BS: Great Practical Jokes

Subject: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Peace
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 02:07 PM

Click for the 'PermaThread™: List of all joke threads'

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Newport Boy (Phil) posted to the thread about 'trollies for guitars'. He spoke of a fellow who got a piano into the 'underground' where it had to sit because the station master wouldn't allow it back on the train and the lift (elevator) operator wouldn't allow it on the lift.

Thanks, Phil.

Anyone got any other tales like that?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 02:21 PM

I heard the story of a guy that went to the store very early one morning and bought a lottery ticket with the same numbers that had won a huge jackpot from the night before. Then he went home and afer his wife woke up casually asked her to check the numbers in the paper to see if they had won anything. She fearked of course until he told her to check the date on the "winning" ticket.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 02:24 PM

By the way - "fearked" is very similar to "freaked"

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 02:29 PM

I bet she was fearking angry.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Peace
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 02:29 PM

Is the guy still alive? Curious minds . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: frogprince
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 04:40 PM

One from a friend of long ago, which I swear I'll repeat myself sometime: You have to be eating in a restaurant with common glass "shakers" with tin screw-on caps. Take the caps off. put a scrap of paper napkin on the top of each shaker. Fill one cap with salt, one with pepper. Put them back on the wrong shakers.

The head of our quality inspection department walked in one day, put a banana on his desk, and left. I had a banana in my own lunch that day. I quickly ate my own, left the peel on his desk, and hid his banana. I don't think he knew whether to get mad or just crack up. He immediately assumed the culprit was another crew member who had the biggest reputation for pulling crazy stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 04:41 PM

Another Jonathan Routh stunt was taking the engine out of a VW beetle
and coasting down a hill and into a Petrol station !

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Peace
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 04:43 PM

I am not familiar with Jonathan Routh. Phil mentioned him too. Any info on him?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: John Hardly
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 05:38 PM

We live between two television markets -- Ft Wayne and South Bend. I had an old black and white TV out in the shop that rarely got turned on, but one day as I was preparing clay, I leaned over and turned it on just in time to catch a Ft Wayne station's airing of "Jeopardy!". Later that evening, as is our habit, my wife and I watched "Jeopardy!" as we ate dinner. I called out every answer correctly and damn quickly too, I might add.

My wife looked over at me. I would like to say there was admiration in her eyes, but she knows me too well.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 05:39 PM

Jonathan Routh was a practical joker on British TV.. He was on 'outside broadcast and travelled the country getting people to do the most silly things or getting their reactions to 'oddities' on camera........ The Candid Camera programme followed some years later... in the same vein.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 05:40 PM

That engineless car routine was done once on the old "Candid Camera" TV program in the USA. They also did one with a VW beetle where they replaced its 10 gallon tank with a HUGE tank under the rear seat, and went a station and told the young guy to "fill it"...as I remember, he got 40-50 gallons in, and the VW was noticably settling over its rear axle before they stopped the joke.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Micca
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 05:51 PM

Of course now that the age of text messaging is here the old "telegram" joke can be resurected, simply send

" Ignore previous message, all may yet be well"

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 07:38 PM

Al Franken was about to give a speech to a large crowd. He was accompanied by a sign-language interpreter. He started by acknowledging the interpreter with some remark: "You do great work. Thanks for coming."—or something like that. Then he turned back to the audience and began his speech as follows: (I'm paraphrasing here.)

"You know, this guy Franken is such an idiot, there's no point in translating what he's saying. I know it will just be a big bore. I talked to him backstage, and he really is an airhead. He just goes on and on...."

The audience was silent at first (puzzled, no doubt), and then ripples of laughter began to spread as people figured out that he was playing a joke on the interpreter, who had to repeat everything he said!

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 08:01 PM

1. Ask someone to hold the end of a string; tell them you are with the Dept. of Public Works. Go around the corner of a building and get someone else to hold the other end. Leave.

2. Back in the 1920s over at Yellowstone two of the seasonal workers jammed the steering wheel to a Model T into the ground just baaarely in sight of the crowd at Old Faithful. One stayed at the wheel, the other would yell "Okay, let 'er rip!" when OF was getting ready to blow. At this point the guy would turn the wheel madly, as if he were opening a valve.

