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Glenn Beck’s 828 event was unbearably unoriginal.  For the most part, he recycled material from his radio program (at times verbatim) – oh and when he wasn’t doing that he was ripping off lines from Obama’s stump speech or reading the Gettysburg Address.

In short, he tricked tens of thousands of people into traveling to D.C. in order to listen to him repeat material they’ve already heard or would absolutely be revolted by if the reader was say…the sitting President of the United States.  But, I’m sure they’re not the least bit disappointed.

But, this whole stunt (which is really intended as the opening salvo of his next book launch) reminded me of Glenn Beck’s magicland ruse.  Alexander Zaitchik, author of Common Nonsense, describes the serpentine trick:

The undisputed high point of Beck’s tenure in Baltimore was an elaborate prank built around a nonexistent theme park. The idea was to run a promotional campaign for the fictional grand opening of the world’s first air-conditioned underground amusement park, called Magicland. According to Beck and Gray, it was being completed just outside Baltimore. During the build-up, the two created an intricate and convincing radio world of theme-park jingles and promotions, which were rolled out in a slow buildup to the nonexistent park’s grand opening. They then went to Kings Island in Cincinnati to record their voices over the sounds of a real theme park. On the day Magicland was supposed to throw open its air-conditioned doors, Beck and Gray took calls from enraged listeners who tried to find the park and failed. Among the disappointed and enraged was a woman who had canceled a no-refund cruise to attend the event.

“They never told a soul what they were doing,” says Sean Hall, the B104 newsreader. “I didn’t know until the morning it aired. People just drove around in circles on the beltway for hours trying to find the place. And that was exactly what it was supposed to elicit.”

So, there you have it. 828 is just a little bit of history repeating itself.