Pranklopedia

by Julie Winterbottom

  YOUR TURN

  Today you don’t have to be famous for your pranks to be seen by millions of people, thanks to YouTube. A search for “pranks” turns up not only videos of old Candid Camera and Punk’d episodes but also videos made by regular people. Of course, not everyone has Allen Funt’s talent for setting up the perfect prank, and some are funnier than others.

  the prank

  Umbrellas are good protection from rain but not from pranks. Fill a family member’s umbrella with confetti or cereal and the next time it rains, your victim will experience a special shower.

  BEWARE!

  This prank may cause a mess. Be prepared to clean Up!

  what you need

  * Your victim’s umbrella

  * Confetti, or something that works like confetti, such as dry oatmeal or plain cereal

  what you do

  THE SETUP

  1 Open the umbrella and turn it upside down so the tip is resting on the floor.

  2 Put a few handfuls of the confetti or cereal inside. Then carefully close the umbrella and fasten it shut. Clean up any spilled confetti or cereal.

  PULL THE PRANK

  1 Put the umbrella back where you found it. The next time it rains, keep an eye out to see if your victim grabs the umbrella. If possible, follow your victim out the door so you can witness the effects of the rare weather pattern.

  VERY IMPORTANT PRANKS

  V.I.P

  The Umbrella Fella

  Brian G. Hughes was a wealthy New York banker famous for pulling practical jokes that poked fun at people who were greedy or who thought they were very important. One of Hughes’s favorite pranks was to leave expensive umbrellas in public places. When someone took one and opened it up, their little crime became public—a sign dropped down that said: “Stolen from Brian G. Hughes.” Hughes probably would have been happy to know that when he died in 1924, his obituary described him as a famous practical joker first and a banker second.

  the prank

  Fake vomit has a longer life than almost any other prank. You can use it again and again: on car trips, your sister’s bed, your aunt’s couch … the only limit is your imagination (and the patience of your friends and family). Instead of spending money on plastic vomit, make your own fake vomit at home. It takes a little time, but it’s totally worth it.

  what you need

  * Measuring cup

  * Water

  * A small bowl

  * A box of lemon gelatin mix (Jell-O or similar brand)

  * A spoon

  * A jar of applesauce (chunky style is best)

  * A microwave-safe bowl or small saucepan

  * A tablespoon

  * A packet of unflavored gelatin (look for it in the baking section at the store)

  * A teaspoon

  * Uncooked oatmeal

  * Cheddar cheese or similar hard cheese (optional)

  * A plate

  * A spatula

  what you do

  THE SETUP

  1 Ask an adult to help you boil 1 cup of water and pour it into a bowl. Pour in the packet of lemon gelatin mix and stir well. Add 1 cup of cold water and stir again.

  2 Put ¼ cup of applesauce in the microwave-safe bowl. Stir in 2 tablespoons of the lemon gelatin liquid.

  3 Ask an adult to help you heat the applesauce mixture in the microwave for about 30 seconds, until it’s hot but not boiling. (If you don’t have a microwave, ask an adult to help you heat the applesauce in a pan on the stovetop over low heat, stirring occasionally. When it’s hot, get help emptying it into the bowl.)

  4 While the applesauce is still hot, sprinkle the packet of unflavored gelatin on top and stir well.

  5 Sprinkle in a teaspoon of oatmeal. If you want, crumble a small piece of cheese into the mixture.

  6 Pour the barf mixture onto a plate. It should be liquid enough to spread out. Use a spoon to move the solid chunky part around so it looks like real vomit. You might want to sprinkle a little more oatmeal or cheese on top.

  7 Put the plate of puke in a safe place to cool and harden. It needs at least 4 hours.

  8 When the vomit is dry, use the spatula to remove it from the plate. Make sure it is completely dry so it won’t stain anything when you use it.