3. I could go on, but I probably shouldn't give anyone ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 08:23 PM

Tell someone they won "a washer and a dryer." Give it all the dramatic buildup you can. Then hand them a little round metal washer and a paper towel.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 09:00 PM

Rap - I saw your string idea in a history/article about great British 19th century jokes.

Another classic was when University students told the Peelers that a group of university students dressed as navvies were digging a hole in a nearby street.

They then told the navvies that a group of University students dressed as peelers were on their way to arrest them.

sandra (back after spending far too much time on that new website)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 09:14 PM

The best are spur-of-the-moment (or only a little preparation) or those with elaborate prep, such as those at MIT.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 11:02 PM

MIT are pikers next to the stuff that Cal Tech used to do....

and 'jokes' that hurt or seriously disappoint others are not very 'practical' in my opinion. The lottery ticket bit seems a bit too much to me, as is the 'washer-dryer' trick.
It's a fuzzy line, but important.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Newport Boy
Date: 24 Jul 09 - 06:59 AM

Jonathan Routh was the originator of the UK Candid Camera. He was already known as a practical joker in the 1950s. I first heard of him in 1956 at London University, in a nicely detailed version of the police/students gag.

He saw a couple of roadmen near Kings College starting to dig a hole. Around the corner, he saw a pair of constables. He sent his pal back to the roadmen to tell them that a couple of students dressed as police were going to try to move them on, while he told the constables that students dressed as roadmen were digging up the road. They then stood back and enjoyed the 'discussion'.

He was an original, full of crazy ideas and also a talented artist and writer. Sadly, Jonathan died last year.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Dave Illingworth
Date: 24 Jul 09 - 07:36 AM

Some jazz musicians of earlier generations were noted practical jokers   - many documented in the excellent book JAZZ ANECDOTES by
Bill Crow (recently re-printed) and also JAZZ SCORE (mislaid my copy and forget author).
Chief rascal was the great jazz violinist Joe Venuti. A favourite prank of mine is the following:-

Venuti looked through the local musicians' directory and rang up all the bass players (some versions say double-bassists others tuba players, but whatever). He told each one he had a gig for them and if they waited at a certain spot at 8pm on Saturday, they would be picked up. He had a friend with an apartment overlooking the pick-up point, and peeked through the curtains as the increasing number of bemused musicians gathered one-by-one.
The Union found out and fined him, but he thought it well worth it.
Later, at one of his gigs in Chicago, 26 bass-players turned up in a good-natured pay-back. But it cost him a hundred dollars in drinks for them.

On another occasion, Venuti was on a vaudeville bill with Roy Rogers   The cowboy star always made a grand entrance astride his horse Trigger. While they were waiting in the wings for their cue, Venuti discreetly tickled the horse's genitals with his violin bow.
Finally making their entrance, Trigger, of course, sported an impressive erection, bringing rapturous applause from a delighted audience.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: alanabit
Date: 24 Jul 09 - 08:51 AM

In the UK you can get "Toffos" – tubes of individually wrapped toffees.

In the spring of 1971, I was working in the garden at our house in Cornwall, when my younger brother Jem, then four, asked me, "Alan, where do Toffos come from?"
"From a Toffo tree of course Jem".
He looked a little puzzled for a moment. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I am Jem. You don't think they just make them in a factory somewhere, do you?"
Dad had overheard this conversation, so when Jem asked him, the reply was, "You don't think Alan would just make that up, do you? Of course they grow on Toffo trees. You plant one Toffo in the ground and then on your birthday up shoots a little silvery tree – looks like one of those silver Christmas trees – and on it are packets of Toffos."
Within minutes, I had been led to a sweet shop and half an hour later, a Toffo had been planted in the ground and the spot marked. Jem attended to it diligently – watering it even when it rained.
Jem's birthday is in September, so this had gone on for months. On the day before his birthday, Jem rushed indoors in great excitement to tell us that a silver shoot had appeared in the ground. Dad and I examined it knowingly.
"Looks like a Toffo tree, wouldn't you say Al?"
"I reckon so. Aren't they a bit delicate in the final hours?"
"That's right. We had better protect it with a polythene covering."
On the night before Jem's birthday Dad had thought I would forget and I had assumed he would forget. The result was that when Jem harvested his Toffo tree the following morning, it was very generously laden with the appropriate "fruit". Jem harvested it proudly in his new wheelbarrow and of course told everyone about it back at school! Even today at the age of forty-two, he remains an enthusiastic gardener.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Irene M
Date: 24 Jul 09 - 10:20 AM

I have two for you; one of which, I may already have mentioned elsewhere.

