Another April Fools’ Day has come and gone. Like every other year, we saw people and corporations come up with elaborate April Fools’ pranks. Some were so well-thought out that many actually fell for them.

Some of these successful ruses were even unveiled before April Fools’ Day to make them look more truthful. Other pranks weren’t so good and reeked of April foolery from afar. Here are ten interesting April Fools’ Day pranks we saw this year.

10 Tinder Height Verification

April Fools’ Day jokes issued before April 1 are often more difficult to detect, so it’s little wonder that so many people fell for Tinder’s height verification hoax.

On March 29, Tinder published a blog post in which it informed users about its plan to introduce a Height Verification Badge (HVB) to end what it called “height fishing.” It said male users often claimed they were taller than they really were. The HVB would stop that.

Tinder said male users would input their height into the app and take a picture of themselves standing beside a commercial building. Then Tinder would use some undisclosed method to verify their real height. Users get the height verification badge if they are telling the truth.

Tinder said the update was targeted at people shorter than 183 centimeters (6′), since they were the most likely to overreport their height. It added that only 14.5 percent of American men are over 183 centimeters, so it expected an 80-percent reduction in the number of users claiming to be over 183 centimeters.^[1]

Several male users condemned the badge. One man even requested for a weight verification badge to identify women who used old pictures and lied about their weights. Another man tweeted that the badge was an attack on men and unacceptable. This continued until April Fools’ Day, when Tinder revealed the whole thing was a prank.

It is surprising that a lot of users fell for the prank, even though the blog post ended with, “Tinder’s HVB is coming soon to a phone near you.” This was probably because the post was published three days before April Fools’ Day. Tinder also went all out for the prank and even created a video tutorial explaining how the new height verification tool worked.

9 Roku Pet Remote

Roku also pulled an elaborate April Fools’ Day prank. Like Tinder, it also published a blog post three days before April 1.

On March 29, Roku introduced a new product it called the Roku Press Paws Remote for dogs. Roku said it created the product after a study revealed that users sometimes left their televisions on to entertain their dogs while they were away.

However, the dogs often got bored with watching whatever their owners forced them to watch. They could not switch channels because they cannot use the human remote. So Roku came up with a special dog remote with paw-shaped buttons. It has shortcut buttons that switch to preprogrammed channels like Animal Planet.

Roku also claimed the remote has a Bark Assistant Technology that allows dogs to pause, play, or mute the television. A third feature was a built-in Sub-WOOFer that produces high-frequency sounds for the dog. Roku mentioned the remote would go on sale on April 1, 2019, for “$€£19.99.”^[2]

8 Google Tulip Allows People Talk To Their Plants

On April Fools’ Day, Google revealed it would be adding a program it calls Google Tulip to Google Assistant. The new program would allow users talk to their plants, especially tulips, through the Google Assistant. The program also allows humans to understand whatever their tulips are saying. Google said Google Tulip was jointly developed by its engineers and a team from Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands.

Google claimed to have created the program after observing that tulips listened to human conversations and talked to other tulips and even humans. Google said the tulip plants often asked humans for sunlight and water. However, humans do not hear because we do not understand the tulips’ language, which Google calls Tulipish.^[3]

7 LEGO Find My Brick App

The LEGO Group is one company that has been creating April Fools’ pranks people wish were real. Last year, we mentioned that they claimed to have created the VacuSort, a vacuum cleaner that picks up LEGO bricks scattered on the floor. Many people fell for the prank but later asked LEGO to really create the vacuum when they realized it was a hoax.

This year, LEGO said it had created a Find My Brick app that allows users to find LEGO bricks by color. Users must open the app, click on any color of brick they want to find, and aim their phone’s camera at a pile of LEGO bricks. The app highlights every brick of the selected color in the pile.

People fell for the app, just as they did with VacuSort. Yet again, they asked the LEGO Group to create the app for real when it was revealed to be a hoax. An augmented reality (AR) engineer even offered to help build the app.^[4]

6 Google Maps Snake Game

Google added a Snake game to Google Maps for April Fools’ Day this year. Interestingly, it can actually be played. The game is available on the Google Maps app or on a standalone website Google set up for that purpose.

