"Scherzi a parte" is the Italian variant of "Candid Camera", on which the German show "Verstehen Sie Spaß?" is also based. So pranks are filmed with a hidden camera and then presented in a show. The fifth season of the show ran on Italia 1 in 1997 and was hosted by Massimo Lopez, Lello Arena and Elenoire Casalegno. In the fifth episode of the show, which was aired on Bud's 68th birthday on 31 October 1997, Bud Spencer was a guest in the studio and a film was shown where they secretly filmed him on a fake weight loss diet: Bud has been persuaded to lose a little weight for his upcoming film. His assistant takes him to a clinic in his Mercedes. When he gets out, he sees that the patients have to sing on the lawn in front of the clinic. Bud then wants to get straight back into the car, but is persuaded to stay by a doctor who joins him. He is then put into a pink gown and told to take part in singing and other exercises like the other patients. Bud joins in grumpily and very unmotivated. After a fellow patient collapses from exhaustion, he calls his assistant for the first time to pick him up. He is persuaded once more and now it's off to a massage, where things also go wrong. Finally, they go to the dining room, where the doctors and assistants are served a good portion of spaghetti. Bud himself, however, only gets a plate of orange peel. Bud then claws the waiter and asks who told him to serve this stuff. He throws the plate on the floor, knocks the table over and attacks the doctor with the words: "This is a lousy clinic, I'll smash everything here. You're a fraud and you're just trying to stop people from eating." The doctor is visibly startled by Bud's tantrum and finally breaks up the joke, whereupon Bud also starts laughing.