Couple go on honeymoon, stupidly leaving the keys of their new home with a "friend". Said "friend" lets himself in, puts the plug in the bath, empties therein two or three packets of jelly and turns on the hot tap.
When the bath is full, he turns off the tap and leaves.
How do you get rid of a bath of jelly? And, no, I don't know what flavour, though blackcurrant would have stained the bath, big time.

My grandfather was born in 1886 and grew up in Sussex.
One of his favourite tricks was to go house to house along a terrace, and tie thread from one door knocker to the next.
He would then knock on the first door and leg it. Each door being opened, pulled the thread tied to next door's knocker. It had the potential to enrage an entire street (or one side of it).

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Newport Boy
Date: 25 Jul 09 - 12:47 PM

There's no new idea, is there?

As kids in South Wales at the end of the war, very little traffic came down our street until they introduced a bus every half hour. Between buses, we just had time to tie door knockers together across the street. It was very satisfying to watch the bus knock 48 doors. We couldn't get away with this more than once a year.

We thought we were very clever to devise this - now I find it came from Sussex!

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 25 Jul 09 - 12:47 PM

Call pizza parlors and taxis, and have them sent to somebody's house
after midnight. There's a joke.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Jul 09 - 05:49 PM

I saw the "washer and dryer" trick performed exactly once. The "buildup" worked like this: Some guys walked up to my friend Vern while he was sitting in the lunchroom of the building where we all worked. They said, "Hey, Vern! We're having a drawing for a washer and dryer. Quick! Write your name on a slip of paper and drop it in the hat!"

I'm sure Vern knew right away something was fishy, but the only way he would hear the punchline was if he played along. So after a bit of delay and cajoling, he did as requested. His was the only slip in the hat. After a bit more hocus-pocus, they "drew" his name out of the hat and announced, "Hey, Vern! You won a washer and dryer!" They then presented him with his winnings.

You needn't worry that anyone was "hurt or seriously disappointed."

In my experience, most practical jokes work this way. The "victim" knows his leg is being pulled somehow; he just can't figure out what the punchline will be.

Also, most "practical jokes" are funnier to talk about than to actually perform.

In fact, I suspect some "practical jokes" are really just urban legends—they perhaps never really happened, or weren't pulled off quite as successfully as described, but the story of them gets told over and over.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 10:26 AM

When we were kids, about 10 or 11-ish I guess, we saw 2 workmen spend all day taking up the pavement and digging a hole at the top of Victoria Park, Swinton. About 20 of us came back that night and filled it all in. Some older lads made the paving stones right and we cleaned it up beautifuly. The look on their faces the next day was priceless but as with all these things you had to be there.

More up to date, there used to be a joke shop at the top end of Lord Street, Fleetwood, that had a warning note saying 'Door sticks'. You would think the owner of a joke shop would have a sense of humour when I went in and asked for a door stick...

:D (eG)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 10:52 AM

Shortly after 9 11, a colleague was called to duty (Army Reserve). He left stating that he did not know how long he would be away from work. Could be a week or months.

I thought (with the help of other colleagues) let's move all his stuff out of his cubicle and put someone else's name plate up. About six of us including the senior editor were in on the gag, down to putting up fake photos, and leaving an unfinished mug of coffe (lipstick print on the edge) by his PC.

When he arrived the very next week, he came in early as usual and I was the only other on our team also at work. Unfortunately I could only keep up the pretense for about 30 minutes, before I spilled the beans. He was about to contact facilities management to find out where his stuff was and where he was supposed to work.

I knew it had taken a long wheedling and possibly promise of first born for our publishing manager to get the whole editing team together on one floor, so any calls to fac mgt would be inadvisable. Well, unbeknownst to me, the pranked colleague decided to carry the gag further.

He contacted our line manager (the senior editor who was in on the original gag) and declared that facilities management had found him a desk on another floor, since someone had moved into his cubicle while he was away. Line manager was fit to explode. What would she tell the publishing manager who had gone to such lengths to get the team together? Eventually she was informed that it was only a joke and that initially pranked colleague was in on original trick.

