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What is it about the collegiate atmosphere that inspires pranks? Maybe it’s the lure of becoming a school legend, your hilarious exploits recounted ’round bonfires for years to come. Or maybe it’s just the natural result of putting too many smart, hormone-addled young folk together in one place. Whatever the reason, colleges (and to a lesser extent, boarding schools) are a breeding ground for awe-inspiring pranks — and here are some of our favorites. (Some of these entries appeared in the Mental_floss article “History’s Greatest Hoaxes” by Alex Boese, vol. 2, issue 6.)
6. The Explosives Were Just A Warm-Up
Alright, this is a high school prank, but it has all the hallmarks of a collegiate job (think of it as AP pranksterhood). Our very own John Green masterminded this elaborate, hilarious two-parter as a senior at his Alabama boarding school, and not only did it make he and his cohorts living legends at Indian Springs High School for years to come, it also became the basis for several major plot points in John’s debut novel, Looking for Alaska (soon to be a movie). Warning: some crude (but contextually appropriate) language.
5. Bonsai Kittens
“You no longer need be satisfied with a house pet having the same mundane shape as all other members of its species,” declared the website Bonsaikitten.com, which debuted in 2000. “With Bonsai Kitten a world of variation awaits you, limited only by your own imagination.” According to the website, you could treat a young kitten in much the same way that you treat a young juniper: by sealing a furry friend inside a specially-designed glass jar, you could force Fluffy’s still-pliable bones to conform to the jar’s shape. Special feeding tubes supposedly took care of all kitty’s nature-related needs (just make sure you drill an air hole!), and with a little careful pruning now and then, the rest would take care of itself!
Of course, the website was total hokum, devised by a group of bored MIT students and housed on the school’s servers. Even after the site was found to be of questionably authentic origin, however (it proved to be impossible to actually purchase said Bonsai Kittens), outraged emails kept pouring in. The Humane Society and PETA both denounced the site publicly, and in 2001 the FBI subpoenaed all information about the site they could get from MIT. No evidence of abuse was ever found, but even after Bonsaikitten.com had been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked as a prank, vitriolic emails from outraged animal lovers forced it site to bounce around from hosting service to hosting service for several years.
4. Lady Liberty Goes for a Swim
In February 1979, the Statue of Liberty appears submerged in the waters of Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. It’s the brainchild of the infamous Pail & Shovel Party, a small group of (mischief-prone) undergrads running the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s student government that year. As part of their election campaign, they had promised to bring Lady Liberty to Wisconsin, which they do … sort of. The group spends three days constructing the statue of of papier-mache and chicken wire. When it appears peeking up from the lake, they claim it was flown in by helicopter from NYC, but after the rope snapped, it sent her crashing through the ice. So did they make their fellow students proud? Not exactly. The P&S party used $4,500 of student funds for the construction.
3. Hugo N. Frye, Father of the Republican Party
Hoping to make a statement about the superficiality of politicians, a pair of Cornell students in 1930 make special plans to honor one Hugo Norris Frye, father of the Republican party, at the school’s annual banquet. Problem is, he doesn’t exist. (”You go and fry” — get it?) They print up letterhead for the H.N. Frye Sesquicentennial Committee and mail letters to many notable Republicans, asking that they issue statements honoring the important, if little-known, patriot on the occasion of his 150th birthday. In response, they receive several letters of glowing praise for Frye — including one from the Vice President of the United States, Charles Curtis — which they read aloud to an amused crowd at their banquet. It would have been harmless enough, but when the story landed on the front page of The New York World, the victims were exposed — and they weren’t laughing.
2. Greasing the Tracks
The night before an 1896 football game with their arch-rival Georgia Tech, a group of Auburn students set out for the local train station. To greet the arriving Tech team, the Auburn kids decide to do a particularly impressive job of the old “greasing the tracks” prank, covering the rails around the station and well down the line heading out of town. When the Tech train rolls in the next morning, it can’t stop and reportedly slides for 10 miles, leaving the team an its accompanying fans well outside their intended destination. Forced to walk into town for the game, the players are so exhausted when they finally reach the field, Tech loses 45 to nothing.
1. The Crimson Sparks a Red Scare
A long-running rivalry between Harvard’s school papers, the Crimson and the Lampoon, came to a head with this 1953 prank. Crimson staffers play one of their favorite pranks by stealing the Lampoon’s Ibis, the large bird statue perched on top of their office. But this time, they send a letter to the Soviet consul in New York to report that the editors of the Lampoon wish to offer the Ibis as a symbol of friendship, billing the bird as “sort of an American peace dove.” The Soviets accept, and the Ibis is handed off to a confused U.N. delegate in a formal ceremony. Not wanting to be outdone, the Lampoon retaliates with a letter of their own. With help from then-editor John Updike, they write to Joseph McCarthy, insisting the prank clearly proves the Crimson’s communist leanings and calling for a full investigation.
