‘Office’ alum BJ Novak finally ‘pardoned’ by the MFA for his 1997 prank

If you did the hokey pokey in the Museum of Fine Arts in 1997, blame BJ Novak. But also, it’s time to forgive him. 

Try not to sing “Ryan started the fire” as you read this, but BJ messed with the tour audio at the historic Boston institution. Now 27 years later, he’s been pardoned by the MFA.

The “cheesy pita” in this case was BJ Novak’s senior prank. In 1997, the Newton South High School student and future “The Office” alum pranked MFA-goers by re-recording an audio tour for “Tales From the Land of Dragons.’’ 

He confessed in 2011 at a fund-raiser event at his former school, according to a 2011 story in the Boston Globe: “We thought, Let’s take a tape, transcribe it with everything on the tour, then make our own tape. And put that tape at the museum,’’ Novak admitted then. 

“The first three minutes of the tape were completely accurate … But about three minutes in, the tour started getting a little weird. The guy started injecting his personal opinions. He’d say, ‘Personally, I think this painting is a piece of [trash].’

“By the end of the tour, the narrator was instructing visitors to turn to your left, now turn to your right, now put your right foot in, now put your right foot out,” Novak said then. 

In 2011, the Globe said the MFA had “no comment.”

But some 13 year later, the MFA finally pardoned the 44-year-old actor/writer in an event March 1.

“We hereby proclaim @bjnovak officially pardoned for the elaborate prank he pulled at the MFA in high school,” the MFA posted to Instagram Monday, with photos showing Director of the Museum of Fine Arts Matthew Teitelbaum pardoning the prankster.

Novak and Newton South High School classmate Amir Dehestani “regaled” a sold-out crowd “with stories from their youth,” as part of their Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Celebrity Lecture Series, according to the MFA.

The “stunt … confused countless innocent visitors and showed us that even the pettiest and most sophomoric pranksters among us can leave an impact on a historic institution,” they added.

Instagram comments include: “Release the tapes!” (yes, please), “those tapes for sale in the gift shop?,” and a reference to the Isabella Gardner Museum heist: “the lighter side of Boston art crimes.”

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Lauren Daley can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1. 

Lauren Daley

Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist. As a regular contributor to Boston.com, she interviews A-list musicians, actors, authors and other major artists.

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