I knew nothing about this until after the publishing manager came to my cubicle (a thing she never did - we were always called into her office for powwow). She had put on a convinicing "I am really angry" face and tone and body language.

"What's this about you moving Mike's things from his cubicle? I just got off the phone with facilities management and they will not give Mike his old cubicle back. He has to work on second floor until another desk opens on the third. Do you know how I worked to get my team together?."   Etc... and so forth. I was shaking in my seat.

Next thing I heard was Mike and the rest of the team in next cubicle (Mike's cubicle) sniggering as I tried to explain that Mike's desk was free and that it was only a fictitious move and fictional occupier.

It felt like the practical joke that would not end.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: gnomad
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 12:54 PM

When the practical joker of our dance side married he somewhat foolishly left his housekeys with another dancer. One night while the couple were away the side descended on the house, bent on revenge, and the following were perpetrated. All were relatively simple to reverse, but it took time. The bride was more amused than the joker.

Several door handle connecting rods removed so handle didn't function.

Coat hooks unscrewed & replaced inverted so garments fell off.

Bath plug chain shortened so it didn't quite reach.

Curtains stitched so they couldn't be drawn.

Clothes stitched together in wardrobes.

Toilet roll holder screws replaced with spent matches.

Morris bells dismantled & attached individually under bed-springs.

All available alarm clocks hidden in different parts of bedroom, set to ring at various times.

Fuses removed from the plugs of all electrical equipment. The fuses were put in a teacup so that once found they could be replaced easily enough, but a nameless someone added one extra, so that 3 months later they were still wondering which appliance they had forgotten to put the fuse back in.


These are the tricks I remember, there may have been others but it was about 25 years ago. The groom was a bit less prone to tricks thereafter.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 02:18 PM

love that morris bells bed spring thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Peace
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 03:59 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 04:26 PM

Why is this moronic victimisation funny?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 07:13 PM

A carefully placed chocolate button between the buttocks of a sleeping partner.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 07:47 PM

What moronic victimisation?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Joe_F
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 08:38 PM

While I was at Caltech in the 1950s, wicked upperclassmen entered a freshman's room, coated the center terminals of all the light bulbs with clear Glyptal, and replaced them. Of course, none of them worked, and the freshman could not see anything wrong with them. Naturally, he suspected that a fuse had blown, so he went to the fuse box at the end of the hall and examined the fuse. There was nothing wrong with it. At that point one of the wicked upperclassmen happened by & asked what he was doing. The frosh explained, and the upperclassman looked at the fuse and said, Someone has switched fuses on you. This is a size 15 A fuse, which is too short to reach the bottom of the socket. You need a 15 B. (Actually, the A stands for amperes.) I forget whether the victim actually went to a hardware store & asked for a 15 B fuse.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Ghirotondo
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 06:06 AM

You can stretch a foil of transparent wrapper on the wc, then lower the tablet seat to conceal the edge...

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 12:58 PM

now that is just plain evil







snerk

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:04 PM

Ghirotondo --that is exactly the sort of UN-funny trick I referred to above. Unless you KNOW exactly who will be the victim and have a VERY good reason for tricking them, it is in poor taste.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: gnu
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:37 PM

I prefer the innocuous kind. I started a thread some years back about inane and strange stuff that I like to do... like putting a doorbell button beside my camp door... no electricity for about six miles.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:39 PM

Saves wear and tear on the knuckles, Gnu. But tell me, if a doorbell rings in the woods and there are no ears to hear, is the man still wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:55 PM

My dad once repaid £5 he owed to a fried, by gluing $5 worth of pennies together in a long long roll. I think he used my entire bottle of Elmer's School glue.

The friend repaid the joke (and a loan) by presenting my Dad with a lovely wooden plaque with $2.00 worth of nickels inlaid into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Sooz
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:27 PM

I like the ones which back fire on the perpetrator.

Some years ago I was with a group of teaching colleagues and forty or so youngsters on an outward bound week. We were playing silly games with water filled balloons and were being plagued by midges. Our young male teacher had some Tiger Balm with him and he tried to convince me and a female colleague that if he dabbed it on our pulse points it would act as a repellant. We told him where to get off but he already had it on his fingers. He rubbed his hands on his shorts and continued to play with the kids. About 20 minutes later he disappeared to answer the call of nature. His face when he returned was a picture - he was squirming for the rest of the evening.
He really should have washed his hands before touching any delicate skin!

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Bert
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 01:04 AM

Way back in the days of real money I was working as a boilermaker at Shellhaven oil refinery.

Our teaboy used to charge threepence a cup for tea and threepence for a candy bar.

He would get really mad if his total did not add up to a multiple of threepence and would rant for hours about being ripped off.

So every so often we would throw an extra halfpenny in the kitty.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: MudGuard
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 01:45 AM

My brother, when he was a child, refused to eat peas.

Beans? No problem.
Corn (maize?)? No problem.
Carrots? No problem.
Peas? I don't eat peas!
Tomatoes? No problem.
Peas? I don't eat peas!
Zucchini (Courgette)? No problem.
Peppers? No Problem.
Peas? I don't eat peas!
Potatoes? No problem.
Green Corn (maize?) No problem.
Peas? I don't eat peas!

You get the scheme?

I don't remember whether it was months or years later when my mother once wasn't carefully and didn't take the label off the can in time and my brother found out that the "green corn" (maize?) that he liked so much was just the peas he "didn't eat".

My sister and me had been informed - otherwise the thing wouldn't have worked for so long ...

Since then, he eats peas ...

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: GREEN WELLIES
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 08:32 AM

My husbands friend got to the toilet before his wife, lifted the toilet seat and covered with toilet with clingfilm, then lowered the toilet seat.

He thought she would just be having a pee - but no,    she had a 'poo' and thought she'd passed her whole intestines !!!!

He's disgusting, but we love him !

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 09:28 AM

I like turning incorrectly dialed numbers into entertainment. A recent one went like this ;
Woman : can I speak to Sandra please.
Me : no - you've just missed her.
Woman : Oh - where is she ? She's supposed to be coming here tonight for dinner with her father and I.
Me : Weeeellll - she doesn't really want us to tell you.
Woman : why not ? ( voice getting edgy )
Me : Well - she said you wouldn't understand.
Woman : Understand what ? ( getting louder )
Me : okay - okay I guess it doesn't matter that you know now that she's gone away for a year.
Woman : Gone away for a bloody year ! Where to ?
Me : Well - all her friends saw her off today on a research ship that sailed for Antarctica.
Woman : Antarctica !!! What's she doing there ?
Me : studying penguins.
Woman : penguins ! she doesn't know a bloody thing about penguins.
Me : yeah - we know, and all her friends are very concerned.
Woman : concerned ?
Me : yeah - an attractive girl on the ice for 12 months with all those penguins and you know what they say about penguins ?
Woman : what ?
Me : you've seen one - you've seen them all.
Woman : who are you ?
Me : John.
Woman : do you know my daughter ?
Me : no.
Woman : everything you've said is a lie, isn't it ?
Me : yes.
Woman : my husband won't believe this. Whenever I'm feeling low can I ring you again ?
Me : of course.

Another time I told a bloke his girlfreind had gone to work on a prawn trawler for 6 months with a crew of sex-starved fishermen. He nearly fainted.

Its endless - whatever comes into my mind I just run with it.

JG / FME

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 10:34 AM

I've many times been sorely tempted do the following:

RING! RING!

Hello

Is Jeannie there?

Who's calling, please?

John.

Jeannie says she never wants to speak to you again!

No, I've never given in to the temptation, but I always think of it when I get that kind of call.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 10:42 AM

Don't like practical jokes

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 05:12 PM

"morris bells bed spring thing"

I am from Germanic Lutheran country stock....

A traditional wedding night prank was to put a small butter churn with cream below the bed...

A check in the morning was supposed to make predictions about the length of marriage, number of babies, etc...

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 06:21 PM

Not exactly a joke, but -- I heard once of a pedestrian who, on arriving at a crosswalk blocked by a car, opened the nearest rear door, slithered across the back seat, opened the other rear door, and continued across the street, leaving both doors open.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 07:14 PM

In Roosevert High School back in the late 1940s, one of the teachers there owned a unique automobile in an age before one saw very many small cars, such as MGs or Volkswagen Beetles. He owned a Crosley Hot Shot.

It was pretty light and couple two or three burley football players could pick it up and carry it. Once it wound up on the front porch of a house across the street from the school. After school, Mr. Rarig (the teacher) managed to recruit several people to help him return it to the street.

Another time, at the end of the day, when Mr. Rarig was heading out to his car, he found it in the school hall. It had been carried through one of the back doors of the school and down about five steps. And this was on the second floor of the school (the school was on a sloping street and the back of the school was one floor higher than the front) .

Mr. Rarig was unflappable. He got into the car, drove it down the hall to the freight elevator, onto the elevator, went down to the first floor, drove it off the elevator and out the service entrance at the side of the school. No sweat.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: alanabit
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 11:00 AM

I don't like practical jokes, which shock, embarass or humiliate the victim. I enjoyed the one with my kid brother though, because even today his face lights up every time he recalls it.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 01:58 PM

simple paybacks which do no lasting harm....


one day, while working my way through college as a grocery checker, I had JUST finished a big rush of orders and was taking a deep breath...when a lady with a HUGE cartfull came heading up the aisle..the smart aleck in the next checkstand hopped out of his stall, came in front, and smilingly guided the giant order to MY checkstand! *grump*..

well, about 30 minutes later,he locked up and went on his 15 minute break...when he came back, he quietly resumed checking...until he opened the cash drawer as he finished the first customer...and found the penny bin totally filled with sugar!..Who, ME?..*grin*..(I was a relief checker and had a key)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Practical Jokes
From: olddude
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 02:00 PM

I posted this one time before but this was the best practical joke ever played on me:

Brothers

As I get older, I find that I spend more and more time thinking about the past.   It could just be a longing for a simpler time in life, or the deep desire to revisit the joys of my youth. Perhaps it is because I old and cannot remember anything current like where I left my car keys. I am not really sure what the reasons are, but I find that I think about my youth and my brother many times.

My brother is a wonderful man; he is a devoted husband and father with three beautiful daughters. He is smart, talented and funny.   He is also, with perhaps the exception of myself, the craziest person I have ever known.   

We spent a childhood laughing. Between he and my cousin, there were no dull moments around my house. Like all brothers (I being the oldest) we loved to play practical jokes.    I believed that I was the master who always had the upper hand. However, like many experiences in life, things are not all as they first appear.

The year was 1971 and my home was located in a small town in Pennsylvania. I was back from college one weekend and my brother called late at night wanting help to repair a bulldozer that one of the logging companies had broken. The company desperately needed the machine early in the morning so my cousin and I both agreed to work. Since I was in college and any money was more money than I had, why not? My cousin was a very good mechanic like my brother. I realized that I was mechanically challenged when I received my erector set for Christmas at eight years old and tried to attach the little metal things together with a hammer. Later that night, we went to find and repair the broken bulldozer.

We arrived at the wood mill about two o'clock in the morning and there it was, a giant foreboding monster of a device, a mechanical Godzilla towering over a mountain of hardwood logs. My job was to pass tools. I watched in awe as my brother and cousin dismantled the giant machine. I saw tracks, blades, and engine parts, pieces of steel falling rapidly to the ground. Like the skilled hands of highly trained surgeon, they quickly did their work on the metal giant. Like an old western movie, the quiet of the hot summer evening was broken by the sound of air guns a blazing!

Out of the distance, I saw it … the flashing red light, the car racing up the drive way and a terrifying voice that said, "Show me Your Hands Fellas". It was the police. Next I heard " Up against the Wall". My brother and cousin reached for the sky. I stood like a deer in the headlights. With a shaking voice, I spoke: "Officer we are authorized to be here, we are repairing this Bulldozer, just ask my brother, ask my cousin". My brother replied "I aint saying Nothing without my Lawyer". My cousin replied, " Well if he isn't saying anything then I sure am not going to either".   That was it, I was the helpless victim here, and yet I was now a criminal! What would my mother think, what would my priest say - Oh the injustice of it all!   I was sure my life was over, that I was going to jail; all of my hopes, dreams, and aspirations had just become one giant pile of bulldozer parts.

A few minutes later an elderly lady appeared with a cane and a very large dog. She said, "What is the problem officer". The policeman replied: "These fella's were trying to steal this bulldozer". Oh she said, "You are mistaken". My son owns this mill and he called them to fix his broken bulldozer.   The police officer took off the handcuffs and said: "Go back to work guys"

After the car pulled away my brother started laughing hysterically. "Boy did I have you going, I got you good, and you should have seen your face, OH YES". In that moment I realized - my brother was the master and I a mere Squire!