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MTV's guerilla version of television pranking makes
sadistically compelling entertainment. Host, co-creator and mastermind Ashton Kutcher's unprecedented attack on celebrity egos--via con jobs so elaborate they
might have been lifted from episodes of Mission: Impossible--can
certainly make one cringe and perhaps fret over the show's dubious ethics. But
there's no question of a highway-accident appeal to many of Punk'd's
practical jokes, including the first season's assaults on actress Eliza Dushku
(shattered after being set up to look like a shoplifter) and Justin Timberlake
(devastated when he finds faux IRS agents confiscating his house, possessions
and pets). Stephen Dorff, on the other hand, won't put up with a falsified bar
tab for $8,000 and Seth Green protests a fake vice cop's insinuation that the
diminutive actor betrayed his friends. Less monstrous is Punk'd's
8-year-old confederate, Ryan, a spurious reporter who solicits hugs from the
likes of Tori Amos and Christina Applegate.
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