His plan assumes that all press is good press, and that companies will pay to have their name attached to a prank that's absurd enough to make the evening news and water-cooler banter the next morning.

Funding this peculiar business comes from the New Millenium Entertainment Fund, a venture capital start-up with $50 million in the bank.

"We're looking for people who will really push the boundaries of the comedic landscape," said the fund's president, Roger C. Lewis.

Advertisers have already put the idea into practice. This March, the retired space station Mir was set to crash into the Pacific Ocean near the Australian coast. Taco Bell floated a 100-square-meter target near the crash site, and guaranteed, if the station hit the target, a free taco for all 280 millions Americans.

Taco Bell purchased insurance to pay for the tacos in case Mir hit the target. The firm took the odds, Mir missed, and the stunt, with Taco Bell's name attached, become the subject of fluff news and chit-chat around the world.

While the fund will also finance "bullet-proof" traditional business models, it's taken up Novak as its most radical comedy experiment and poster boy.