  PULL THE PRANK

  1 The world is full of opportunities to use your fake vomit. Here are just a few ideas:

  * Car trip: During the ride, place the fake vomit on the floor of the backseat. Then start complaining about feeling sick to your stomach. Say things like, “I’m not feeling too well,” “I’m a little nauseated,” or “I really hope I don’t throw up.” Then cough lightly and make some retching sounds. Wait in silence for a few seconds, and then in a small voice, announce that you just puked on the floor. Or, if your dog is along for the ride, put the vomit on the backseat and say, “Uh-oh, I think Ralph got carsick when we weren’t looking.”

  * Movie theater: Place the vomit on the floor next to your friend’s feet when he isn’t looking. Then point to it and say, “Ew. Looks like someone ate too much popcorn.”

  * Late to the bathroom: Leave the vomit on the floor next to the toilet for someone to find.

  * A sick night: Put a piece of fake puke in your sibling’s bed before bedtime, or place it on the floor for her to find when she wakes up in the morning.

  * Use your imagination! Carry a piece of fake vomit wherever you go, and keep an eye out for interesting places to leave it. But do not bother bringing it to school—unless, of course, it is “Bring Some Fake Vomit to School Day.”

  Horace de Vere Cole:

  Always Horsing Around

  Horace de Vere Cole was born into a wealthy family in Ireland in 1881. He started doing pranks in college and never stopped. One of his tricks was to challenge a well-known politician to race him down a London street for fun. Cole would let the fellow pull ahead of him and then yell, “Stop, thief!” until a police officer showed up. The prank went a little too far when a member of Parliament got arrested as a pickpocket. Hopefully, the guy had a good sense of humor.

  Cole seemed unable to resist the urge to pull a prank. He even pranked the citizens of Venice, Italy, when he was there on his honeymoon. Venice is a low-lying city filled with canals instead of roads, and when Cole was there, the city had no horses—which is what gave Cole his idea for a prank. In the middle of the night, he went to the mainland and returned with a boatload of horse manure. He scattered it around the city’s most famous square, the Piazza San Marco. The next morning, Venetians were scratching their heads trying to figure out how their horseless city had produced all that manure.

  An artist’s interpretation of the manure-filled square.

  the prank

  Horace de Vere Cole was an Irish poet born in 1881 who seemed to spend as much time creating pranks as he did poems. (You can read more about Cole on page 167.) In one of his pranks, Cole pretended to be a surveyor—a person who measures land in preparation for building. In those days, surveyors used string to take measurements. Cole would ask a passing stranger to help him out by holding one end of the string. Then he would go around the corner and ask another stranger to hold the other end of the string. At this point Cole would depart, leaving the two men holding the string. In this prank you walk away leaving your victim in a similarly silly situation.

  what you need

  * Two rimless plastic cups

  * Water

  what you do

  THE SETUP

  1 Fill each cup about halfway with water.

  PULL THE PRANK

  1 Walk up to your victim carrying the two cups of water. This prank works best indoors so that your victim won’t just dump the water on the ground. Explain that you want to see if you can balance two cups of water on your hands and you need some help.

  2 Give your victim the cups of water and hold your hands out in front of you, palms down. Ask your friend to balance one cup on each of your hands. This might take a little while. You will have to work together to
find the best place to put the cups, but don’t give up. It’s definitely possible.

  3 Once both cups are balanced, say, “Awesome!” and ask your friend to remove them. Then say, “Now, let’s see if you can do it.”

  4 Repeat the process, this time balancing the cups on your friend’s hands. Remember, his palms must be facing down. When the cups are perfectly balanced, walk away. You can pretend you have to go check on something or just leave without saying a thing. Your friend is left standing there, with no way to remove the cups from his hands without dumping the water.

  the prank

  The chances that extraterrestrial beings will land on Earth are pretty slim. But the idea makes great material for a science-fiction movie—or a prank. With a little paint and a lot of fast talking, you can dupe a younger sibling or gullible friend into thinking that an alien visited you in the middle of the night and left a mysterious mark on you. And now, the alien would like to meet your friend …

  what you need

  * Face paint or nontoxic washable paint

  * A plastic cup

  * Newspaper or paper towel

  * A cotton ball or clean sponge

  * Scissors

  what you do

  THE SETUP

  1 To create the mysterious mark left on your arm by the alien, first choose the color paint you want to use to create the mark. You can use a single color, or mix several colors together in the plastic cup to create a color that makes you think of aliens.

