Cantab ‘Original Prankster’ Dies, Aged 94
by Harry Shukman
CambridgeTab.co.uk
11th February 2012

One of the oldest former members of the infamous Cambridge Night Climbers has died, aged 94.

Nares Craig, who studied at Trinity in the 1930s, was well-known for his activity in the elusive Night Climbers.

This small and select group of daredevils ran, jumped and swang over the rooftops of Cambridge under the cover of darkness, just for kicks.

Back in the day, Nares made his name by climbing King’s Chapel to hang an effigy of King George VI just before his coronation.

Writing in his memoirs, Nares remembered ‘a rash of bunting and union jacks’ appearing all over Cambridge.

‘It prompted me,’ he said, ‘to think of some appropriate way of mocking the whole pantomime of royalty.’ (more…)

When Pawngo, an online pawn shop based in Denver, dumped hundreds of Butterfingers yesterday in Copley Square in Boston with a note: “Thank you Wes Welker,” to memorialize Wes Welker’s dropped 4th quarter pass in the Superbowl on Sunday, they thought they were being cute. Wrong! Boston sports fans were less than thrilled to be mocked and got really miffed, which led to a social media s**t storm reaching far beyond the relatively simple citation they received from the City for making such a mess. The makers of Butterfingers apparently had nothing to do with it. Read more at CBSSports.com.

Student prank sees giant haggis travel to Inverness
Deadlinenews.co.uk
January 26th, 2012

College students caused a Burns Night stir after putting a 5ft model haggis on a train.

The madcap students put the papier mache haggis on the 2pm Kirkcaldy to Inverness service yesterday, hoping an amused passenger might collect it at the other end for a Burns Night supper.

Sure enough, the haggis – complete with a pink kilt – was rescued by a businessman in the Highlands capital and whisked away to a celebration of the Scottish Bard’s life.

The haggis, made by students at Adam Smith college, Kirkcaldy, Fife, even sported a Paddington Bear-style tag with contact information for the college, in case he got lost.

The 5ft model was placed in the luggage department in the last compartment of the busy train.

A businessman, named by local press as Kit Fraser, collected the haggis from the station to be his guest of honour at a Burns Night supper for an accountancy firm. (more…)

Submitted by Joshua Darrah: Here’s a prank I pulled on my friends and family recently:

STEP 1: Secretly shave off your two year long hair.
STEP 2: Glue it into a wig.
STEP 3: pull it off to freak your friends. 40 of them.

I had been growing my hair for a couple of years, and wanted to go back to a shaved head, but I wanted to make it a surprise to my brother that i was suddenly shaving my head. I have NO IDEA where the idea came to me from, but i wondered if I would be able to cut off my long hair, keep it, then hot glue it into a wig. I would then wear that wig of my own hair (yes this is slightly serial killerish i know!) and while hanging with my brother, suddenly pull off my ‘hair’ and be shaved headed in a split second.

I told him I was filming a video project, that way I could film his reaction. And man it went down a treat! I then realised I could wear my wig to every visit with friends and family over the coming 2 months, I eventually pranked over 40 of my close friends and family. I’m editing it into a long version for Youtube in the next couple of weeks, but for now I hope you enjoy this 30 second clip.

I’ve entered it into an Australian prank competition (which is why it is constricted to 30 seconds only, argh!).

Competition link for voting: http://www.messinwithmates.com/entry-selection.html?video_id=494

From “Big Penis” Jon:

Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur of Current TV’s “Young Turks” show discuss C-SPAN’s prank calls about Mitt Romney’s penis size:

Why the British produce the best follies in the world
by Harry Mount
The Telegraph
December 27th, 2011

There’s a sad report in today’s Telegraph on the state of Britain’s follies. According to the doyen of the folly world, Gwyn Headley, far too many of them are at risk of crumbling into neglect.

