I feel okay talking about this now because I'm no longer with Katalyst Films, the company that made the show, and my NDA has expired. Despite this, I'm going to be a little vague about my role in the production to remain anonymous.

I worked on a few of the other pranks in addition as part of the crew (sadly not Bam's), but the worst experience by far was Opies. Given this is a hidden camera show the crew is mostly there for rehearsal and post-production, so I was actually not there for the day of the clips filming. I do know that they actually did about two dozen 'marks' before they wound up with those three. They actually had two whole days of filming with no 'pranked' people as everyone else immediately saw through the thing as a unfunny bit and we didn't have a salvageable clip.

As you can imagine two days of filming with no usable content costs a lot of money and our management was pretty unhappy with ole Greg. They finally got the remaining three they did use after Greg's involvement had been minimized, but even still it required a lot of editing, including re-shoots once they were 'in' on the prank. Just a little TV magic laid upon a mediocre at best concept. Greg's exclusion from his own prank would lead to trouble.

Anyways, my role in the production had me near Opie during rehearsal and I got to see up close his egomania. His nonsensical direction had Mike, Kirk & Monika, who play who plays the FBI agents and the other temp doing all sorts of weird, try-hard things which submarined his own prank. This definitely wore on the nerves of the actors, who had other commitments which were moved to accommodate this extended filming session.

The story goes that after a few days the actors began ignoring some of his more ridiculous recommendations, and they themselves executed the concept convincingly enough to get three complete rubes confused enough for a few good reaction shots. This really grated on Opie as we all know he doesn't like being ignored, so he actually blew up one of the failed prank attempts by a off camera hissyfit which he left the FBI guys hanging after they had delivered the lines which were suppose to queue Opie & crew to burst in for the 'gotcha' moment.

Now I'm getting this second hand, but at this point all the actors were pissed with Opie, as was the crew. Apparently their disagreement came to a head when Opie thought that Monika had questioned his credentials to our producer. She never had, and as a complete aside, she is a real professional who's a delight to work with, and the whole crew sided with her when Opie confronted her for 'talking shit about me because I'm from radio.' before he exasperatedly stormed off set.

It took a few hours to assuage his ego enough to get him to return, and when he finally did Monika offered an apology (even though she had said nothing close to the accusation) and Opie begrudgingly accepted. A few hours later Opie sniped at Monika again between 'marks' and she had finally had enough, like that old Christian Bale clip Monika turned, looked at him and asked why dont you suck my fawkin pecka you fawkin peesis of ghabige. How come ya cheekz are all red, whatchu get slapped for lookin at dickks? Nice beard whatcha face real cold or sumptin? Radio since 18? whatchu get lost trying to buy cigs for the first time or sumtin, quit tuggin' on my peckah so hard fawwk yeeeaaaa. double prankz cocksucka

Opie was stunned into silence and the rest of production went without a hitch or a resultant laugh.