  2 Put newspapers or a paper towel down on the table to protect it from the paint.

  3 Place the arm to be painted on the newspaper or paper towel. Keep the palm of your hand facing up.

  4 Decide what you want your alien mark to look like. It’s best to make a simple shape.

  5 Dip your finger (or a cotton ball or piece of sponge) in the paint and carefully draw the symbol on your forearm. Apply a very thin coat of paint—you want it to look like part of your own skin.

  6 Wait for the paint to dry.

  PULL THE PRANK

  1 First thing in the morning is a good time to pull the prank, and younger siblings are the best targets.

  2 This prank requires some top-notch acting, so think through what you are going to say beforehand and rehearse the story when you are alone. (Just make sure you are out of earshot of your family or they will think you have lost your mind.)

  3 Your story can go something like this, but be prepared to improvise and answer any questions that your victim asks:

  * Start by describing what a strange night you had. Say something like: “The weirdest thing happened to me last night. It was so bizarre, I can hardly believe it myself.” Pause and take a deep breath, as if you are upset.

  * Your victim will probably ask, “What? What happened?”

  * Continue your story, speaking in a slightly shaky voice: “I was sound asleep when I felt something brush across my arm and it woke me up. At first I couldn’t see anything. Then I noticed that some kind of creature was in the room. It definitely wasn’t a human—it was short with a huge head that had a weird mark on it. I was about to scream when the thing started talking in this really strange voice—like a cross between a human and a computer. It said, ‘Hello, [your name]. We’ve been hoping to establish communication with you. Please don’t be alarmed. We are curious about your planet and how you live. We thought you might be able to help us.’”

  * Keep going with the story: “I said, ‘Why me? And who are you?’” The creature said it came from a planet called Malarka in another galaxy and they picked me because I was born on [your birthday], which according to them is a sign that we will work together well. Then it said it had to go but it would attempt to communicate with me again today through a magnetic system. It said I should wait at [choose a location] today at [choose a time] and that I should bring you because you seem like somebody who can be trusted.”

  * Now comes the part where you use the mark on your arm as proof that an alien really visited you. Say: “I fell back to sleep, and when I woke up this morning, I figured it was all a dream. But then I saw this.” Hold out your arm so your victim can see the mark and say: “It’s the exact same symbol I saw on the alien’s head! When it brushed my arm, it must have marked me. So it wasn’t a dream!”

  * Now it’s time to get your sibling or friend to take action: “I want you to come with me today when the alien returns. You don’t have to be afraid. There was nothing scary about it. But we have to wear metal on our heads so their magnetic messages will get through. Meet me at [choose a location] at [choose a time] and cover your head with a pot lid or a big piece of foil. And don’t be late. This is really an amazing opportunity to communicate with extraterrestrial creatures!”

  * Make sure some friends or family members will be present at the time and place you picked. When your victim shows up with a pot lid or foil on his head, act like you have no idea why and just shake your head in amazement if he starts talking about aliens.

  X-TRA-TERRESTRIAL X-TRAS

  To make the alien visit more convincing to your victim, you can leave “evidence” in different places where he will see it. For example:

  1 Create the alien mark in the grass near your house, using nontoxic paint. Or use a shovel to create the shape in dirt or gravel.

  2 Make the alien mark appear on a piece of toast at breakfast. Here’s how:

  * Mix together 7 drops of red food coloring, 4 drops of yellow, and 2 drops of green to make brown.

  * Dip the handle tip of a plastic spoon or fork in the food coloring and use it to draw the alien mark on a piece of bread.

  * Toast the bread and place it on the table where your victim will see it.

