[ silly/septa ]

New York’s Improv Everywhere originated a lot of stunts that are half silliness and half performance art done for small, unwitting audiences. Their best known “mission” is probably the sleight-of-pants trick in which it appears that, through complete coincidence, people wearing normal winter clothes but no pants keep getting onto a particular subway car, stop after stop. The pantsless passengers do not appear to know each other, nor to find this at all strange. In the original version, after the joke had become clear to all the normal passengers, a guy walked through selling pants out of a duffel bag (rim shot). It’s such a simple, easy to do and generally well-received prank that the No Pants Subway Ride has grown from seven dudes in boxers on the MTA in 2002 to something that, in its 12th year, happens in dozens of cities around the world. Philly’s Urban Playground is hosting the local iteration (from City Hall to Ellsworth-Federal on the Broad Street line, to Frankford Terminal on the El and back), and requests that participants keep a straight face and choose inoffensive underwear (and that they definitely wear underwear). But other than that, if you want to play, just show up at the meeting place.  

Sun., Jan. 13, 3 p.m., free, meet at domino sculpture at southwest corner of Broad and Arch streets, improveverywhere.com.