Maybe I’m misreading the kitten prank, but can I say “sick f*cks!”
posted by Scott on 12-13-2007 at 9:58 am
As a UW-Madison graduate, I read much about the Pail and Shovel Party (although I just graduated so it was long before my time). It seems like the whole group qualified as a great prank.
The name came from how they vowed to give tuition back to student by dumping pennies on Bascom Hill (where the Chancellor’s office is) and letting them scoop it back with a Pail and Shovel. One year the same hill was decorated with like 10,000 plastic flamingos.
Here’s a part that should be included in the Statue of Liberty thing - a couple days after they completed construction a vandal set fire to it. Although I don’t recall offhand if that was the first or second time they made it.
posted by Kevin on 12-13-2007 at 10:26 am
Nerd alert: The guy behind the Statue of Liberty prank was Jim Mallon, who later went on to become one of the masterminds of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
posted by Ed on 12-13-2007 at 10:48 am
Meant to mention the MST3K link, but it slipped my mind. Thanks for getting my back!
posted by Kevin on 12-13-2007 at 11:02 am
Thank goodness that the Bonsai Kitty site was a prank! My friend had it on her blog a few years ago and it freaked all of us out!! A very well thought out website, indeed!
posted by Kate on 12-13-2007 at 11:09 am
My parents have pictures of the statue of liberty thing! It looked awesome!
posted by Emily on 12-13-2007 at 11:10 am
I still like the Harvard/Yale rivalry prank whereby one of the schools was given posters by members of the ‘pep squad’ which they subsequently used to spell “We Suck!” at the rivalry game.
brilliant.
posted by Ashley on 12-13-2007 at 12:28 pm
I remember the Bonsai Kitty thing, and one of my friends trying to start a petition. She wrote this very passionate email to all of us about it, and I nearly felt bad telling her she’d been just a little too gullible.
I heard about another Jim Mallon prank involving hundreds of pink lawn flamingos.
posted by Katherine on 12-13-2007 at 12:45 pm
I love the Bonsai Kitten website. It’s fun to read all the hate mail from people who didn’t figure out that it was a joke.
posted by Ken on 12-13-2007 at 1:26 pm
Another interesting tidbit about the Auburn- Ga Tech train incident: Legend has it that the Tech players had to walk all the way into town wearing nothing but their pajamas. And to this day everytime Tech comes to the plains Auburn hosts a “Wreck Tech” parade and parades through town in their nightclothes. I had the pleasure of doing so my freshman year at Auburn, and even though Tech beat us, its still a good time.
War Eagle.
posted by Taylor on 12-13-2007 at 2:31 pm
I participated in the squirt-gun-point kidnapping of the president of my alma mater. All classes were canceled that day and we held a carnival instead. Glorious!
posted by Coeli on 12-13-2007 at 3:36 pm
The kitten´s mushed face is one of the cutest things I have ever seen… I want a Bonsai Kitten!
posted by GTT on 12-13-2007 at 6:03 pm
The bonsai kittens were such an obvious hoax!! That isn’t even physically possible, people are very gullible!
posted by Melissa on 12-13-2007 at 6:35 pm
Another great university prank … In 1962, a group of engineering students at the University of Western Ontario (London, ON) removed the toilet seats from all the men’s washrooms on campus. The best part of the prank is that after paying a fine, the students got to keep the seats.
posted by Stephen on 12-13-2007 at 8:16 pm
I got those Bonsai Kitten petitions all the time too. It got annoying, and people never believed the site was fake. I believed it at first though, how gullible of me!
posted by Regina on 12-13-2007 at 8:56 pm
The closest I can I come to a college prank story is my father’s. He helped in the old “Carry somebody’s Volkswagon up a flight of stairs” prank. The owner had to get the football team to carry it back down.
posted by Tdave on 12-14-2007 at 1:39 am
Speaking of Bonsai Kittens, wasn’t there some site that asked for donations for a rabbit, and if enough donations weren’t given the website owner would eat the rabbit?… Of course, it was a hoax, and when you clicked the link to donate you were directed to a page where you could buy t-shirts and such
I also heard of a prank (I’m not sure of the authenticity of it, but it’s a novel idea anyway) where a group of high school students in a rural town got 4 pigs all greased up and painted the numbers 1,2,4, and 5 on the side of each pig and then released them at the beginning of the school day… classes were canceled the rest of the day as they searched for the third pig
posted by Corry on 12-14-2007 at 6:35 pm
The most famous prank in Finland happened in the sixties.
Wikipedia describes the recovery of wasa ship
“The first lift began on April 8, 1961, and on the morning of April 24, Vasa was ready to break the surface for the first time in 333 years. Press from all over the world, TV cameras, 400 invited guests on barges and boats, and thousands of spectators on shore watched as the first timbers broke the surface.