  3 Follow the instructions in the Message from a Ghost prank on page 81 to make the alien mark appear in the bathroom mirror.

  4 Use your imagination to think of other places where the aliens can leave their mark!

  X-tra-terrestrial Files

  Does intelligent life exist beyond the planet Earth? No one knows for sure. But so far, the only “evidence” has turned out to be extraterrestrial pranks like these.

  MOON CREATURES

  In 1835 a New York newspaper announced the discovery of life on the moon. According to the paper, a famous British scientist had invented a powerful new telescope that allowed him to view the surface of the moon. Every day for a week, the newspaper ran a story describing the astonishing creatures that lived on the moon: lunar bison; fire-emitting, two-legged beavers; and “man-bats”—humanlike creatures with bat wings. The paper even printed pictures of the strange creatures. Newspapers across the country reprinted the articles, and soon it was all people could talk about. Eventually they realized they had been fooled, even though the newspaper never ‘fessed up to the hoax. For years after, people used the phrase moon hoax for any story that sounded like it was made up.

  An 1835 print shows lunar man-bats.

  SIGNS OF PLANT LIFE IN OUTER SPACE?

  Sometimes pranksters have to wait a long time for their joke to be discovered. But 100 years? That’s how long it took scientists to realize that a meteor that landed in southern France was evidence of a sense of humor—not extraterrestrial life. On May 14, 1864, a meteor shower fell near the town of Orgueil. Someone collected samples of the meteorites and sent them to the natural history museum in a nearby city. Museum workers sent most of the samples to other museums but kept two in a sealed glass jar. They soon forgot about them.

  Then, a century later, in the early 1960s, researchers opened the jars and studied the samples. They were shocked at what they found: Buried deep inside the meteorites were plant seeds—evidence that life must exist somewhere in outer space, wherever the meteorites came from! On closer look, the scientists discovered that the seeds were actually from France—someone had apparently mixed them with ground charcoal, stuck them inside the soft space rock, then sealed the outside with glue. Unfortunately, the prankster who went to all that trouble wasn’t alive to enjoy the pr
ank.

  The “War Of The Worlds” Hoax: What Really Happened?

  The War of the Worlds radio broadcast is probably the most famous extraterrestrial hoax in history. Orson Welles was a famous movie director—and perhaps the most famous prankster who never was. On October 30, 1938, on his weekly radio show, he broadcast a play based on a story by H. G. Wells called “War of the Worlds.” Welles announced at the start of the broadcast that what listeners were about to hear was a play. But some people missed that part or ignored it. As the play progressed, listeners heard what sounded like series of terrifying “news” announcements.

  First there was a report that astronomers had detected blue flames on the surface of Mars. Minutes later, an announcer reported that a meteor had just landed on a field near Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Then another report: It wasn’t a meteor but a spaceship-shaped object—and a creature with tentacles was climbing out of it. The creature was wearing a huge, metal contraption and it was starting to march across New Jersey, blasting earthlings with heat rays and toxic gas.

  The story goes that hundreds of people living near the site jumped in their cars and started to flee. The truth is probably not nearly as exciting. While some people may have believed the story, many more listeners reported that they simply felt disturbed or frightened by the play. There is little evidence of the mass panic that newspapers later reported. Neither phone lines nor highways were jammed. In fact, the real hoax could be that people believed the newspaper reports of “mass panic.” What really happened that night is that millions of people sat at home listening to a really good, really scary science-fiction story.

  UNIDENTIFIED FLYING REINDEER

  In December 1965 the manned space shuttle Gemini 6 was orbiting Earth when NASA’s Mission Control received a startling message from astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford. The two reported seeing an unidentified flying object traveling north to south. They said it consisted of one command module with eight smaller modules in front and that the pilot of the command module was wearing a red suit. The folks at Mission Control were mystified—and a little alarmed—until they heard the sound of “Jingle Bells” being played on the harmonica and sleigh bells. Schirra and Stafford had sneaked the instruments onboard and decided to play an out-of-this-world Christmas prank.