We may not match the Italians for grand art or architecture but, when it comes to follies, we reign supreme. Somewhere, buried deep in the British artistic mind, is the overpowering British desire to crack a joke. Follies are a punchline in stone – the little building on the horizon that takes the edge off the grandness of the great Palladian pile in the valley below.

There are follies all over the world, but Britain remains the international folly capital. Stowe, begun by the Temple-Grenville Whig dynasty in the 18th century, has more follies than anywhere else on the planet. Among the highlights are pavilions by Gibbs, Doric and Corinthian arches, a menagerie, Dido’s Cave, Vanbrugh’s Rotondo, Queen Caroline’s Monument, and temples to Venus, to Ancient and Modern Virtue, to Friendship and to British Worthies. (more…)

Taylor Lautner ‘People‘ Magazine Coming Out Cover A Fake
Huffington Post
December 27, 2011

As many hearts were broken as they were mended Monday night when a People magazine cover featuring “Twilight” heartthrob Taylor Lautner coming out was officially ruled a fake.

An alleged “teaser” image of the supposed January 7 issue of the entertainment and lifestyle magazine turned up on the Internet and instantly went viral as many believed the teen star was announcing that he is gay.

A rep for People told Gossip Cop, the cover is “absolutely fake,” and it has been noted that the sidebar featuring Brad Pitt and Carnie Wilson is from a 2006 issue of the magazine.

Read the rest of this article here.

Jon Bon Jovi dead? No way, says rocker
by Michael Sheridan
December 20 2011
New York Daily News

Singer posts photo of Facebook to prove Twitter talk is false

Jon Bon Jovi wants everyone to know that reports of his demise are greatly exaggerated.

A random blog post claiming the New Jersey singer suffered from cardiac arrest ignited a fire on Twitter Monday.

To assure fans he was perfectly okay, the 49-year-old rocker posted a photo of himself on Facebook holding a hand-written sign stating, “Heaven looks a lot like New Jersey.” (more…)

Pranksters Plant Giant Companion Cube in NYC
by Marshall Honorof
The Escapist
14 December 2011

The California Institute of Technology invited your best friend, the Companion Cube, to Astor Place in New York City.

You can bet that the California Institute of Technology is making a note here: “huge success.” A group of students from CalTech traveled all the way across the country to pull off one of its nerdiest pranks to date – transforming the recognizable Alamo sculpture in Astor Place, New York City from a modern masterpiece into a supersized piece of gaming iconography. This morning, city dwellers between Astor Place and Lafayette Street found the rotating cube covered in a Companion Cube sleeve, accompanied by a note from Aperture Science (appropriate for the Portal theme). By the time the news began to spread, the pranksters had already disappeared, presumably by way of portal gun.

In keeping with the Prank Club’s tradition of good-natured shenanigans, the Alamo sculpture remained totally unharmed. The Companion Cube skin is simple cloth, and the students attached it with non-adhesive fasteners. The note detailed how to remove the Companion Cube skin, claimed full responsibility, and even provided the group’s e-mail address. It did warn, however, that “premature euthanization of your companion cube can interfere with your ability to complete the test.”

The Alamo has been the target of a few pranks before, so GLADoS probably ordered city officials to deal with the Compaion Cube fairly quickly. At this time, the CalTech pranksters do not appear to be in any trouble, although Mayor Bloomberg is not exactly congratulating them for interfering with a public work of art, either. If this incident has made anything clear, it’s this: New York City is in desperate need of a more permanent giant Companion Cube. Someone ought to get working on that, as soon as they finish baking that cake we were promised four years ago.

source: MTV Geek!, Alamo image: wapedia.mobi

CNN anchor interviews prank caller live
by ninemsn staff
news.ninemsn.com.au
November 29, 2011

A red-faced CNN anchor was fooled on live television by a prank caller impersonating a US student who had been arrested in Cairo.

The prankster phoned the studio on November 27 pretending to be Gregory Porter, a real 19-year-old student from Philadelphia who was arrested while participating in protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and then released.

