mischief - The Art of the Prank

December 19, 2018December 15, 2023

Good Things Come In Ridiculous Packages

Not sure you’ll choose the perfect holiday gifts for your loved ones? It hardly matters when you use one of these goofy satirical packages.

“Hilarious Prank Gift Boxes Printed With Items of Questionable Taste That Hide the Real Gift Inside”
by Lori Dorn
Laughing Squid
December 4, 2018

Prank-O, a Minneapolis-based comedy company, has a hilarious line of fake gift boxes known as Prank Packs. These gift boxes are printed with items of questionable taste while hiding the real presents inside. Such absurd items include a Plant Urinal, a “Crib Dribbler”, “My First Fire”, “Bathe and Brew”, “Tech Neck”, “Tweet Printer” and “Sizzl Bacon Scented Dryer Sheets”, just to name a few. Read more.

July 10, 2018December 15, 2023

Dick Tuck, RIP

An ode to a political prankster
by Tom Lawrence
Black Hills Pioneer
June 12, 2018

Even his name, Dick Tuck, which rhymes with Puck, was perfect.

Because Dick Tuck was a Puckish presence in national politics for decades, using wit and wile as weapons in political battles. The Democratic trickster died May 28 at 93 … unless this was another of his pranks. I really wouldn’t put it past him.

Tuck’s primary target was another Tricky Dick, aka Richard Nixon. From Nixon’s bid for a Senate seat in 1950 until his presidential re-election campaign in 1972, Tuck was a thorn in Nixon’s flesh, poking and prodding him with stunts, pranks and mischief.

Why? Tuck had a deep dislike for Nixon, and not just because they were polar opposites politically. He felt Nixon was unethical and unprincipled — a good read, it turned out — and Tuck was determined to do whatever he could to hamper his rise.

It rarely worked, however. Nixon won the Senate race in 1950, defeating Democratic incumbent Helen Gahagan Douglas, whom he labeled “the Pink Lady,” unfairly and inaccurately accusing her of being soft on communism.

Tuck launched his political career during that race when a college professor who knew he was interested in politics asked him to aid the Nixon campaign. He forgot to ask which party his student favored.

Amazingly enough, Tuck was allowed to organize a Nixon rally. He booked the largest hall he could find and did not publicize the event. He then introduced Nixon with a long, rambling speech that ended by telling the scant few people in the audience that the candidate would discuss the International Monetary Fund.

After the shambles of an event was over, Nixon went to the young organizer and said, “Dick Tuck, you’ve done your last advance.”

If only he had known what was in store for him. Continue reading “Dick Tuck, RIP”

April 1, 2016December 15, 2023

Long May Your Refrigerator Run

Gadgetary advances be damned, phone pranks endure in both old- and new-school iterations and seem to be intertwined with the human drive to communicate.

The Atlantic publishes a thinkpiece on the history and uncertain future of the artform.

“Do People Still Make Prank Phone Calls?”
By Julie Beck
The Atlantic
April 1, 2016

phonepranks Only a rube or possibly an alien would pick up an unknown phone call, hear the question “Is your refrigerator running?” and answer in the affirmative. And so only the luckiest of amateur mischief-makers would get the satisfaction of getting to drop the “Well, you better go catch it!” before cackling away into the sunset.

And yet, amazingly, this doesn”t seem to be the oldest trick in the book when it comes to telephone pranks. In her 1976 paper “Telephone Pranks: A Thriving Pastime,” Trudier Harris reports that people “over 50 years old” remembered the old refrigerator gag, which, if they pulled it as teens, means it could”ve been around in the 1930s or earlier.

But other corny jokes were also around before the “˜30s, according to another paper, ones like:

“This is May.”
“May who?”
“May-onnaise.”

Most middle-class families had home phones by the 1920s or so, according to Claude Fischer, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. And in the early days of the residential telephone, it was taken very seriously, as a tool for serious business, and so “children could trick unsuspecting adults fairly easily,” writes Marilyn Jorgensen in her paper “A Social-Interactional Analysis of Phone Pranks.” Read more.

January 23, 2016December 15, 2023

The Return of Sweden’s Giant Snow Penis

Snow Penis

“Sweden’s Giant Snow Penis Was Erased, So This Man Created an Even Bigger One”
by Ed Mazza
Huffington Post
January 22, 2016

BIgger Swedish Snow Penis

The giant snow penis cannot be stopped.

Emilian Sava, one of the workers who had to clear a giant snow penis from a park in Sweden, felt so guilty about the act of phallic vandalism that he erected his own giant snow schlong, according to The Local.

And in what may be the world’s greatest display of penis envy, the new snow penis is much more massive than the old one.

The original penis was carved into the snow over a frozen moat in Kungsparken (King’s Park) in the city of Gothenburg. It quickly aroused complaints from members of the community. Read more.

December 17, 2014December 15, 2023

Michigan Porta-Potty Takes Flight

Screen shot 2014-12-17 at 8.45.30 AM It takes a special sort of engineer to look at a common port-o-let, think “this brave soul longs for flight,” and make it happen. Bob Bylander is that engineer.

On Saturday, December 13, a Porta-Potty took to the skies over Southwest Michigan courtesy of Bylander and his compatriots in the Michiana Rocketry Club, a/k/a the Throne Thrusters.

Watch the video:

via HuffPo