Players are required to navigate a snake through popular cities like London, Sydney, and Tokyo, without running outside the map. They can also pick up passengers to earn more points. The game has been available since the end of March, and Google says it will be available for a week.^[5]

5 Ant Financial’s Fraud-Busting Phone

Ant Financial is an affiliate of the Chinese Alibaba Group. It handles payments for the group and used to be called Alipay. It joined the April Fools’ Day fad this year when it announced the launching of the “Fraud-Busting intelli-Phone” (FBi-Phone). The initialism is clearly a pun on the FBI.

Ant Financial said the FBi-Phone allows users to identify scammers and counterfeit products. It claimed the phone could detect counterfeit products, including cooking oil, wine, and Swiss watches, using its infrared and smell sensors.

It also claimed that the phone could identify human and robot scammers using artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, cognitive computing, pattern recognition, and several other unnamed technologies. If the caller is a robot, a female Ant Financial robot will engage the offending robot in conversation while calling the police.

To remove doubts that the announcement was an April Fools’ Day prank, Ant Financial mentioned that it had created a real product while other companies were coming up with elaborate pranks for April Fools’ Day. However, it subtly indicated that it was a joke when it mentioned that the phone would be available for sale “someday.”^[6]

4 Google’s Screen Cleaner Update

Google had lots of April Fools’ Day pranks lined up for us this year. On April 1, it announced its plan to release an update called Screen Cleaner to its file manager app, Files by Google. The Screen Cleaner would allow users clean the physical screen of their phone with just the click of a button.

Google claimed the Screen Cleaner works by creating “haptic micromovement pulses” to displace grease, smudges, and dirt on phone screens. Thereafter, the app creates a magnetic field around the phone to prevent dust from gathering on its surface. It also has a pleasurable smell.^[7]

3 Adobe Smell Allows Users To Smell Your Logo

Adobe joined the April Fools’ Day bandwagon this year when it revealed that users of Adobe Capture could use the app to capture scents that could be added to logos. Just imagine smelling McDonald’s fries when you see the McDonald’s logo on your phone.

In a blog post published on April 1, Adobe claimed it had uploaded thousands of scents on the Adobe Capture app, using its Adobe Scent-sei technology. Users could mix these scents to create a unique smell for their logo.

Users willing to create a new scent are required to open the Adobe Capture app and click on Smells. Then they take a picture of the product containing the scent. They adjust a slider to control the intensity of the smell and click on the capture button when they were satisfied.

The app creates the smell by finding or mixing, if necessary, the scents preloaded by Adobe. Users can preview the scent by smelling their phone’s charging port. Adobe added that the scent could then be used in apps that supported scents.^[8]

2 T-Mobile BoothE

On April 1, T-Mobile published a blog post to introduce the T-Mobile BoothE, a soundproof phone booth exclusive to T-Mobile users. The phone booth allows users make calls in private and in total quiet. It also has charging facilities complete with charging cords for people wanting to juice up their batteries.

T-Mobile added that the booths also have a trademarked screen that can be connected to the phone. The screen can be used for browsing or video calling. It also has pictures of different locations that can be used as backgrounds for selfies.

The prank was promoted by John Legere, the CEO of T-Mobile US, who tweeted that T-Mobile will be rolling out sample booths soon. He added that AT&T and Verizon customers could try the sample booths even though it was supposed to be exclusive to T-Mobile users.

Many people fell for the elaborate prank. It was so successful that T-Mobile later mentioned it would also release the Mobile EditionE, a mobile portable version that could be worn over the head.^[9]

1 OnePlus Electric Car

OnePlus is a Chinese phone maker trying to break into the US phone market. So it’s no surprise that they joined the April Fools’ Day fun.

On March 29, OnePlus announced it was working on an electric car it called the Warp Car. It said the automobile could travel all day with just 20 minutes of charging. It was also 3-D printed, and users could print the whole car or just make parts with their 3-D printer.

