# Greatest Pranks of All Time **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 16, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668 "2013-07-16T14:35:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/61 "2013-07-18T23:12:16Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Of course it is. But the person has a sufficiently unusual physique to not look quite like a guy in an ape suit… There was a special on the 'unmasking" as it were. The guy in the suit replicated his walk in a very off-hand way. He has very long arms. Even in street clothes as as soon as you see him walk away there is no doubt that it is him. A good prank, but if you care to search, the answer is available. ---
**Author:** ![BigNik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/73ab20/32.png) [@BigNik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigNik)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/62 "2013-07-18T23:31:11Z")
Either one of the greatest hoaxes of all time or one that backfired spectacularly - I can’t work out which - is the [Ern Malley hoax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley). Two public servants didn’t think much of late-modernist poetry, so they invented an author and wrote a series of pieces of blithering nonsense disguised as masterpieces of an exciting new poet. They got published and promptly hailed as works of brilliance by a number of respectable writers and critics, whose reputations took a huge hit when the fraud was announced. …except that even today, the poems in question still considered to be excellent examples of late-modernist poetry. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/63 "2013-07-18T23:41:12Z")
The Iraqi War? ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/64 "2013-07-18T23:42:07Z")
The Alaska [volcano prank](http://www.sitka.com/Porky/porky.htm)was pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/65 "2013-07-19T00:27:26Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > My personal favorite is the [Great Rose Bowl Prank of 1961.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rose_Bowl_Hoax) > [@Voyager](#): > > [MIT is known for lots of hacks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacks_at_the_Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology) most famously the weather balloon planted at the 50 yard line of the Harvard Yale game. Both of these, along with one other prank of the hackish variety, are documented in the [Jargon File](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html). I’m fondest of the third prank, involving Motorola, Xerox, and the return of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/66 "2013-07-19T00:46:03Z")
JoseB, you are the best. Brilliant. I like the Alaska volcano one, too. It seems my favorite pranks involve scaring people into thinking the end is nigh – but JoseB is the winner, because he also made the poor victim think it was _his fault_. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/67 "2013-07-19T09:09:17Z")
In one of his books, Stephen Jay Gould makes a strong case that the young Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who went on to become a very respected theologian, was complicit in the Piltdown hoax. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/68 "2013-07-19T09:29:19Z")
The very pornographic and NSFW but witty and hilarious “Dick Bun” prank. Spoilered twice for safety. [Dick Bun](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/69 "2013-07-19T10:30:32Z")
> [@Suil\_Dubh](#): > > The very pornographic and NSFW but witty and hilarious “Dick Bun” prank. > > Spoilered twice for safety. > > [Dick Bun](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) You MAGNIFICENT BASTARD XD XD XD ---
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/70 "2013-07-19T12:35:25Z")
Not sure if it counts, but famous SciFi space opera Pandora’s Star begins with great prank on first manned Mars mission. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/71 "2013-07-19T12:40:23Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > JoseB, you are the best. Brilliant. Agreed, that was pretty damn good. I would have loved to see the expression on the teacher’s face once the sirens went off. _tips hat_ ---
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/72 "2013-07-19T12:41:21Z")
Uh, uh, and one from real life. I lent handheld device once to my asshat bastard colegue who uploaded quite a few short movies involving male genitalia and milking device and cleverly disguised them as other kind of software. I didn’t check it, but my boss, who was next in line for try, did… ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/73 "2013-07-19T15:21:48Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I don’t think that qualifies, as it wasn’t a prank. Yes it was. Wells knew people would be missing the first few minutes of his broadcast. Plus, when it was announced “We’re going to Washington for a special announcement” the next voice actor did a spot on impression of Roosevelt. Most people knew FDR from the radio. Wells played innocent but he knew exactly what he was doing. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/74 "2013-07-19T16:06:07Z")
> [@bup](#): > > See, I think to be a prank, the “punchline” exposing the whole thing as fake has to be part of the original plan. As bigfoot hoaxers intend to fool people and never show up and shout “gotcha!” they don’t qualify. > > [Naked Came The Stranger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Came_the_Stranger%E2%80%8E) was a very successful prank. Seems to be a hoax by your own definition. ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/75 "2013-07-19T16:48:37Z")
> [@BigNik](#): > > Either one of the greatest hoaxes of all time or one that backfired spectacularly - I can’t work out which - is the [Ern Malley hoax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley). > > Two public servants didn’t think much of late-modernist poetry, so they invented an author and wrote a series of pieces of blithering nonsense disguised as masterpieces of an exciting new poet. They got published and promptly hailed as works of brilliance by a number of respectable writers and critics, whose reputations took a huge hit when the fraud was announced. > > …except that even today, the poems in question still considered to be excellent examples of late-modernist poetry. Heh, that’s fantastic. I myself have always liked the[’Sokal affair’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair), which involved a Physics professor getting a load of nonsensical crap published in a postmodern journal. The title of the article was bad enough, if you ask me: **“Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”** ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/76 "2013-07-19T17:58:32Z")
Poetry - that reminds me of what may be the greatest literary prank of all time, simply because of the status of the entities involved ([Rolfe Humphries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolfe_Humphries), \*Poetry \*magazine and [Nicholas Murray Butler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Murray_Butler)) and the juvenile nature of the prank itself, which will be left as an exercise to the reader except to say that _But_ler was quite the _butt_ of its humor. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/77 "2013-07-19T18:56:13Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Yes it was. > Wells knew people would be missing the first few minutes of his broadcast. > > Plus, when it was announced “We’re going to Washington for a special announcement” the next voice actor did a spot on impression of Roosevelt. Most people knew FDR from the radio. Wells played innocent but he knew exactly what he was doing. As he made very explicit in his closing: > [@](#): > > This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of The Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night. . . so we did the best next thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the C. B. S. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian. . .it’s Hallowe’en. > **[The War of the Worlds - The Script](https://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/mars/wow.htm)** ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/78 "2013-07-19T20:18:53Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > No zippers, no strings, no wristwatch or sneakers… it holds up just well enough to maintain the illusion. You really can’t see the seam where the jacket meets the trousers? The fur doesn’t line up. Look again. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/79 "2013-07-19T20:40:11Z")
Similar to the Rose Bowl prank, Yale got the Harvard crowd to spell out [We Suck](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Harvard%E2%80%93Yale_prank). ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668/80 "2013-07-19T20:55:59Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Wells knew people would be missing the first few minutes of his broadcast. How and why? My understanding is that the big competition was a variety show, and when a tedious performer came on 3-4 minutes into the show, many people started tuning around for something else and lit on Welles after the disclaimers. How did he know this, or are you referring to something else? FWIW, I’ve heard the claims that only a few people were fooled, and the consensus seems to be that a significant number of people did indeed think the reports were real and reacted accordingly. It may come down to whether a few thousand people is significant or a misunderstanding that it was a bigger “many” makes it false. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-pranks-of-all-time/663668.md?page=5)