The origins of “planking”—the hot new trend of approximately four months ago in which people lie face down on things for the Internet’s amusement—were claimed nearly two years back by a pair of British twentysomethings, who say they invented the game in 1997. But now Tom Green has stepped forward to say that he deserves credit for creating planking as early as 1994, which he did even before the comedian’s mid-’90s heyday of putting himself on things and, conversely, things on himself for laughs. Green recently took to Twitter to post the below footage of his old “Dead Guy” stunt that bears some notable similarity to the planking of today—although Green admitted in this follow-up CNN interview that “Dead Guy” is an “obscure piece of video” that would only have been seen by viewers of his Canadian cable-access show in the days before MTV.
But while Green doesn’t seem to be accusing anyone of stealing his idea, he’s definitely begun campaigning in earnest to be acknowledged as the true inspiration for planking. Which is silly, as everyone knows there’s only one reason for the existence of planking, “lip dubs,” or any other dumb Internet trend: the lack of a constitutionally mandated draft.