OnePlus added that the car lacks any internal or external lights. Instead, users will switch on their phone’s flashlight and put it inside the phone holder, where several tunnels and mirrors will reflect the light inside and outside the vehicle.

OnePlus added that the steering can be replaced with a smartphone, and users will only need to swipe to control their car. The steering wheel also has a button that allows the driver to take selfies on the move.

OnePlus did not release full pictures of the car, just black, silhouette-like images that only showed its supposed curves. Some readers realized it was a prank after OnePlus recommended that the car only be used by people between 168 centimeters (5’6″) and 173 centimeters (5’8″) tall. It said the limitation was caused by the “positioning of the pedals.”^[10]

It is becoming increasingly difficult to promote new movies in such a way that it increases interest and ensures backsides on cinema seats. At one point, a few years ago, producers went all out in their efforts to promote their film offerings and this culminated in a spate of pranks to spark interest among the general public. On this list are just 10 of several funny, if sometimes dark, pranks that have scared people witless.

10 Great Pranks Pulled Off By Famous People

10 It’s all in the eyes

While the first Ouija movie did not exactly set the world of horror on fire, scoring a sad 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, a terrific prank to promote the movie garnered more than 2 million views on YouTube after it was uploaded to the platform in 2014. Dreamed up by a viral marketing agency, the prank uses people’s belief in Ouija boards against them.

This practical joke is centered around a woman with eye proptosis who sets up a fortune-telling booth and entices people to come inside for a ‘free reading’. She makes use of a Ouija board to tell the ‘victim’s’ fortune and finally makes them almost wet themselves or run out screaming when her eyes suddenly protrude grotesquely from their sockets. At the same time a ‘corpse’ bursts through the wooden floor, adding to the hysteria.

Fair warning: the eye-popping thing is gross so if you are easily disturbed, maybe give this one a skip.

9 Turn off the TV!

Shopping for a first or new TV set is fairly exciting. Deciding which resolution is best and what screen size best fits the room you want to put it in, takes time, discussion, and concentration. The last thing you expect is for a trailer of the movie Rings playing on the TV’s you’re studying to end in a real-life Samara crawling out of one!

This is exactly what happened when shoppers, unaware of the hidden cameras surrounding them, found themselves face to face with Samara while they were in a TV store.

First you watch it, then you die.

8 Baby, it’s cold outside

Reviewers and movie goers weren’t gaga about the disaster flick Geostorm, but a few scenes in the film were truly jaw dropping. These include boulder-sized hailstones and skyscrapers toppling over like dominoes. And who can forget the chilling image of a tsunami bearing down on Dubai. Some of the best scenes also include people frozen to the spot in the desert and sunbathers on a beach running away from what looks like the world’s worst cold front only to be overtaken and freeze instantly.

An over-the-top prank to promote this film saw a taxi being rigged to broadcast a fake breaking news report. And, in the middle of summer, transforming an entire city block into an ice block, so to speak. Those who got into the taxi were confronted by frozen ‘corpses’ and dead birds falling onto the windscreen. Watch the video for the facial expressions when it dawns on commuters that everyone outside the window is frozen.

7 It’s a bloodbath

The remake of Carrie in 2013 saw more than one prank pulled on the unsuspecting public in an effort to raise interest in the film. One of the pranks took place in a coffee shop and saw a man lifted and plastered against the wall after a ‘customer’ lost her cool and used her ‘telekinetic’ powers.

Another practical joke was set up in a nightclub in Russia to scare people who used the bathroom. As they washed their hands, foamy ‘blood’ appeared while they were rubbing the soap between their fingers. As they inevitably grab a paper towel, they are greeted with the reason for the blood.

6 Mirror, mirror on the wall

A common scene in several scary movies is where the protagonist, to “wake themselves from a nightmare” stares in the mirror after splashing water on their face. Sometimes they open a bathroom cabinet and when it swings closed again, another face appears either inside the mirror on the door or they see a figure lurking behind them.

For the Conjuring 2, a prank was devised in which a two-way mirror was used to display Valak, the creepy nun, to unsuspecting bathroom users. As they look into the mirror, the lights flickered off and on and then Valak seemingly jumps out at them from the mirror. That is not all though, as the video below will reveal. Watch to the end for the last guy’s hilarious reaction.

