Their first Yes Men foray was conceived serendipitously in 1999 while they were working at the anti-corporate Web site ®™ark. They received an e-mail from someone who had registered the domain name www.gwbush.com asking them to create a site spoofing Bush's election platform. Bichlbaum and Bonanno got to work. They graphically fashioned it after the real Bush campaign site (www.georgewbush.com), sans flowery political rhetoric. Instead, they unabashedly offered the platform: "To help the rich at the expense of the poor and the environment."

At a press conference shortly after the mock site went live, a reporter asked the then-presidential hopeful to comment on it. An outraged Bush exclaimed, "There ought to be limits to freedom."

After that, Bichlbaum and Bonanno obtained the domain www.gatt.org ("GATT" being the abbreviation for General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). They set it up to look like a World Trade Organization site, complete with a contact e-mail. When they started receiving invitations to appear at global business conferences and on television by people who wished to reach the WTO, they decided to launch their breed of live-action political theater.

"We kept upping the ante," says Bichlbaum. And so WTO characters like Hank Hardy Unruh and Granwyth Hulatberi were born.

During a July 2001 appearance on CNBC's "European Market Wrap," Hulatberi appeared to discuss the upcoming protests against the G8 meeting in Genoa, Italy. Among his suggestions: a market for human rights violations, so that countries that want to abuse their citizens can buy "justice vouchers" from those who don't. The show's host took it in stride, but fellow guest Barry Coates, from the activist World Development Movement, was livid.

More people were introduced to the Yes Men via their recent high-profile escapades at the Republican National Convention in New York City, which earned them the title of "prankster invaders" in the New York Times. Doesn't this mainstream media coverage put them in danger of being recognized? "Our target audience, swing voters, doesn't read the New York Times," Bichlbaum says.

He and Bonanno crashed the convention in Madison Square Garden disguised as Republicans. "People gave us their press credentials," Bonanno admits. Once inside, they passed out more than 1,000 fliers asking folks to "Take the U.S. Patriot Pledge" and volunteer to have a permanent nuclear waste storage facility in their communities. And they made friends. Bichlbaum ingratiated himself to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, getting his photo taken with him. "He was probably the only rabid fan that Spencer Abraham had ever seen," Bonanno jokes. Bichlbaum pipes in: "Mike got a photo of himself crouching behind Newt Gingrich!"

If the unique photographs weren't enough to earn them a red shooting star on eBay, the Yes Men snagged another invaluable souvenir that would certainly be sought after: the 210-page script from that day's RNC speeches. Found on the floor next to a garbage can, the teleplay included Arnold Schwarzenegger's prime-time speech. "It had scripted pauses, as well as spontaneous eruptions from the audience," Bichlbaum notes. "We also saved a list of delegates' names and addresses. We can use it as a mailing list for something," Bonanno adds impishly.

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