Tell the Truth with his head wrapped in bandages. This was not so that he would not be recognized, but so the panel would not identify his two imposters: well-known actors Larry Blyden and Tom Poston. Abel wrote, produced, and directed two mockumentaries: Is There Sex After Death? (1971) and The Faking of the President (1976). In 1979, Abel staged his own death from a heart attack near the Sundance Ski Lodge. A fake funeral director collected his belongings, and a woman posing as his widow notified The New York Times. The Times published an obituary January 2, 1980 (a rare example of a premature obituary). On January 3, 1980, Abel held a news conference to announce, "[the] reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated". Omar's School for Beggars was a fictional school for professional panhandlers. As Omar, Abel was invited to numerous television talk shows, including the Tomorrow Show hosted by Tom Snyder and the shows of Morton Downey, Jr., Sally Jessy Raphael, Mike Douglas, and Sonya Friedman, who was especially upset because Omar ate his lunch on camera. The hoax was a satirical commentary on the rise of unemployment and homelessness in the U.S. Omar's TV appearances spanned from 1975 to 1988, though he had been exposed several times. Mass fainting hoax Abel was behind one of the most talked-about incidents in The Phil Donahue Show'''s history on January 21, 1985, soon after the show's well-publicized move of its operations from Chicago to WNBC New York. On that day's program, seven members of the audience appeared to faint during the broadcast, which was seen live in New York. Donahue feared the fainting was caused by both anxiety at being on television and an overheated studio on a morning that was cold and snowy outside. He eventually cleared the studio of audience members and then resumed the show. The fainting "spell" turned out to have been cooked up by Abel in what he said was a protest against poor-quality television. Parodies In 1993, when euthanasia and Jack Kevorkian were common topics in the news, Abel set up the bogus Florida company "Euthanasia Cruises, Ltd.", which would offer cruises allowing suicidal participants to jump into the ocean after three days of partying. He revived this hoax in a column in 2006. In 1997, Abel launched CGS Productions to promote gift-wrapped pint jars of Jenny McCarthy's urine. (A parody of