10 Seemingly Innocent Pranks That Ended In Tragedy

5 Jaws, is that you?

Sharknado is 5-movie franchise that everyone loves to hate because of the terrible special effects, worse dialogue, and weird-looking sharks inside an incredibly fake tornado. Very obviously a B-movie, no one thought that the first film would ever get a sequel, and yet here we are. With taglines ranging from ‘Enough Said!’ to ‘Make America Bait Again’, one can’t help but sigh.

Luckily, there is an great prank to make up for the extreme lameness of these movies. For Sharknado 2: The Second One, Syfy decided to place an animatronic shark in a London fishmonger. Hidden cameras captured shoppers’ reactions as the shark comes to life when they walk past it. Do check out the elderly lady’s non-reaction to the commotion.

4 Annabelle comes to life

To promote the spinoff of The Conjuring, Annabelle, producers used the Toronto Fan Expo in 2014 to play a delightfully creepy prank on visitors. They dressed a woman up as Annabelle and set her up to look like a mannequin next to which people could pose for photographs.

As they look at the camera for the perfect shot, ‘Annabelle’ comes to life next to them and tries to grab hold of them.
See how they run.

3 Open house with a difference

The success of the first Paranormal Activity movie spawned a host of sequels, including Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension released in 2015. To create hype over the release, a prank was set up in the original house used for the first movie. The house was made available by real estate agents for viewing during an ‘open house’ session and potential (totally unaware) buyers, got a lot more than they bargained for. Let’s just say: Welcome to the Ghost Dimension, people!

2 Not your average infant

The horror movie Devil’s Due was released in 2014 and to promote it, a pram was set loose in New York. The pram moved about on its own and when people went to investigate, an animatronic devil baby straight from their worst nightmares jumped out at them. The baby ‘lured’ people by crying and then scared the crap out of them after they got a glimpse of what he looked like. What’s more, the baby had a penchant for projectile vomiting and giving people the finger.

1 Skip the bus stop

Many people profess that they are not now, nor will they ever be scared of any of the Child’s Play movies. And they shouldn’t be, considering that the villain is but a tiny, freaky-looking doll. However, hearing strange sounds coming from a bus stop with a life-sized Chucky doll jumping out at you is a whole different story. Check out this hilarious promotional video for the Curse of Chucky movie during which exactly that happens.

+ It’s Ronald McDonald! No wait…

As much as IT is not nearly the scariest movie you will ever see, it is doubtful that anyone wants to go into a cinema to watch the movie and walk into an IT replica as they round a corner. When IT was released in Prime Cinemas in Bolivia, management thought it would be hilarious to promote the film by having a staff member dress up as the creepy clown and scare the daylight out of people entering the theatre. While the clown’s makeup is questionable and he looks more like Michael Myers gone wrong, he does get the scaring done. Some people, however, just don’t scare that easily.

++ Food hits back

To promote R-rated animated comedy, Sausage Party, Seth Rogen decided to freak some people out by placing animatronic food items inside a supermarket. Rogen then spoke via a microphone behind-the-scenes to make the items come to life. Some of the food items felt the need to let off some steam by utter a few profanities while other items laid a guilt trip on customers by asking them if they were there to eat their friends and family. Not everyone was afraid of the food though, which included a loaf of bread, a cantaloupe and of course a smoked sausage. Check out the video to see one guy’s reaction to the bread speaking to him.

10 April Fools’ Pranks That Completely Backfired

Roughhousing leads to tears, and let’s be honest, so do pranks. The internet and early-2000s television have given us the notion that pranks are lighthearted, always silly, and even when it backfires, hilarious.

The truth is that pranks are more like that April Fools’ episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where Squidward viciously pranks SpongeBob, dragging him by a rope around the Krusty Krab where he eventually lands inside a garbage can. Anyone who likes to be pranked only allows it to take their revenge, and oh, how do they love revenge.

Wow, turn down the drama, will you? Sometimes pranks are dark for other reasons outside of torture and vindictive natures. Sometimes the backstory is sad. You know, one of those “if only you knew what happened before this” sort of thing.

