Yes, I am well aware that April Fool’s is months away. HOWEVER, it’s never too early to plant the seeds for an epic prank.
AskReddit users who consider themselves experts in the field reveal why you April Fool’s doesn’t have to be limited to April 1.
1. Worth every penny
“I did this one maybe 10 years ago to my best friend. I am not certain if it actually qualifies as a practical joke… maybe more of a mind-f*ck.
So, my best friend is the sort of guy who when you are going to a place together, he NEEDS to drive… control issues I guess. So one night we are going to a concert, and while on the way he opens his glove-compartment to get something out and notices a little round container of “Breath Savers” breath mints. He sat there for a moment, perplexed as to whose they were and how they got there. He focused on it long enough that I found it funny and knew my plan.
Over roughly the next year and half… EVERY time I would ride with him anywhere, I would make certain I had a container of these breath mints and I would find a moment to hide them in his car. There were even times when he would just be at my house hanging out, and I would find a moment to use the bathroom, sneak out of the house, go outside and slip a container of these breath mints into his glove-box or under a seat.
He never mentioned it. I was there many times when he would discover it, and he would always have this confused look on his face, but he never suspected it was me.
After like a year and half, one time he was pumping gas while I went into the gas station to get a drink, and he came in to get something and caught me buying a pack.
It was hilarious, because he looked at the mints… looked at me and I just started laughing… he said “It was you? You son of a bitch!”
He told me he had literally gotten into arguments with his girlfriend because he was certain she was trying to send him a subtle message… he has quizzed his family and his own roommates… It just had never been in his mind it could have been me.
Probably over the year and half I probably dropped maybe 20 of these packs in his car… so the joke cost me MAYBE $30. Worth every harmless, wholesome dollar of good natured fun.”
2. Straight from Car Talk
“Don’t know if you can pull this off, but it was of the funnier prank stories I heard on Klick and Klack/Car Talk. Some guys worked with another guy who was obsessed with his car’s gas mileage, so the coworkers slowly started adding gas to his tank without the owner knowing it, like they’d add two cups a day for a week, then the next week, they’d add three cups a day, etc.
Since the guy was so obsessed, he thought his car was getting better and better gas mileage and was bragging to everyone in the office. Then the guys slowly started to reverse the process, the guy freaked out, everyone laughed.”
3. The long con
“This is only applicable for a situation in which it’ll make sense, but the best long con April Fool’s joke I ever witnessed was at an old job. Right around this time of year, maybe a little later, we had a transition in Management, and we were not happy about it. We essentially went from having Superman as a boss, someone who was incredibly knowledgeable and constantly willing to roll up his sleeve and help out, to the exact opposite, a person who couldn’t be bothered to even do the basic functions of the job. So, one of our colleagues, who was on leave during the transition, happened to be great at doing impersonations and accents, and he had a great plan.
We all decided that the colleague in question would speak in a very thick Russian accent whenever the new boss was around, effectively making the new boss believe that he was a Russian immigrant. My colleague did an amazing job with this, basically mimicking the voice of the guy who played the Russian Cosmonaut in “Armageddon.” This went on for MONTHS. The new boss thought it was the norm. It was bloody brilliant. The guy would walk in to ask for something and my colleague would drum up some brilliant ad-lib like, “Ah, it’s always something! Just like in the old country!” in full Russian accent.
Finally, April 1st hit. We decided that would be the day. We waited until all of us were in the office and, as usual, the (now not so new) boss walked in to ask my colleague to round up a team to do something. Without hesitation, he switched back to his regular Brooklyn accent. I have never seen a non-Olympian jump further back than the boss did as soon as my colleague opened his mouth. It was one of the greatest long-game cons I’ve ever seen.”
4. Start the discussion
“Start a discussion about tech/cell phones, slip in a rumor that everything is going to be voice activated like Siri soon. No one really doubts it.
In a few months, start a rumor like “remember when I said everything will have Siri? I heard the updates are out this spring.”
Then, April 1st, come in early, print these out, and hang them over the printers.
Just in case HP isn’t in your office, here’s Konica, Xerox and Canon.”
