Filmmaker Jenny Abel explores the life and career of her father, Alan Abel, the infamous prankster who has pricked the pomposity of the media and aroused the public with his seemingly nonsensical ideas for over forty years.

As far back as she can remember, Jenny Abel has seen her father appear on television under a variety of aliases, fooling news reporters and talk show hosts. He was continually plotting new ways to infiltrate the media with one of his seemingly absurd causes.

Throughout the years, people have accused him of being a scam artist or an impostor. But to Jenny, he was always just a father with a unique profession.

Alan Abel, by trade, is a professional prankster. His hoaxing career began in the late 1950s with a campaign to clothe all animals for the sake of decency. Even though it was a satirical commentary on censorship, his slogan, “A nude horse is a rude horse,” was plastered on the front page of newspapers all over the country.

Fueled by the overwhelming response he received from this simple yet silly idea, Abel continued concocting a myriad of elaborate hoaxes and schemes, all designed to provoke and amuse. Permeating the airwaves with such stunts as Euthanasia Cruises and the KKK Symphony Orchestra, he has never been afraid to go to ridiculous lengths in order to expose what he believes to be an injustice.

Alan Abel continues to wreak havoc in the media. His story is brought to light for the first time in this amusing and touching documentary by daughter Jenny Abel, who not only has had a ringside seat to his antics throughout her lifetime but, on several occasions, was also an unwitting accomplice to his mischief.

Jenny explores why her father is hailed by some journalists as the ‘world’s greatest hoaxer’ and scorned by others as a complete menace to the media. She reflects on what it was like growing up with a prankster and follows her father on the road with his most recent hoax, a campaign to ban breastfeeding.

Abel Raises Cain attempts to explain the true motives behind Alan’s hoaxes and, in the process, allows for a different perspective on how the media operates. The film echoes Abel’s ultimate message – that you can’t believe everything you see, read or hear.

I decided to start working on a documentary about my father when I realized that programs like 20/20 and 48 Hours were barely skimming the surface of his interesting and bizarre career.

It was disconcerting to me that no one was doing justice to his story. Television shows that he appeared on would mention several of his more notable pranks and cut to a few clips of him fooling the media, but it never went any further than that. To make matters worse, he was usually lumped into news segments that featured fakes, frauds and scam artists and his sound bytes were edited in such a way that he came across as being mean-spirited.

Because I am the Abel’s only child, I felt especially driven to tell my father’s story. In 1998, I began incessantly following my parents around with a video camera. During that time, my father was in the middle of his most recent hoax, a campaign to ban breastfeeding.

I wanted to explore the two sides of Alan Abel that I grew up knowing very well – the loving family man and the slightly deranged professional hoaxer. I am hopeful the story reflects that, within my father, there is this strange intermediary realm in which both personas are seamlessly and continually intertwined.