That said, here are ten wholesome pranks with a dark side.

Related: 10 April Fools’ Pranks That Completely Backfired

10 The Lame Christmas Present Prank

There’s a viral prank out there. It consists of gifting young children with completely underwhelming gifts: pickled beets, an avocado, some batteries…pretty much the complete opposite of what a child gets excited about for Christmas.

You’ve probably seen it on Jimmy Kimmel Live! already—they open the gift with anticipation and then are met with confusion as they handle the object. Most kids are pretty gracious, saying thank you and acting excited and grateful. Good for them! That’s the kind of wholesome content we want to see from toddlers and young people. But…then there are the entirely unhappy kids.

Though we appreciate the mild-mannered reactions, it’s the temper tantrums we watch the videos for. How bogus is it that a prank that showcases how well children can handle disappointment is really watched to scoff at how spoiled kids in the U.S. are?

9 “Boiling Points” Driving School

Boiling Points was an MTV gem. The show revolves around the premise that people are pranked with poor service, bad manners, or an all-around irritating situation to see how quickly they’ll snap. If they manage to keep their cool long enough, they win money.

In this episode of Boiling Points, a driving instructor, Mr. Merit, puts driving students in the worst lemon you’ve ever seen (the seatbelts are made from bungee cords and tape, or maybe a piece of rope?) and proceeds to be the worst driving instructor you’ve ever seen. One girl even says, “Wait, I don’t know how to drive this yet.” to which he responds, “Well, the only way to learn how to drive a car is what?” She timidly says, “To drive it?”

It’s a pretty hilarious episode, but, in retrospect, it is fairly dangerous. Prank aside, these kids are in a questionable situation, learning poor driving habits, and probably scared out of their minds. I mean, this car is trash. And Mr. Merit makes me entirely uncomfortable, especially when he mentions that the brakes don’t work too well.

8 A Prom Date

It’s prom night, and Sarah is taking her gym teacher, Christian Gray, as her date. Except not really, since it’s just a prank. Radio host Elvis Duran and his co-hosts regularly pull phone taps. Someone calls in and arranges for one of the hosts to call up a loved one or friend (in this case, Sarah is calling her dad) and pranks them with a situation they know would piss them off.

For this one, the prank plays upon an inappropriate relationship with a minor. The gym teacher calls Sarah’s father intending to speak to her. Instead, he talks to the dad and explains that he’s taking Sarah to the prom. The dad is understandably livid. Twenty-seven-year-old Christian tries to defend himself, saying that he didn’t ask her. She asked him.

To make matters worse, Sarah chimes in and starts saying how nice he is, that she’s been poking him on Facebook, really elevating the inappropriate nature of the relationship.

Of course, they all reveal that it’s a phone tap in the end. The father laughs it off, but boy, I’d still be angry as hell.

7 Post Malone Prank

Most over Ashton, it’s Post Malone’s time to prank. Post Malone “dresses up” as a record store sales associate and does what he does best: sells records, I guess. It’s a mildly successful prank. I mean, how can you not recognize him? No one else has those tattoos. But he does get some people going. He tries to sell one of his albums by saying that it sucks and wants to get rid of it, recommends artists way out of someone’s tastes, has someone read ridiculous lyrics, and explains that he wants to be an accountant.

So why did he do this? Is it because he’s one of the nicest celebrities you could meet nowadays? Kind of, yes.

Post Malone was raising money for Folds of Honor, which provides educational scholarships to the families of fallen and disabled veterans. The prank was cute and fun, but such a serious cause brings a somber overtone to the entire thing.

6 A Prank Not Worth Dying Over

People have been pranking each other since way back when, and there are so many tales of these early pranks going horribly wrong. On April Fool’s Day, 1896, a Tennessee man decided to prank his new bride. Unfortunately, it didn’t go as planned. He thought that maybe she would appreciate the joke since she knew he was a bit of a class clown and liked to play jokes on people.

