The first time I stayed home alone by myself in the evening, my brother had hidden behind a chair and jumped out from behind when I sat down in it. Yeah, he’s still an asshole.
Hmm. This is the second time today a thread has prompted me to post about something along these lines my asshole brother did.
No one in my family has the attention span necessary to do an elaborate prank or surprise, so I don’t really know how it would go over.
I’d also differentiate between something like blowing a horn at someone (which just seems stupid & mean) or something cruel that hurts or embarrasses someone and something like this, which is silly and annoying, but non-harmful to the prankee.
Love me some harmless pranks
http://skatevideomagazine.com/viva-la-bam-paint-phil-blue-other-stories-season-1-episode-5/
RIP Ryan Dunn
Well, there was some pranking when the boys were teenagers. It mostly had to do with the bathroom–like removing all the towels when somebody was going to go in and take a shower, and signaling this, if you happened to notice, by sticking the plunger to the ceiling. (The boy in question did not notice.)
It did get bad when one of them (and yes, I do know which one) messed with the lock on the door and we had to remove the door to get him out…
And then there was the always funny rubber band on the vegetable sprayer on the kitchen sink. Hey, it’s just water.
But nothing to cause blood. Also, we had a pretty firm rule that nobody pretended to be injured when they weren’t.
On Halloween you had to be on your guard.
Pranks and surprises are grounds for divorce around Casa Silenus. Neither the wife nor I like them in any fashion.
ftr- That actually happened in a classroom & I was in an adjoining room. The kid had tendons cut & never recovered full
use of his hand. “Laughing Boy” got sent to a “special school” after that & I did my best never to have anything to do with him.
It affected me deeply & I never had a single moments tolerance for any “joker” since.
Jack Nicholson? Him I can almost respect. Poor Bastard has to watch The Lakers until the end of time. (Who says there isn’t a God?)
Heath Ledger too. (Except that he’s dead, which may be a large part of it.)
…But if you’re burying knives in modeling clay for kids, then you must have that Jared Leto Skull-Swirly going on.
Probably Inside.
Pranks done right add a dose of surrealism and weirdness to the victim’s life. Improv Everywhere does stuff that’s borderline prankish and very weird–a recent escapade involved setting up a bunch of microphones with some flags behind them, on a randomset of government-building steps. When someone approached the microphones in curiosity, a bunch of folks dressed as journalists swarmed the front area and started shouting questions: “HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THE ALLEGATION THAT YOU DRINK MILK DIRECTLY FROM THE CARTON?” and so on.
I like that sort of thing.
Someone posted on here, years ago, about replacing a ceiling tile with a photograph of a snarling possum, so that it looked like the tile was missing and the possum was in the crawlspace. That was a little mean, but so weird that it gets a pass from me.
Pranks that aren’t weird don’t get a pass.
Lats year I made “Chocolate chip cookies” out of mashed potatoes and black beans. We still laugh ourselves silly whenever we think about it. That was funny!
But that kind of obnoxious startling and yelling and stuff, that’s not a prank, it’s just being a jerk and it’s NOT FUNNY. I really can’t believe some of these people stay with the other person. There was one on Youtube where a lady surrounded her husband with mouse traps while he was asleep. When he hit one, and startled awake, then of course he jumped aside and lost his balance and fell into a whole bunch of them. That’s just evil and entirely NOT FUNNY
If it hurts, or startles, it’s not a good prank, because it’s NOT FUNNY.
Scaring, well, to a certain level, but no farther, and only if you are certain it won’t be worse than that. Otherwise, NOT FUNNY!
I’m told that this one is performance art. Bummer, because if it were a prank it would be a seriously funny one.
How many times does it have to be explained that we’re not talking about shit like that? You’re really equating to some jagoff hiding a knife in a lump of clay with putting a bucket of water on top of a door, or stupid prank calls, or whatever? Does this place really see everything in terms of black and white? If you honestly cannot see the difference, then you have serious issues. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and TP my neighbor’s house.
:rolleyes:
But I think that’s the problem with pranks, is that too many pranksters aren’t able to tell where the line is. They think that they are doing a funny prank when others just see it as mean and harmful. Winston on New Girl is a good example, he either goes too small and unnoticeable, like putting a sticker on the bottom of someone’s shoe, or way too big, like threatening to hit people with a ski or registering a friend as a sex offender.
Good pranks are hard to do, and a lot of people don’t realize that they aren’t good at pranks. Even Improv Everywhere which is pretty great at fun non-mean or harmful pranks have had some go wrong, like where a bunch of people were handcuffed and questioned by the police because it seemed similar to recent flash mobs that were covers for burglary.
Obviously balloons in an office are fun and okay, and a knife in clay is psychotic, but there are a lot of pranks in the middle that could go one way if they are well received or could go badly if things don’t line up right. Or could go well if played on Jim but very badly if played on John.
