Hoax Museum Blog: Pranks

Fake Sheik — The Roanoke Times reports on a fake sheik who duped some Richmond residents back in 1978.
Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2003.   Comments (1)
The Great Octopus Mystery — As a joke, a Peoria woman puts a baby octopus in her boyfriend's toilet. Her boyfriend gets home, finds an octopus in his toilet, and assumes it must have crawled there from out of the sewer. He calls the local paper and the city is soon caught up in the 'Great Octopus Mystery' until the girlfriend calls up and sheepishly confesses.
Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2003.   Comments (1)
Worlds busiest hoax caller — I would say that this kid has issues. He's been charged with making thousands of hoax phone calls to emergency services in Scotland. 3000 alone just in the past few weeks, and thousands more during previous months. In one day alone he made over 300 calls. And he's only twelve. I guess PlayStation doesn't do it for him.
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003.   Comments (0)
Student Prank Goes Bad — I'm making a mental note to myself: the next time I'm at a party in China, I won't strap fake genitals to myself, dance obscenely, and throw scraps of papers pulled from my underwear at the audience. Three Japanese students attending school in China made the mistake of doing this and have sparked massive anti-Japanese demonstrations throughout the country.
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003.   Comments (0)
Urine Prank — Two aides at a nursing home pull the old urine-in-a-sports-drink prank and discover the victim isn't amused when she discovers what she drank.
Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2003.   Comments (0)
Polite Practical Jokers — A columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer complains that modern practical jokes just aren't funny any more because they're too well-mannered and polite. In particular he's talking about flash mobs... the new fad (which is already old) in which crowds suddenly appear somewhere, having arranged to meet via text-messaging or email, do something nonsensical, and then disappear. I agree about the lameness of flash mobs. He also gives David Blaine's newest stunt a thumbs down. I'd have to agree again.
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003.   Comments (0)
Practical Joke Six Years in the Making — Perry Caravello wanted to be an actor, and his friends told him he would be. In fact, they signed him up to play the leading role in a film they were making, Windy City Heat. Unfortunately for Perry, they weren't actually shooting a movie. They were just stringing him along, trying to figure out how long they could keep him believing that they were making a movie. He kept believing, for six long years, bolstered by an unshakeable faith in his own Star Power. Even though the friends weren't shooting a movie, they did shoot footage of the entire practical joke, which has now resulted in a documentary on Comedy Central titled, appropriately enough, Windy City Heat.
Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003.   Comments (1)
Crocodile Warning — Croydon residents can rest easy. Signs alerting them to the danger of a crocodile inhabiting a local pond were just a prank.
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2003.   Comments (0)
Old School Hoax — Inspired by the movie Old School, a bunch of teenagers fake a kidnapping outside of a Wal-Mart. Succeed in terrifying the watching crowd.
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003.   Comments (0)
The Life and Death of Eric Gordon — Here's an amusing account of a Harvard grad named Eric Gordon who faked his own death in order to try to get removed from Harvard's obnoxious alumni mailing list. Harvard actually published an obituary for Eric, but then had to retract it later.
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2003.   Comments (0)
Classes Cancelled for Green Beer Day — Check out the website of Ben Field. Ben is a student at Miami University in Ohio. Every year the students there celebrate Green Beer Day (a celebration not sanctioned by the university) by drinking green beer in bars all day. This year Ben got the clever idea of sending out an email to all 31,000 students, disguised to make it appear that it was coming from the university president, declaring that classes were cancelled for Green Beer Day. Needless to say, the university was not amused. Now Ben has to reimburse his parents $9000 in legal fees that they covered for him. So Ben created a website to tell his story and solicit donations from the public to help him reach his goal. Today the Miami University president graciously donated $10 to him. You can read about Ben's original prank in this story from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2003.   Comments (1)
Beer for the Homeless, More Info — More from Gary Poole, a spokesperson for Beer for the Homeless: "It was originally intended as an internet satire, but very quickly took on a life of it's own when people really did start donating money. The group that does it even had to hire an accountant to keep up with taxes and such. 😊 They'll be featured in an upcoming issue of FHM Magazine, in fact."
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2003.   Comments (0)
Beer for the Homeless Response — A few weeks ago I linked to a site called Beer for the Homeless, which I suspected of being a hoax. After all, it reminded me of the classic Arm the Homeless campaign, which was definitely a hoax. Turns out my suspicions were wrong. I just got this note from a spokesperson for the site:
Just as a note, the "Beer For The Homeless" website is indeed NOT a hoax. It's a real site that really uses the money raised to buy and deliver beer to homeless people living in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
One of our talk show hosts is the one who came up with the idea and really has made a beer run - check out the photo gallery on the site for pictures from the latest delivery.
Gary Poole,
Citadel Broadcasting
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2003.   Comments (0)
High-School Pranks — High-school seniors superglue the locks on their teachers' doors. The teachers are not amused. In other senior prank news, piglets are released in a school the day of the senior barbeque.
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2003.   Comments (253)
Cow Tipping — The Mustang Daily recently analyzed the reality of the art of cow tipping.
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003.   Comments (0)
Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2002.   Comments (0)
Abduction prank — A high school sociology assignment goes a little too far when students stage a fake abduction.
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2002.   Comments (0)
Britney Spears Phone Prank — A deejay at a Montreal radio station made a successful prank phone call to Britney Spears. While pretending to be Celine Dion, the deejay got Spears to agree to sing a duet with Tiger Woods called Let's Make A Hole in One. All for charity, of course. Read about it here. Or visit the homepage of the radio prankster where you can buy a recording of the actual prank.
Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2002.   Comments (26)
Extreme Homework Avoidance — Student fakes fire to avoid homework. Wow. Couldn't he just have said that the dog ate his homework?
Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2002.   Comments (1)
Duct Tape Prankster — New York prankster arrested for duct-taping himself to a utility pole in a busy intersection while holding a sign reading "Save Ira Joe Fisher."
Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2002.   Comments (0)
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