Unfortunately, the costume he dressed up in was pretty scary. After knocking on the door disguised as a homeless man, he asked her to make him a meal. She fainted and was rushed to the hospital. And then she died. He scared her to death.

5 The Oldest Fart Joke

The earliest recorded prank is a fart joke. If that’s not wholesome, then I don’t know what is. (Double checks definition of wholesome.) Roman Emperor Elagabalus ruled from 218 to 222 and was a known tyrant. However, he was also a known partier and prankster. For instance, he placed leather pillows on seats during a dinner party, and when people sat down, it would leak air and make a fart noise. This was pretty funny to his dinner guests.

Still, this is all coming from the man who murdered tons of people (including his cousin), spent money on lavish décor instead of on improvements to Rome, and apparently sacrificed his children to the gods.

4 “The Office” Bully

If you love The Office (U.S. version), then you know that Jim’s pranks against Dwight are golden. Jim was successful about 99% of the time, despite Dwight’s undying uncertainty of the situation. And even though Dwight knew that Jim would prank him, he kept falling for it. Let’s list some of the more notable Jim pranks:

• “Bears eat beets, Battlestar Galactica.”
• Dwight from the future sends a message to himself via the fax machine. “Do not drink the coffee.”
• Tear away Velcro suit.
• The loud voice mock sales call with Bill Budlichter.

The list goes on.

Okay, so how is this hilarity dark? The fact that Jim endlessly and mercilessly pranks Dwight. These aren’t wholesome pranks, yet an entirely wholesome show disguises them as such. Yes, Dwight is insufferable, but what Jim does is straight-up bullying. I guess it’s only acceptable in fiction.

3 Sal Does Not Like Cats

Impractical Jokers cat member, I mean cast member Sal Volcano is terrified of cats. Yes, even those cute little meowing fluffy kittens. But, as per show rules, when you lose an episode, you must undergo extreme punishment. In this case, the guys prank Sal with his worst nightmare: they cover him in kittens.

So though Q, Murr, and Joe are laughing their butts off behind the scenes, and we’re crying with laughter over Sal’s reactions over the innocent cats, Sal is a bundle of nerves. It’s like watching funny torture, which I guess isn’t funny at all.

2 Pregnancy Payback

Let’s bring MTV back, shall we? In another prank show, Revenge Prank, two sisters get back at their mother for posting a viral, over-the-top video by pretending one of them is pregnant. As the sisters and their mother are in the ambulance, one on a gurney “screaming” in “pain,” the mother is not only confused, but her worry is borderline anger since no one is telling her what’s going on. A few minutes later, it’s revealed that she is “pregnant” but not with her current boyfriend’s baby. The medic explains that her water wouldn’t break at four months.

Enter Momma Bear. The mother starts to firmly advocate for her daughter as the ambulance stops at a red light. “Get a police escort. I want her there now!” Her demand that they hurry up and get her daughter to a hospital only escalates in temper. It is an incredible showcase of family sticking up for family, even though it’s a prank. Go, mom! You start to forget it’s a prank in the first place and start cheering her on.

It would be funnier if the mother didn’t get so worked up, though. As the host explains why her daughters pranked her, it all of a sudden sounds so stupid. Poor mom.

1 Racist Senior Prank

We may graduate high school, but that doesn’t mean we’re always smart. A group of Glenelg High School seniors geared up for a simple senior prank, as is custom, and decided to graffiti the sidewalks, parking lot, and other parts of the building. Now, this had the potential to be wholesome fun. But, as I said before, some educated people aren’t that smart.

Instead of graffitiing cartoons or “seniors 4ever,” they decided to go full-blown white supremacy Nazis. They graffitied the N-word, swastikas, homophobic comments, and other undesirable slurs and phrases. A senior prank turned into a hate crime.

The four students were caught, arrested, and probably won’t be too popular in college.

We all love a good prank. As long as we’re not the ones on the end of it, of course. But sometimes, despite careful thought and meticulous planning, things can go awry. Perhaps the banana falls out of the exhaust pipe or the plastic wrap across the toilet snaps, or maybe you end up going to jail… uh, what? Here are ten practical jokes that resulted in everyone wishing they’d stuck with the good old fashioned whoopee cushion.