Nope.
Was actually thinking about this a couple of days ago - in how much it annoys the fuck out of me when someone I’ve just met decides to presume upon our nano-second long relationship to use terms and language that would only (barely) be acceptable from one of longstanding friendship, and/or playing “pranks” on people they just met.
A good prank is a wonderful bonding moment for a family. For one April Fool’s day, I handed my 5 year old a small bag of Cheetos - something he was always asking for but rarely gets. He was stunned that I handed it to him without a fuss. He gleefully opened it only to find baby carrots inside. And he loves baby carrots too, but the Cheetos were a special treat.
And another thing: a good prank requires that the pranked know th recipient. Too many of these ‘pranks’ are done out of cruelty and bullying, and that is not acceptable.
This illustrates the problem - while putting a bucket of water on top of a door is an old cartoon trope, it seems far from harmless to me. There’s the risk of injury from the solid bucket hitting me, and the fact that it’s not uncommon for me to have food or several hundred dollars worth of non-waterproof electronics on me when I’m going room to room in the house. If someone did that at my place, they wouldn’t be welcome back to my house, whether we’re related or not.
I am not amused by pranks that harm, embarrass, or humiliate. That’s just hateful in my book. But I’m OK with fun and silly as long as you know your “victim” will ultimately be amused.
I always used to give my boss a ration about leaving me in charge when he had to go on travel - not that it was always me, but I’d whine when it was my turn. Just for the record, I wasn’t really upset and I did what had to be done. I was a professional, after all.
But one time, I decided to leave him a surprise. One of my coworkers lay down on the floor in his office doorway and we used masking tape to create a “chalk outline” around her body. Boss got a laugh and the tape stayed there for a couple of months.
Another time, we hung a bunch of balloons from the fluorescent lights over his desk, and put a picture of the old man from “Up” on his chair. Again, harmless fun.
He’d get his revenge. When I was working intently on a project, I’d be pretty much oblivious to anything around me. So he’d walk up behind me very quietly, then lean in close to my ear and say hello in a normal tone of voice. Most of the time, I’d jump and he thought it was hilarious! So did I, after my pulse rate returned to normal.
Someone upthread mentioned prank phone calls. Do those even happen any more? I’d think with caller ID, you’d lose the necessary anonymity. Altho I think those are stupid pranks - the comedy channels on SiriusXM will play them once in a while and I can’t change the station fast enough.
I must admit to one prank that I participated in at work.
I don’t recall who bought it. But it was a small beeper that only went off once an hour. Very, very quietly. 
Oh yeah, that got hidden in your office. It bugged me several days before I took my office apart to find it. I dropped it off in another coworker’s office. I figured it was expected to keep this prank alive for a few weeks. I think everybody in the office got a visit from the beeper at least once. 
The only acceptable pranks are when the victim eventually laughs as well.
Reminded me of a prank pulled on a coworker. This was back in the day of open-office plans - no cubicles. Bob was notorious for having stacks of drawings and documents on, around, and under his desk - to be fair he was one of our more productive engineers. One day, one of the other engineers swiped the automatic air freshener from the men’s room and stuck it up in the knee hole of his desk, all the way back and as high as they could reach.
Over the course of the next few days, you’d hear Bob randomly yell “What the fuck was that??” when it was quiet and he’d hear the psssssst of the sprayer. He finally figured out someone had messed with his desk, and he found the device. There was no revenge, and we all had a good laugh. As pranks go, I thought it was a pretty good one.
Elaborate? Is an ongoing 28 year prank elaborate enough? My wife thinks that through all those years of cohabitation, shared financials, 3 kids and a grandchild that we have been married. Oh, yeah, we filled out the forms, had the ceremony and all that. All part of the prank setup. What she doesn’t know, though, is that ::snicker:: I had my fingers crossed the entire time! LOLOLOL!! One of these days, when I finally tell her, boy is she going to LAUGH!!!
I hate pranks. I’ve informed the spouse that he should not ever try to pull any “April Fool” jokes on me, which is fine with him because he hates them too.
The exception is harmless things that don’t humiliate, scare, or embarrass the recipient. Like the time I swapped my college roommate’s Motrin tablet (which looked like an orange M&M) for an orange M&M. She cut them in half before she took them, so it was funny to watch her cut the M&M in half. She laughed too. We also stacked the deck during a poker game once, ensuring that the victim (who’d left to use the bathroom before the deal) got a royal flush. Watching him try to keep a poker face was great. (We weren’t playing for money–just a fun game). That kind of thing I don’t mind
The ones I hate the absolute most are anything where you lead the victim to believe a loved one is injured or in trouble, or their SO is cheating on them–and especially those stupid radio pranks where the victim’s reaction is made public without his/her consent. If anyone ever did one of those to me that would be the end of the friendship.