A bacon-themed coffin sounds like a killer gift for some fat-loving foodies, but it smells like a hoax to at least one professional prankster.
J&D Foods, a Seattle-based company that specializes in various bacon-themed products, such as bacon mayonnaise, bacon soda and even bacon lubricant has just added a bacon coffin to its list of products.
The allegedly genuine bacon casket sells for $2,999.99 and is supposedly made of 18-gauge gasketed steel with "a premium Bacon Exterior/Interior, and includes a Memorial and Record Tube, Adjustable Bed and Mattress and Stationary and Swingbar handles."
The company also claims the pork-themed casket includes a bacon air freshener "for when you get that buried-underground, not-so-fresh feeling."
Since the bacon coffin's press release came out suspiciously close to April Fools' Day, it reeks of a prank, according to Alan Abel, whose most famous pranks include getting seven people to pretend to faint during a taping of the Phil Donahue talk show and creating a fake organization called the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), whose mission is best summed up by their tagline: "A nude horse is a rude horse."
"It has to be a hoax," Abel told The Huffington Post. "Any ad agency would throw up at that. When we think of bacon, we're talking heart attack. I cannot believe it's real. The real joke would be if someone purchased it."
Still, he concedes that it's not out of the realm of possibility that someone might buy it.
"A few years back, I did a prank called 'Euthanasia Cruises,' where people could go out on a boat called the 'Last Supper,' eat and have sex for three days before jumping off to Davy Jones' Locker," he said. "We had calls from about 100 people who were interested."
Justin Esch, who co-owns J&D Foods with partner Dave Lefkow, insists the coffin is real -- except it doesn't use real bacon.
"That could smell bad," he told HuffPost.
Esch claims he's already sold one coffin and is getting interest from all around the world, including funeral homes in Great Britain.
"We're saying that this is the coffin for people who love bacon to death," Esch said.
Journalist Monica Garske, who has done numerous stories on J&D Foods in the past (including one for AOL News on their attempt to make a bacon statue of Kevin Bacon), says that the company is "legitimate," but tongue-in-cheek.
"They are jokesters who have fun, but the Kevin Bacon statue was real," Garske told HuffPost. "Still, I wouldn't put it past them."
Esch admits he and Lefkow have done April Fools' Day pranks in the past, but that the bacon coffin is a step beyond that.
"We sent this release out around April 1, thinking people would think it's a joke, but the real joke is that it's real," he told HuffPost Weird News exclusively.
But whether the bacon coffin is real or merely a killer prank isn't important, according to branding and marketing expert Brannon Cashion.
"It's an extreme attention-grabber like a diamond-studded iPad cover," Cashion told HuffPost. "I don't think they will sell too many, but I do think people who go to their site will see it and buy other things."
Plus, bacon coffin or no bacon coffin, Cashion says J&D Foods has the Internet sizzling.
"When you write this story, they've won," he said.
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Posted: 03/29/2012 4:48 pm Updated: 03/29/2012 6:58 pm