Prank: Man convinces ex-wife he’s hanged himself

Ex-wives. Let’s face it, their second role in life is being the punch line to pretty much every joke their former lover can come up with. But in 2004 there was one ex-wife who was certainly left with the last laugh. Randy Wood, embittered and angry and wanting to get one over his past ex, called her up and told her to come over to his place. He had ‘something’ to show her he said. When Wood’s ex-wife arrived she found her ‘late’ ex-husband hanging by a noose from a tree in the front garden. Rather than grab the nearest stick and beat him like the human piñata he really is, she immediately called 911, presumably in hysterics at what she had seen. Cue, firemen, policemen and paramedics showing up en masse. But when a fireman went to cut Wood down they found a concealed harness supporting his body weight and one sniggering ex-husband totally intact. It was a short lived victory however, as he was subsequently fined $1,000 and sent to jail for a year.

Prank: Husband’s cheating past revealed live on radio

We’d all do anything for a free concert ticket, wouldn’t we? Especially if the artist in question is one of our fav bands of all time. But would you do this? In 2008, to win tickets to a Kanye West’s concert one woman agreed to call her husband live on radio and tell him that their 9-year-old son wasn’t in fact his. What could possibly go wrong you ask? Hm, thinking they were trading confessions, the bewildered husband blurted out the immortal line: “I’ve been screwing your sister for the last year!” Whoops. What’s worse, she didn’t even get the tickets.

Prank: Dentist gets caught turning patient into pig

Nobody likes going to the dentist let alone a demented one who has a penchant for turning his patients into farm yard animals. Dr. Robert Woo is one such dentist. When doing a bit of dental work on one of his employees he thought it would be funny to install a pair of false tusks on to her teeth. This was no spur of the moment practical joke either, Woo deliberately choose boar tusks because the employee in question had grown up on a pig farm. Clearly not quite sure how the joke would go down, Woo photographed his little project whilst his patient was still anesthetized and then removed the tusks, replacing them with the usual caps. All good thus far. But then Woo decided to share his practical joke with the rest of the office—oh the wisdom! Miss Piggy-for-the-day obviously didn’t see the funny side. She sued her boss for $250,000. But the real joke was on Woo’s insurance company who were forced to fork out $750,000 when he sued them for not covering his practical joke. Come on though. Woo’s got a point. If most insurance companies cover for fire and theft, surely it’s not that hard to cover for ‘When turning one of your female employees into a pig doesn’t work out quite as you planned’.

Prank: Co-worker set alight for announcing wedding

When you learn that one of your best buds is going to get married you throw a little party for him, right? You might order a keg of his favorite beer perhaps, or call up all of his mates and get them together for a Friday night down-the-pub knees up. Not if you’re Australian Gianni Catanzaro. His co-workers decided something a bit more special was required to celebrate his last days on Earth as a bachelor. Firstly, Gianni was grabbed, punched in the testicles (which, as we all know fellas, is already a pretty bad ‘prank’ as it is); had his wrists and ankles duct taped to a fence; was striped to his underpants; and egged. Enough’s enough, right? Wrong. Gianni’s loving co-workers then thought it would be a good idea to pour gasoline on to the floor and set it alight. Fair play to the lad, Gianni actually managed to get himself free, only to fall, face first into the roaring flames. The outcome: a postponed wedding and a cancelled honeymoon. The kicker: Gianni was the one fired… because the burns to his face and exposed body weren’t punishment enough for the awful heinous act of announcing his marriage to his mates.

Prank: Hash cakes take out entire staff room

Joseph Tellini and Ian Walker are the sort of kids everyone would have wanted at their school. In their last year at senior high the two 18-year-old students thought it would be funny to repay their teachers for all their dedication to the boys’ educational needs by baking them a parting gift. But these were no run-of-the-mill brownies, these were brownies packed with marijuana. The teachers had clearly never encountered hash cakes before because within hours nineteen members of staff were taken ill and rushed to the nearest emergency room and the pair were ordered to do volunteer work. Worse still, the entire contents of the canteen were wiped out as wave after wave of teachers were hit with the munchies.