Anchor Fredricka Whitfield appeared completely fooled by the caller, who sounded legitimate at first.

He said returning to the US was like “an early Christmas present”.

But the exchange came to a bizarre end when Ms Whitfield asked the caller what he had been doing the night he was arrested.

The man claimed he was “just down there looking” at the protest when the group was “grabbed by police”.

He then thanked his lawyer, his mother, the US embassy in Cairo, the North shore Animal League and Baba Booey’s monkey nuts. (more…)

B.J. Novak pulled off prank at MFA in 1997
November 24, 2011
7News WHDH.com

Boston — A well-known actor took the art of “pranking” to a new level.

The prank happened 15-years-ago at the Museum of Fine Art, but it was just this week that one of the stars of the NBC show “The Office” took credit.

B.J. Novak, a Newton native, admitted to the prank.

Long before his days on the hit NBC show, Novak, who plays the character, Ryan, reportedly recorded spoof audio tours with friends in 1997, and swapped them with the real one at the MFA. As the recording progressed, it became clearer that it was a joke.

(more…)

EXCLUSIVE: UCSD: Best Prank Ever
by Walter Mencken
San Diego Reader
November 17, 2011

Senior Class Fabricates Existence of Korean “Artist,” Cons Stuart Collection into Hanging House Off Edge of Seven-Story Building.

Stuart Collection Curator Attempts to Save Face: “Actually, joke’s on them: this prank is so genius that it ascends to the level of art. We’re proud to feature it in our collection.”

High-Fiving All ‘Round, UCSD – “It’s over,” says UCSD Senior Amanda Terwilliger. “Everybody can just stop planning their pranks now, because nobody is ever going to top this. Not, the noose, not the shoe, not the paisley, not even the April Fools’ acceptance email.”

Terwilliger was referring to the installation of “Fallen Star,” the latest addition to the University’s prestigious and silly Stuart Collection of Artistic Oddities. (more…)

Submitted by Tim Jackson:

Fed false logic, campus eats up a hoax and revolts
by Mary Carmichael
boston.com
October 25, 2011

Northampton – All last week, students at Smith College were buzzing over a rumor that the school was going completely vegetarian and locavore. There were protests and counter-protests, with slogans chalked on walkways. There was a Twitter feed that caught the attention of VegNews, “America’s premier vegan lifestyle magazine.” At a student government meeting, the dining services manager came under attack: How did she expect students to pass their midterms without coffee?

But the Smith administration wasn’t really planning to ban meat, food from outside New England, or anything else.

The whole thing was a hoax – one in a decade of annual pranks perpetrated by professors Jay Garfield and Jim Henle as part of their introductory class in logic. The point is to teach rhetoric and argument, albeit in an unorthodox way. Logic classes get dry. Typically, students spend a lot of time working through inscrutable proofs on the chalkboard. (more…)

Aussie penis pranksters deface Google Street View
by Asher Moses
The Sydney Morning Herald
September 9, 2011

Pranksters have been playing tricks on Google’s Street View cameras ever since the mapping tool was first launched in 2007, but miscreants in Victoria have delivered a low blow.

Street View images of Long Gully and Maiden Gully near Bendigo in Victoria have been defaced with a giant green penis outline after vandals climbed on top of one of Google’s camera-equipped cars and drew the phallus on its camera lens.

View Larger Map

The find was first discovered by users on BuzzFeed and has since gone viral across the web. Google Australia has yet to remove the images or make a comment on the matter – and it is not clear who is responsible.

It follows the June discovery of an array of six penises etched into the grass of a school in Waikato, New Zealand. (more…)

Submitted by Gerant Johnston: I video myself talking to telemarketers. I do it for laughs and I do it to keep them occupied so they have less time to bother other people. I have this joke where I try to see how many times I can consecutively say ‘YES’… and yesterday I beat my record of 27 with a whopping 35. I’m quite proud.