5. The King of April Fool’s
“1974: Residents of Sitka, Alaska were alarmed when the long-dormant volcano neighboring them, Mount Edgecumbe, suddenly began to belch out billows of black smoke. People spilled out of their homes onto the streets to gaze up at the volcano, terrified that it was active again and might soon erupt. Luckily it turned out that man, not nature, was responsible for the smoke.
A local practical joker named Porky Bickar had flown hundreds of old tires into the volcano’s crater and then lit them on fire, all in a (successful) attempt to fool the city dwellers into believing that the volcano was stirring to life. According to local legend, when Mount St. Helens erupted six years later, a Sitka resident wrote to Bickar to tell him, “This time you’ve gone too far!”
Porky Bickar I, King of April Fool’s.”
6. Whistles
“One day a co-worker brought in a motion activated speaker from an old spice grocery store display that would play the old spice whistle when people walked by. He wanted to prank someone in our office, but wasn’t sure how yet.
We decided it would be perfect for pranking our boss. So after our boss left, we attached it to the bottom of his chair pointing forward. So every once in a while when he was sitting at his desk it would pick up his leg moving and play the whistle. It wasn’t every time, since it had a timer so it would only play once every 2 minutes or so.
The next day I think our boss just about pulled his hair out trying to figure out where it came from. Every time he heard it, it was impossible to tell where it was coming from because it was right next to him. And ever time he tried to replicate what he just did in order to trigger it again, the timer prevented it from giving it’s location away. I think the last two hours that day we’re spent digging through everything in order to find it.”
7. The tie
“For the last three years, my team and I have been playing a practical joke on our manager.
Once a week, one of us has to deliver the weekly status report to a management team. Its pretty dry, lots of charts, numbers, defending of charts, defending of numbers ….
Anyway, so, whomever gets the unlucky task to deliver this pablum wears what we affectionately call “the Tie.” Its a red paisley tie that kinda disappears into a jacket or blazer, and under the collar. The tie also makes a pretty decent scarf as well …
Everybody, and I mean everybody, knows its the same tie, except our manager. Each of us drops hints about the tie during our presentation, which elicits smirks and giggles from other management team members. Words like “Red,” “paisley,” and “tie” are in each presentation, delivered without making too big of a deal about it. (ie: the latest trend in our analysis we started calling the Paisley Effect).
One day he will notice …”
8. It will grow
“Buy a little plant potter and say you are growing a little desk tree, but don’t actually plant anything in the soil. Make sure you water it whenever coworkers are around so they take notice of it. Make comments like, “Any day now, it’ll grow, you’ll see.”
Of course nothing is going to grow, but that doesn’t matter because as April starts nearing you go to a tree nursery and buy rising increments of some tree, maybe a Leyland cypress. Some time in March all of sudden you have a little tree growing and then you show your coworkers that you always believed it would grow.
What you start doing is sneaking in really early and replacing it with a much larger tree. Make it seem like the pots broke because the tree had a sudden growth spurt. Then by the time April 1st comes by you bring in a 5 ft tree and act completely surprised.”
9. Flamingos
“So 3 years ago for April Fool’s day I bought 100 $1 lawn flamingos from dollar tree and planted them all around my apartment complex starting 3 days before April Fools. The first day it was just 1. . . The second day I did a small flock in another corner and on the final day I enlisted a buddy to help me with unloading the rest under the cover of darkness.
However if I had the money to just throw away on something like this I would start now for next year. Starting tomorrow 1 new lawn flamingo per day popping up all over the complex – It’s well past the point where my apartment complex mows lawns until spring so they’ll stay up a pretty long time.
In around February when people are getting sick of seeing the lawn flamingos I start planting lawn gnomes, moving them and adding to them each day. Eventually by march 1st I have all of the gnomes hovering over all of the flamingos and the flamingos impaled by their own sticks “dead”.”
10. Cut the bullsh*t
“I am bilingual but my wife speaks only English. Last year in January I started slipping in a few greek words here and there during our conversations. When she pointed them out I said “Oh sorry translation error”. I very very slowly increased this as months went by. On March 31 right before we went to bed I “bumped by head” really hard on a wall. I complained about a really strong headache but then said I feel better and we went to bed. April 1st I woke up and started speaking only Greek to her pretending I forgot to speak English.
She looked at me deadpan in the eyes and said “Cut the bullsh*t” in Greek. She was on to me from day 1.”