Prank: False deadline prompts near death experience

Life in the fast lane can be a stressful one. Deadline after deadline flies by without any cessation. This was Glenn Howlett’s mindset before his colleagues at London City Hall decided to wind him up. Poor old Glenn was happily working through his latest stress-inducing report when he received a memo informing him the report was actually due two weeks earlier than he had planned for. Receiving the memo whilst on holiday, Glenn quickly returned home, set his office to work and began the panic of a life time—presumably whilst still wearing his swimming trunks. Shortly afterwards, he collapsed with a suspected heart attack. Contrite and apologetic, from what could have quite possibly been his death bed, Glenn accepted that he would not be able to complete the report in time and decided to apply for an ignominious early retirement. It was at this point that one of the pranksters informed him of their hilarious joke. Great timing! Glenn, as anyone in their right mind would, saw the funny side, and promptly, and successfully, sued City Hall for damages. Some weeks later another memo was sent round, telling everyone not to pull pranks. The best bit, if only Glenn had clocked the date on the original memo: April 1st.

Prank: Dead dog on top of car alerts police

Paul Goobie. Remember the name because this guy pulled one of the sickest practical jokes of all time. Getting hold of a dead Chihuahua alone is pretty messed up but to then go and tie it on to the bumper of a co-worker, Kevin Meloy’s car is just plain twisted. Completely unaware of the deceased mutt flopping about at the rear-end of his automobile, Kevin drove for several miles without stopping—partly due to the fact Kev is a bit hard of hearing and couldn’t hear the numerous irate motorist’s honking their horns in disgust. Eventually, Kevin was alerted to his dead passenger and he in turn alerted the police, who wasted no time in charging Paul Goobie with the unlawful disposal of a dead animal. You’ve got to ask yourself, would he have got away with it if he’d have used a Doberman?

Prank: Fake press release sees shares plummet

It was a normal morning on the news wires on August 25, 2000 and then all of a sudden word reached financial journalists that Emulex Corp had announced revised earnings and that they were being investigated for accounting irregularities resulting in CEO, Paul Folino, stepping down. Not surprisingly, the company’s stocks sank from $113.06 to $43 within two hours. Shareholders, obviously, were in bits. Why had they not be consulted? Well, no one at Emulex had been consulted. The whole thing was a fake. Earnings were fine, the CEO wasn’t leaving and there was no impending investigation. The following week an arrest was made. Mark Jakoba, a 23-year-old college student who was working at the small internet news company that ‘leaked’ the information had made a cool quarter of a mill from the cheeky scheme. Not that he could spend a penny of that in jail of course.

Prank: Cross-Dressing Doll gets security officer the sack

Being a night watchman at Toy ‘R’ Us must be boring as hell. So why not partake in a little spot of doll play—or even dress up a male doll as a female one? Poor Ken didn’t know what hit him. And neither did Carina Guillot and her 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn when they walked into the store in Florida in July 1990. Believing they’d spotted a unique Mattel doll, and not dissuaded by the cashier in the shop, the mother and daughter left thinking they had a collector’s item in their midst. Shortly after they were offered $4,000 for their rare find. Once the story went national however, Ron Zero, the bored night watchman, ‘fessed up. His reward for his honesty? He was given the sack four days later.

Prank: High school joke results in potential epic jail term

It’s the last day of high school. You’re thinking of doing something radical to have one last dig at the place that has owned you for so many years of awfulness. You decide to play a practical joke: to sneak into the school through the girls changing room window and put a sex doll in the showers. Yes. A sex doll. But, oh no. Somebody sees you climbing through the window, hoodie and gloves and big black box and they think of all the logical things you could be doing and decide, yes, you’re planting a bomb. The school is evacuated and the Indiana State Police bomb squad clear the area costing the school over $8,000. The teenager in question, Tyell Morton was arrested and charged with institutional criminal mischief, which could have seen him spend up to eight years inside. Luckily, he only received a suspended sentence and a few weeks of community service. There’s one kid who’s learned his lesson: don’t climb through school windows brandishing a sex doll.