Prank panhandling video was professional job

Saw this video first on Reddit on Friday morning, and by lunch it was all over the place - a scene painfully familiar to anyone who has ever ridden a subway.

Title: Panhandler Pranks Entire Subway Car.

The cool part is that the subway is SEPTA's, and the people on the train are Philadelphians, right out of central casting: some hipsters, some working folks, both black and white, all bored, tired, lost in their thoughts or phones, doing their best not to make eye contact, just get wherever they're going.

Then a guy steps onto the train, coffee cup in hand, and announces, "Excuse me. ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please." His spiel:

I'm not a crook, I'm not here selling candy for no basketball team. I'm just an honest hardworking man trying to make a living. I'm not here to beg, ladies and gentlemen. Things are actually going pretty well for me now.

And then he goes on to say how well. Quite well, really. See for yourself at data.inquirer.com/thetalk/

The video made the rounds on the Internet over the weekend - some New Yorkers even claimed the locale as their own.

How New York.

If you look at the clip, you notice a couple things as he wins over the crowd - well, at least the members of the crowd who seemingly signed away their rights to the video; others are fuzzed out because apparently they didn't. They seem to be no pushovers. Philly people.

The other thing you notice is that it's shot so well. No cellphone job, this has great lighting, just the right angles and edits.

Professionally done.

In fact, it's shot like one of those operatic flash mobs at Macy's where among the shoppers are trained sopranos who burst into aria.

Only in this case, no one is really that surprised.

It's an act - all scripted.

And it's part of a grand tradition of subway begging memes.

SEPTA confirmed my hunch. Spokeswoman Heather Redfern says College Humor, an entertainment website that creates its own video content, rented the Broad-Ridge Spur on June 23, a Sunday, when the line was not operating.

Three times, its operatives shot the scene as the car moved from Eighth and Market to Chinatown, where the "panhandler" got on, and then to Fairmount, where he collected his tributes of high fives and chest bumps.

Those Philly people are actors - at least 10 or so were. The others were people paid to show up and take a survey about transportation, and found themselves being taped as they watched a performance written by Kevin Corrigan and acted out by "panhandler" Carl Foreman Jr., a College Humor spokeswoman said.

SEPTA even got paid for its time - just under $10,000 for use of its property, equipment and crew, Redfern said.

Well done.

This was just the latest time SEPTA has leased itself out for simulations of gritty city life, spokeswoman Jerri Williams told me.

Bradley Cooper filmed a fight scene at the Walnut-Locust station for Limitless. The recently canceled TV show Do No Harm shot a couple scenes of its pilot at SEPTA locations. And the last film to star Glee actor Cory Monheit - McCanick - has a chase scene that used the Broad-Ridge Spur as well.

"Everyone at SEPTA loves the video," Williams said. "Some employees also thought it was real. LOL."