quincy Adams, Travis Bickle, and a Japanese financier named Hiroshima Nagasaki.

• Anyone would have been readily suspicious. Even Caravello expressed some doubts on camera. Yet he fell for every gag.

• It was hard for audiences to feel sorry for - and too easy to laugh at - the man’s overconfident Dunning-Krueger archetype. As Goldthwait said in one interview, Perry was “oblivious and arrogant.” The prevailing comedic thread was, How can anybody be so gullible?

• No spoilers, but the movie has a somewhat happy ending that involves “the President of Show Business.”

• A few years after the film’s release, Caravello discovered that he had been punked. Yet he continued to exhibit pride in the movie and in what he perceived as his acting prowess.

• 2023: Many cast members attended the 20th anniversary showing at a theater in Los Angeles and, according to rumors, Perry Caravello only appeared for a fee.

• Windy City Heat is a rare find on streaming services, but the underground movie can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube.