BS: Greatest school days pranks!

Subject: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 05:56 PM

The best one I have heard of was committed by a friend of mine, John R., who is now in his mid-fifties. He was always a terrible practical joker, specially in his wild and carefree youth.

At age 18 or thereabouts, he was a student at Upper Canada College, a very prestigious academy for the sons of the well-to-do in Toronto. In those days it was located almost at the northern edge of the city, I believe, but the metropolis has since spread FAR beyond those hallowed campus grounds.

At any rate, John and a couple of his buddies succeeded in abducting a cow from some farm in the general vicinity on a quiet Sunday afternoon and brought it to the campus. With some difficulty they also succeeded in maneuvering the puzzled bovine up 2 flights of wide stairs and into the chemistry lab on the second floor of one of the buildings. They then shut the cow in and left.

On Monday morning the staff and students arrived to find an almost indescribable mess in the Chem lab. The frustrated cow had relieved itself copiously all over the place, and had destroyed a great deal of the furniture and equipment in its attempts to escape, but it had not thought to break down the door for some reason, so damage was confined to the one classroom.

The cow was by this time thirsty, desperate, and uncooperative in the extreme, and resisted all attempts to be removed downstairs.

Now, you can get a cow to go up a not too steep set of stairs (if they're wide enough), but you can't get it to go back down...specially if the stairs are slippery, because it's afraid of slipping and falling.

The police and fire department were duly summoned, and together made a concerted effort to get the cow downstairs, but failed utterly, amid much lowing and cursing. The administration was finally forced to summon workers who removed several large windows on the 2nd floor, got a winch fastened around the cow's middle, and swung it out with a crane. The frantic cow was lowered, bellowing, to the ground....and the search began for the perpetrators!

This whole affair had cost the school a great deal of money, wrecked the chemistry lab, and ultimately resulted in John's permanent expulsion from Upper Canada College, even though he never broke down under questioning and no incriminating evidence could be found against him or his buddies.

The school simply figured it HAD to be him, because he had committed so many other pranks already, so they expelled him on mere suspicion, as an example to the rest. His fellow conspirators got away scot free.

John seems to feel that the whole thing was worth it. He really was incorrigible in those days, and probably still is.

Got any good school pranks of your own to tell us about?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: gnu
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 06:17 PM

I knew a fellow at university who was a master. He never, ever locked the door to his room and never, ever, had his room "hit". He would hit other rooms, and ensure the blame went to others, who would then be the target of retribution, with himself supplying lots of ideas as to how to get even.

Raw fish hidden under the cowling of a heater, a zillion punchies from computer cards, parents invited for brunch after a wild pissup - whores and all, whatever. He was the ultimate and he never, ever was suspected.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 07:41 PM

We moved all the furniture in the class so teachers desk was at the back! Confused the hell out of Miss Miller the French teacher when she eventualy arrived;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Beer
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 08:48 PM

Let me first set the scene. I grew up in a small village just out side of Halifax Nova Scotia. The school was run by nuns and the nun's run by the priest. I guess I was around 16 or 17 and the perfect alter boy. On weekends myself and another fellow would work around the priest house doing lawn care and general repairs. One of our jobs was to replace wooden crosses in the graveyard that become weathered, broken and so on. The old ones would be replaced and thrown in a pile out of site. Well this particular Halloween night me and my buddy went into the woods and retreaved a good number and planted them on the priests' lawn. Now this was right next to the church facing the road. Next day being Sunday there was an uproar when mass was to begin. Needless to say we had to take them down but it was a good prank afterall. Not close to "Little Hawk's" story but this thread should bring some good ones. Thanks Little Hawk.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: sophocleese
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 08:55 PM

A friend and I removed ALL the rolls of toilet paper from a University residence one Saturday night (not many stores open on a Sunday then). I don't think any body guessed who had done it.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 09:28 PM

as is common on Mudcat, this question has been asked before...so take a look here *grin*....a prank that had many consequences...

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: sophocleese
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 09:55 PM

Reading that thread reminded me of a prank I heard of at McMaster. Members of a climbing club would rappel down from the top of a four story building and tape Playboy centerfolds over the windows of professors offices and some classrooms. The windows didn't open so It was difficult and time consuming to remove them.

Anybody who has worked backstage at amateur productions has likely seen a whole host of small pranks. two I remember hearing of were putting a turtle under a cocnut shell on stage so that when it was lifted up the turtle started moving. Or getting a comely young woman to dress(?) in a VERY revealing swimsuit just off stage so that the exiting character had to cover his exclamation (JESUS!!) with a pretend sneeze.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 10:18 PM

Man oh man, those were the good old days. About a month ago in Leesburg, Va. where my business is located, a couple of seniors dicided to torch the principle's office. Well, the two were arrested last week. One is a grandson of a member of the county's school board. The other, the son of a woman who is in charge of the county's special ed department. The damage? $2M. These two pranksters lives are ruined. I mean, we did some pretty stupid stuff, like the cow thing, but....

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 10:27 PM

Use crazy glue, glue all to the surface it rests on! Tee Hee!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 10:37 PM

*sigh*...I see some folks don't see the line between funny 'pranks' and malicious damage. If it hurts someone, destroys property, causes mental anguish...it is NOT funny!....Anyone who pulls a prank without thinking thru the possibilites..(including what might happen to themselves) is just dumb!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 10:37 PM

Here's another one by the legendary John R. in his misspent youth, also at Upper Canada College, but prior to the "cow" incident.

There was a fat, healthy groundhog living on the grounds immediately south of the student's residence area, and it liked coming out to eat grass and enjoy the early morning or later afternoon sunshine.

John and his buddies had been watching the groundhog for some time and decided they would catch it, if possible. Accordingly, by a combination of stealth and a big butterful net (or fishnet, I suppose), and a suitcase, they actually did manage to capture the astonished groundhog one spring morning.

With the groundhog safely (but unhappily) ensconced inside the suitcase, they planned their next move. It seems there was a fellow in the residence who was not well liked, at least by John and his friends, so they transferred the groundhog into one of his dresser drawers...a tricky, but successful operation, and closed it in there and waited.

Eventually the guy came in, and about 5 minutes later he heard a noise and opened the dresser drawer to see what it was. The groundhog burst out and grabbed him by the thumb. There was a hell of a row, of course. The guy yelled in pain and started jumping around, with the groundhog hanging on grimly. People came running to see what was happening, and the groudhog, sensing that it was outnumbered, let go and made a mad dash for the hall. The poor creature ran all around the residence with yelling students pursuing it or leaping out of its way, until some kind soul provided it with an open door. It then shot out of the building, figured out where it was, and disappeared down one of its holes, not to be seen for some time after.

This, like all John's practical jokes, was hilarious to him, but not necessarily to those on the receiving end, and was merely one of the heinous escapades already down on his record at Upper Canada College before the cow caper finally ended his sojourn there.

I am not aware if John has ever made a donation to the SPCA, but I think he should... :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 10:50 PM

Bill - I agree entirely with what you say, and in my own case I have always stuck to pranks that were weird, but absolutely harmless.

Not so in John R.'s case...(and I agree, the things he did were sometimes destructive and dumb...but they took iniative and imagination too...John has since grown up to be a pretty solid citizen, and an interesting man.)

Nevertheless, with the passage of time these things can seem rather funny in retrospect, I think...though I would definitely have NOT been amused had I owned the chemistry lab...or been bitten by the groundhog.

I am not recommending that people do these things, but bizarre stories of this sort can be entertaining in their own right, I think, just as a story like Tom Sawyer is entertaining, despite the fact that it has a murder in it, and some pretty extreme behaviour here and there. It's part of the colour and eccentricity of human life.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 10:56 PM

Oh, and I do not think that John anticipated that the groudhog would bite the guy...he just expected it to scare him, that's all.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: khandu
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 11:14 PM

I was a whiz in Lit. in high school. As an experiment, the rest of the boys in the class (ten of them) and I decided to cheat on a major exam. We worked out all the details. Our teacher always gave oral, multiple choice exams. By various, yet not out-of-my-ordinary, mannerisms, I would signal the correct answer to one boy, who would signal to the others. There would be a different boy to echo my signal on each question.

We decided in advance what score each person would receive, as well as what question(s) they would miss.

It was fool-proof, and it worked grandly.

The next day, the teacher handed out the papers. Each boy received the pre-planned score. But... the teacher had handed out all papers but mine!

When class was over, she asked me to remain in the room. After everyone else had left, she gave me my paper, perfect score, and said, "I don't know how you did it, but the next time you pass every boy in this class, I am giving you a Zero."

Thereafter, whenever she gave an exam, she placed me behind the door, out of sight.

Two years later, on Graduation Day, she said, "I still have not figured out how you did that."

I told her that have never figured out how she knew that I had done it!

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 11:59 PM

Swapping the bombay mix (a bar snack), at Hull University Student Union Bar for rabbit food was a good one, (it all got eaten and nobody noticed)!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: GUEST,Guest Les In Oz
Date: 03 Mar 02 - 12:31 AM

On April Fool's day many years ago, a colleague put a "Use Other Door" notice on all of the entrance doors to the building, (10 of them) and waited to see the staff wandering around aimlessly for some considerable time.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: sophocleese
Date: 03 Mar 02 - 12:35 AM

Aah khandu, highschool days. I once helped half of my math class finish one question of a particularly arduous assignment. When we got the papers back I was the only one not to get zero: I got 75% on the question. The teacher said he didn't mind us talking about the assignments, its one of the ways we learn, but that SOMEBODY should have noticed that I had accidentally written 5 x 2 x 2 = 10. OOPS!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Kaleea
Date: 03 Mar 02 - 12:39 AM

I once managed to relieve my entire class (which met at 8:am) from having to take a wretched exam for which none of us were ready. Knowing that the prof had been in attendance the night before at the scholarship fundraiser where much liquor was served, and having been given this info from a reliable source (my advisor who also was in attendance) that he was completely lathered and nearing a coma like state when his wife drove him home after others managed to get him into their car, I decided to make use of the info. He & I often exchanged comic lyrics of old standards (songs), so when he came to the classroom, I was waiting for him to unlock the door. Seeing that his brain above his bleary eyes was pounding, & that he was about one step away from huggin a comode, I said "Prof ----, I've got a doozie for you!" & proceeded to sing: "I'll be feeling you in all the old familiar places..." and as he doubled over in laughter & held his head in pain, I went in for the kill: " . . .and when the night is through, I'll be looking for some love, and I'll be feeling you." The poor man, laughing uncontrollably & holding his head, staggered to the men's room. When he & a male student emerged sometime later, the student informed us that we would resume class the next day, and he was not seen again that day! In a completely different college stunt:

There was a certain professor at my state college who was quite despised by his students for a number of reasons to include being extremely prejudiced against women, students of various ethnicties other than his, athletes, foreign students, all persons in the world who were not attendees of his religious denomination. . .well, you get the general idea. His lectures were filled with religious preaching, he spent much time at his denomination student lounge--the only religious lounge at the college--all the while having affairs with numerous female students, nevermind that he was married. He was, unfortunately, the only prof who taught a particular course which all ed majors were required to take. After a semester in which he flunked several athletes, women who declined his advances, ethnic & foreign students, etc., a few nameless students decided to take matters into their own hands. The prof made arrangements to meet a certain lovely young woman at a specific motel on a Friday night. Upon entering the room, she undressed him, got him rather well oiled, and while they were both deeply involved in their activity, a couple of students emerged from the bathroom, taking video as well as photos. The young woman (of an opposite ethnicity), who was in on the caper, had left her undies on, and managed to keep her face turned away from the cameras at all times, while the professors' face was very easily identified in the photos & video. Come Monday, there were flyers with the photos everywhere on campus, including his classroom where the video was playing, and the religious student lounge which he frequented. Copies of the photos and the video were mysteriously left inside his wife's car. Needless to say, he was fired, divorced and banished from the his church in that town. And no, I was not involved!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Mar 02 - 07:44 PM

Hoooo boy! Some dandy tales showing up here.

Here is one last glorious escapade by John R....he realized the dreams of millions of schoolboys and stole a schoolbus...briefly.

It was a bitterly cold night in January, and the bus in question had delivered some young basketball players to a school gymnasium in one of the smaller Ontario towns. John was among these players. At some point in the evening the bus driver pulled into the parking lot and got out to find himself a hot drink, as he was feeling rather frozen. He left the bus running to warm it up inside.

John and 2 of his friends took a quick look around, boarded the bus, and John got behind the wheel while the others kept on the lookout. He quickly put 'er in gear, drove the bus out of the parking lot, and went for a tour of the downtown. It was late at night, the weather was miserable, and there was hardly anyone else on the road, so they didn't attract any attention.

They did a quick circuit of the downtown, trying out the various gears, drove back to the school, parked the bus about 30 feet away from its original location, with the motor still running, and took cover to watch.

Less than 30 seconds later the driver emerged from the school door, sipping his hot chocolate...and froze. His bus was gone. John said the guy stood paralyzed, staring at the bus's tracks in the snow, which led away to the street...he appeared utterly stunned. Then he looked the other way, and did a double take as he saw it standing in a completely new location, facing the other way. He stared at it for a long time. Then he looked all around the parking lot (but didn't spot the boys who were well-hidden). He finally walked over to the bus, haltingly, got in it, looked around some more, and then sat down to think about it for awhile. John said he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Poor guy.

On this occasion John managed to get his jollies without destroying any property or harassing any animals, I am happy to say, and he added greatly to the lustre of his already notorious reputation...among his peers, that is.

I'd tell you some stories of my own, but they pale in comparison to John's. I was an extremely well behaved kid.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 03 Mar 02 - 10:18 PM

Once upon a time, at a middle-American university on a very large, very flat campus a Chemistry student mixed up a liter of butyl mercaptin (essence of skunk). When there was a stiff breeze from the right quarter, he took it to the edge of the campus and poured it onto the pavement. Some buildings were empty for a week. Not me, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 12:12 AM

yes, LH...the stories are worth hearing, even when the 'pranks' were ill advised....

I do remember the time the WSU homecoming game was against the Drake Bulldogs. One of the sororities made 3 giant paper maché bulldogs for their display. Well, the Monday after the game, the largest bulldog, about 10 feet tall, appeared about a half mile from the school...on top of a 200 ft. tall water tower! This thing had metal ladders up it's structure, but NO one could figure out how they hauled it up and around the curved tank on top.

It took one night to get it UP, and 3-4 days to get it down!

maybe the same climbers who painted Mickey Mouse on the clock faces!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 03:36 AM

Although I "inherited" a lot of stories from my progenitors, I guess I was a little to "conventional" in my youth to participate in the kinds of things that make history.

My father, and his "cohorts" claimed their piece of fame for making it the custom that outhouse doors opened inwards in all of about four counties in our area - after a rather large number of farmers learned that you can't stand the outhouse back up when you're standing on the door.

His high school football team (he was the towel boy) claims to have put a 350 lb cow on the catwalk on the town water tower (about 80 feet up) one Halloween.

The team was undefeated 3 yrs running, unscored against 2 of those years, and set a "record" formerly in Guiness at 254 to 0 in one game, so they were probably a bunch of husky boys.

One of their "class" pranks happened when a local farmer left a cultivator unattended about 2 miles from downtown. They moved it about 20 feet per night - over a period of several months before it showed up in front of the town hall one night and everyone wondered how it got there.

For "classic" pranks from my own school, the trolley car incident probably ranks near the top. A student got on - and slowly counted out his change while a group of his buddies placed "thermite" bombs on several wheels of the "iron rail - overhead wire" trolley. (For those who don't know, thermite = aluminum shavings + iron oxide, usually with a small strip of magnesium for a fuse. The aluminum sucks the oxide out of the iron - casting molten iron in place.) Welded the trolley to the tracks, and it sat there for several months before they figured out how to get a crane in to lift it - with tracks attached - out of there.

I rather liked the one where a group found a student's room attentended during a break (Thanksgiving?), lined the room with a large sheet of rubber, stood all the furniture on top of soda pop bottles, and filled it with water - right up to the top of the bottles. The crowning touch was the 3 large goldfish.

There's more, but they already wrote a book about it.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: GUEST,micca at work
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 04:51 AM

There is the famous incident perpetrated by a friend S in a UK hall of residence, where a guy left his room keys with another friend so his pet hamster could be fed and watered over the long w/e, S and a mate stole the keys (and returned them ) without the hamster watchers knowledge and Turfed (wall to wall) the room and installed a sheep stolen fronm a nearby farm, this is on the 8th floor of a tower block!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: GUEST,wombat
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 07:42 AM

1. Soaked a fellow-student's carpet after he went home for a fortnight and sowed mustard and cress seeds.....

2. Had a drunk fellow-student "delivered" unconscious at 3a.m. When he awoke he was naked in bed, but with his entire room, carpet, furniture and all, relocated in the middle of the quad. Needless to say, the wardrobe was empty!

3. Removed the middle post between two double doors and drove a Mini into the college concert hall. Tied the steering on full lock and set it going round in circles, then replaced the door post, leaving the hall locked...

4. My father put a piss-pot on top of one of his college's four flagpoles. They called a steeplejack, who pronounced the pole unsafe. They called scaffolders, who had a tower half-way up the pole by the end of the day. The following morning, the pot was on top of a different pole!

Oh, heady days!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:14 AM

LOL!!! If I'd had as little respect for authority back then as I do now, I might have been a pretty wild kid...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: smallpiper
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 12:12 PM

The biggest prank I ever played at school was to turn up at all!

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: John Hardly
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 12:36 PM

all the dorm room doors opened inward. It didn't take long for some future engineer of America to figure out that if he went up to the third and fourth floors *spoken like Elmer Fudd -- vewy, vewy early in the morning*, with enough rope---

---all the dorm rooms could be tied closed to the door on the opposite side of the hall.

What's more.....if he would lower himself from the third floor bathroom window, the door that entered the third and fourth floor from the outside could be tied shut as well, making it impossible for others from the outside to come to the aid of their shut-in friends.

I love a good plan.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 01:04 PM

My friend Paul Ciesielski pulled a good one. He was living in the fraternity house at the time, and got up one morning about 3 am, creeping from room to room and setting everyone's alarm clocks and wristwatches one hour ahead. As a result the only people up and around on campus at seven am were the four or five guys who had 8 oclock classes. Of course, they all found their classrooms locked and no one else around. By 8, all of the 9 0'clock guys were arriving at class an hour early to find the wrong Professors teaching the wrong classes. Mass confusion reigned, and it was late in the afternoon before the prank was revealed. Ciesielski, asleep on his bed at 4 pm after having risen early to pull his prank and having again gotten up at 7 am to witness the first victims, was dowsed with a bucket of cold water and banned from all other rooms in the frat house for several weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Melani
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 01:21 PM

At the University of Miami, the mascot is an ibis named Pete. One night the spelunking club painted a series of giant ibis tracks on the sidewalk, leading from the shore of the campus lake to a dorm building consisting of an 11-story tower. They then rappelled (sp?) down the side of the tower, fastening cardboard ibis tracks the same size to the side of the building at appropriate intervals. The effect was of a giant ibis climbing out of the lake, walking up the side of the tower, and flying away off the top.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: gnu
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 01:22 PM

I heard about a fellow who got three garbage cans, filled the bottom quarters with crumpled newspapers, placed a few spruce bows on top of the newspaper, broke into three rooms on the third (top) floor of a residence, placed the cans on bricks beside the windows, opened the windows, called the city fire department, and lit the cans up.

One lucky (and certainly stupid) SOB. He never got caught. The residence had to pay fines and a false alarm fee which he repaid in cash anonymously.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 02:52 PM

Then there are the hot air balloons, made of a transparent plastic or fabric or tissue outer covering over a very light frame, with a candle suspended in the gondola to provide hot air for lift. When released at night to float over a campus, they resemble the traditional UFO, and can attract quite a lot of attention. They eventually descend after the candle burns down, but have usually floated far away by that time.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Gary T
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 03:42 PM

These are tame in comparison to some of the above, but here goes....

A favorite stunt in my dorm was stealing a guy's mattress. It would generally be placed somewhere just a bit out of the way--on the next floor (up or down), on the fire escape, in a shower stall, etc. There were various other pranks of this sort, generally referred to as "ballbusting," and one quickly learned to keep his room door locked whenever he wasn't inside. Even being two or three doors away was a risk if the door was unlocked, as something could be spirited away.

One fellow was known as "The King of the Ballbusters," a well-earned reputation for all he did. One evening, he was getting ready to go to a movie with his buddies. I heard his door open and close, but not lock! I heard his footsteps toward the bathroom, and the bathroom door open and close. I went into the hall (locking my door, of course) and tried his door. Sure enough, he hadn't locked it. Knowing there was very little time, I simply put his mattress, sheets and all, into the closet in his room. I then went back to my room and practiced my innocent look.

He came back from the bathroom, into his room, and hollered out my name. He came to my room and asked, "Okay, where is it?"

"Where is what?"

"You know what--my mattress."

Naturally, I denied knowing anything about it, and naturally he didn't believe me (I had a bit of a reputation, too). By now his friends were there, wanting to hurry up and get to the movie on time. He insisted on looking in all the usual places for his mattress until there was no more time, they had to leave now. He then opened his closet to get a tie.

He was really ticked off at having been fooled with the thing virtually under his nose the whole time. The next morning there was a "Declaration of War" on my door. ______________________

One thanksgiving weekend I was one the few who stayed in the dorm, and my girlfriend from out of town came to visit. After hanging around for the evening with a couple of my buddies who also stayed, we went to bed. I had amorous intentions, but was interrupted every two minutes by knocking on the door. After the first several times I stopped answering, but the mood in the room had been disturbed. Nothing I could do then, but some time later...

One of my door-knocking buddies had his girlfriend in from out of town for the weekend. I put a sign on his door that said, "Fellas--my girlfriend is spending the night, so please don't bust my balls." Of course, any hint of weakness--like this request--was just asking for it.

I spent the evening simply sitting in the hall outside my room door, and watched four or five guys give him hell outside his door.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 03:58 PM

I copy and paste the essentials of one of the greatest pranks of all time:

"In 1961, students from Caltech (California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena) hacked the Rose Bowl football game. One student posed as a reporter and `interviewed' the director of the University of Washington card stunts (such stunts involve people in the stands who hold up colored cards to make pictures). The reporter learned exactly how the stunts were operated, and also that the director would be out to dinner later.

While the director was eating, the students (who called themselves the `Fiendish Fourteen') picked a lock and stole a blank direction sheet for the card stunts. They then had a printer run off 2300 copies of the blank. The next day they picked the lock again and stole the master plans for the stunts -- large sheets of graph paper colored in with the stunt pictures. Using these as a guide, they made new instructions for three of the stunts on the duplicated blanks. Finally, they broke in once more, replacing the stolen master plans and substituting the stack of diddled instruction sheets for the original set.

The result was that three of the pictures were totally different. Instead of `WASHINGTON', the word ``CALTECH' was flashed. Another stunt showed the word `HUSKIES', the Washington nickname, but spelled it backwards. And what was supposed to have been a picture of a husky instead showed a beaver. (Both Caltech and MIT use the beaver -- nature's engineer -- as a mascot.)

After the game, the Washington faculty athletic representative said: "Some thought it ingenious; others were indignant." The Washington student body president remarked: "No hard feelings, but at the time it was unbelievable. We were amazed."

This is now considered a classic hack, particularly because revising the direction sheets constituted a form of programming.

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 08:07 PM

Another gem from an American college - maybe Cal Tech again: A group of engineering students disassembled a car, and then, at night, reassembled it in the Dean's office.

-chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: ddw
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 10:15 PM

In the late '50s I was living in a Presbyterian church-owned community in the mountains that was popular as a retirement village for retired missionaries. It was also early in the days of car downsizing, when VWs were just becoming popular and Nash began producing the Metropolitan to cash in on that market.

Mr. Yates, an bachelor ex-missionary lived in a house on the side of a hill with about 90 steps leading from where he parked his little car to his covered front porch. One night eight of us picked the Metropolitan up, carried it up and set it on the porch.

He had part of the porch roof taken off and hired a crane to lift his car down.

We also used to pick up VWs in the parking lots and turn them sideways in the parking spaces, so they couldn't be moved until one of the cars beside them was moved.

The prank above with the rubber sheet and water was pretty close to something a few guys pulled on a pain-in-the-ass airman in our weather squadron at Tinker AFB. They got a Rawinsonde balloon (one of the biggies that carry radio packages to measure upper winds and temps), put it in his room and filled it with water to a depth of about two feet, wall to wall. Trouble was, when it broke it also flooded quite a few other rooms in the dorm. Boy, was the brass pissed!

One more, and I'll quit.

The same little community described above was also home to Montreat College, a religiously run two-year college in those days that had just started taking male students. I used to hang around the campus and knew most of the guys. One of them had an on-campus job of going into the chapel each day at about 6 p.m. and playing a record of chimes over the PA for vespers. Somehow, one my friends had gotten a copy of the key to room where the record player was. On a weekend when the regular guy was away, my friend sneaked in about midnight, put "Bo Diddly Is A Gunslinger" on the (repeating) turntable, cranked the volume to full and locked the door. The whole cove was treated to what in those days was considered pretty wild music for more than an hour before a dean was called who could unlock the room and take it off.

Fun days,

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 12:30 PM

Here's a great school prank committed by a guy who was no longer in school (technically speaking...).

Kevin was a 23 year old hellraiser and generally irresponsible idiot whom I knew in 1973. He was renting the unit next to mine in a townhouse development in Scarborough, Ontario (a suburb of Toronto). Kevin was sharing his unit with a couple of other single guys, as was I. We were all long-haired, naturally, and most of us were amateur musicians...but not Kevin...he was an amateur alchoholic and general layabout with a penchant for disturbing the peace. He also liked dope, but alcohol was his main substance of abuse. He made the worst homemade wine I have EVER tasted anywhere. Almost no one would drink it, so Kevin drank most of it himself, when too strapped for money to buy the real stuff. But I digress...

One day we had all been reminiscing about various school experiences, and Kevin said he would like to go back there and show those stupid teachers and staff a thing or two. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a cool idea, so...

During the summer Kevin arranged by mail to register himself as a newly arrived student at a local high school, supposedly as the 18-year old son of some fictional parents at a fictional address (but on a real street). He also changed his family name in the correspondence, but retained the first name of Kevin.

Accordingly, he was registered, and arrived at school on September 2nd along with the other students, and went to his first class.

I should describe Kevin's appearance. He was stocky, powerfully built, with a florid face and a thick, curly beard and afro. Beards were very rare in high schools at the time, specially luxuriant ones like Kevin's.

So...what did Kevin do on his first day of school? He raised hell generally, swore, sang obscene ditties, refused to obey the rules, made fun of the teachers, made passes at the female staff, and was eventually sent to the pricipal's office, where...after some initial "negotiations" he challenged the principal to duke it out with him! The principal, realizing he had a real hard case on his hands, attempted to lock Kevin in an office and called the police, but Kevin made a quick exit out a convenient window and escaped before they arrived...came home and told us all about it.

What a coup! For all I know they may still be looking for him...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 03:08 PM

When I was at the University of Washington circa early Fifties, I didn't live in the men's dorms, but I knew a lot of guys who did. The men's dorms where not on Campus Parkway as they are now, they were clapboard barracks-like buildings on campus. The rooms were small, usually occupied by two guys—bunk beds, small study desks, and a bureau each. Everybody share one Big John.

A friend of mine who lived in the dorms owned a Crosley Hotshot . The advantages of the car were that it was a sports car, it was cute, and it was cheap transportation. A disadvantage was that it was kinda tinny, and small and light enough so three or four fairly muscular goons could pick it up and carry it. Very frequently my friend would go out to the designated parking place and the Hotshot wouldn't be there. It was usually somewhere nearby, because although it was light, it wasn't that light. Often he would find it sitting up the front steps of a nearby building. On one occasion, he stumbled out of his dorm room to go to class, and there was the Hotshot, parked in the hallway and blocking his door. Good gag maybe, but it got real old real quick.

About the same time, a large cardboard box appeared one morning over the top of the flagpole on what is now Red Square. It took them a couple of days to figure out how to get it down, and I don't think they ever figured out how it got up there.

Also about that same time . . . there's a statue of George Washington that stands on the west side of campus. One night someone painted it bright green and hung a "Keep Washington Green" sign (a sign often seen beside highways) around his neck.

Professor Meldon taught Philosophy 100, among many other courses. One week he covered various philosophers who had their doubts about cause-and-effect, the consistency of reality, etc, laying out all of the arguments in a very persuasive manner. On Friday, he critiqued all the viewpoints and basically left the students with no sure answers, but much to ponder. At the end of the lecture, Prof. Meldon said, "Now I've walked through that door" (indicating the door to the left of the lectern) "hundreds of times, and each time I have emerged in the hall outside. But there is no real assurance that sometime I might step through that door and fall into a pit of crocodiles." At that moment, the bell rang. We picked up our books and got ready to leave as Prof. Meldon picked up his lecture notes and stepped through the door. Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream rang out! We all froze! Several seconds later, Professor Meldon's grinning face appeared through the door. "Think about it," he said. "See you all Monday. Perhaps."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 03:49 PM

Actually I have a couple. The essence of skunk (Butyric acid) does a number in the heating system it doesn';t take much either. A friend commented my senior year in high school that it would be great to have the day off as it was a arae fine April day, I obliged with a little of the above mentioned essence and got the school evacualted. The authorities never found out who the culprit was. The second was a little trickier a friend and I my first enlistment painted a huge bullseye on the dining facility roof with a targeting recommendation.. Igot caught but the person who caught me (My division officer)had a sense of humor and said nothing. He was flying over on his approach pass and saw the bulls eye. he didn't actually see us but he knew and let me know that it would cost me a case of beer. It was worth it. neil

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 04:55 PM

Ha! Ha! Keep 'em comin', folks!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Tone d' F
Date: 07 Mar 02 - 05:08 AM

A couple of bits

Halls of residence, we were comming home from the pub and passed a field full of sheep a friend I'll call him Harry 'cos that was his name and yself wnet into the field the rest carried on.

We were having our ususal Sunday night p***up when the screams started.

We were on the second floor and had put the sheep in the gents and removed the lights.

People returning back to collage from the weekend with mummy had a shock.

Changing room numbers then inviting ladies of the night up

Removing the engine from a car in the car park

Whilst working for WIMPEY, we had a transport controller who bought himself a clapped out old banger and insisted on parking it badly outside the office. it started by removing his wheels when he couldn't see it and ended up with us hiding it in a 10 ton tipper

But the funniest has to be a practical joker who ddn't know when to stop taking a Hilti gin [nailgun] we pinned him to the outside wall of the carpentry shop by his overalls at a 45 degree angle.

the latter got us into lots of trouble, we damaged the side of the building

Subject: RE: BS: Greatest school days pranks!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Mar 02 - 02:19 PM

Well, the devil certainly does find work for idle hands...and I never recalling seeing more idle hands than I did in the first year of university. Or idle minds, for that matter...

- LH