— Among the more infamous contaminations was a statue of 20th century Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi, which was placed on the ship as a prank by students of Helsinki University of Technology just days before the final lift.”
posted by Paavo Ojala on 12-19-2007 at 12:31 pm
Just wanted to contribute another Auburn University prank. My grandfather, W.W. Garrett, class of 1909, had a friend who earned his college tuition by keeping the clock in Samford Hall wound (Samford Hall at that time wa the tallest building on the campus. My grandfather and an unnamed accomplice stole a cow from the nearby School of Agriculture and led it up the steps to the bell tower, where it was discovered the next morning at 5 am when their classmate came to wind the clock. Since a cow can be led up stair but not down, I’m not sure how they got the cow out of the tower. No one discovered the identity of the culprits until my grandfather admitted to the crime at his 50th college reunion. The biggest regret of my years at Auburn is that I never did anything that remotely approached that stunt.
posted by David Patton on 12-23-2007 at 3:06 pm
In response to the Indian Hills prank, we had a similar prank done by the Jewish Mafia in Solon, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland). We had a designated Senior Lounge and the class of 98 chose to hire a stripper and have football players stand in the columns of the senior lounge to block administrative staff or teachers from stopping the strip show. She got down to her g-string before the vice principal leapt over a player to get to the girl. no one was ever punished.
posted by Karen on 12-29-2007 at 4:02 pm
I love that Auburn/Georgia Tech story. My favorite parade that I ever participated in as a member of the AUMB was definitely the Wreck Tech Parade in 2005. Like Taylor mentioned, all across campus you could see people wearing All Auburn All Orange t-shirts and pajama bottoms, including us band members. Pity the game didn’t turn out to be quite as enjoyable - it was the first defeat I’d ever had to experience at Auburn, having been spoiled my freshman year with the 2004 undefeated season.
posted by Steven on 1-2-2008 at 1:58 pm
My dad’s fraternity brothers thought it would be a great prank to take all the pledges out into the countryside and drop them off, leaving them to walk back to the frat house. Little did they know my dad had spent every summer in that same countryside. Dad was back at the house before the brothers finished dropping off the rest of the pledges, lol.
posted by Nancy on 1-23-2008 at 5:03 pm
the rabbit prank was “save toby”, and i fell for it. i called my fellow rabbit rescuers in tears.
it was posted at one time on ebay, where the prankster received some actual bids until ebay yanked it. its still floating around the ‘net somewhere, too.
posted by bionic bunny! on 2-7-2008 at 4:45 pm
Karen-
I went to Solon High School! Not a place you see referenced lot. I was still in middle school in ‘98, but my sister was a sophomore or junior and I remember hearing about it. Small world…
posted by lauren on 2-14-2008 at 12:05 pm
ha that some anal poop. I like to like it. it’s nice anal poop for me and you for you. yay for it. ah
posted by Mr. Anal Poo on 2-23-2008 at 11:46 am
***taken from wikipedia***
The most notorious and legendary prank in Rice history was the turning of William Marsh Rice’s statue in the Academic Quadrangle in April 1988. After several months of detailed planning, a group of Wiessmen succeeded in lifting the bronze statue (using a hoist mounted on an A-frame), rotating it 180 degrees, and setting it back down undamaged on its stone pedestal.[11] The university hired a contractor to turn Willy’s statue back to its original position. While the students’ apparatus cost only a couple of hundred dollars, the contractor used a hydraulic crane, charging several thousands of dollars, and managed to bend one of the pins in the process. The student pranksters were fined the cost of the job, but they raised more than enough funds by selling t-shirts bearing the blueprints of the A-frame structure. This jack instantly gained national publicity for Rice. Today the turning of the statue stands out as the epitome of a successful jack: creative, elaborate, highly visible, and harmless. In later years, legends evolved that the students were protesting a planned tuition increase or that the stunt symbolized the Founder turning his back on the administration in Lovett Hall. In fact, the prank was merely that–a prank.
posted by Joe on 2-28-2008 at 2:35 am
I just wished to comment on Prank #4 - I am proud to say that I helped build “Lady Liberty”. I was a member of the Pail and Shovel Party, a U.W. student from 1975 - 1979, and helped assemble the dear old girl.
She was a beautiful sight to behold.
posted by Rick on 3-12-2008 at 1:12 pm
I attended Grace University in Omaha, NE, where harmless pranks were tolerated (and sometimes enjoyed) by the faculty. The best we ever had happened in 2004.
Over the course of a Saturday and Sunday, the boys of Admin Four (one of the dorm halls), snuck into the chapel, unbolted the heavy wooden theater-style seats from the floor, turned them around, and bolted them back down backwards. So when the student body showed up for Chapel the following Monday, all the seats were facing the back of the auditorium. (Mind you, these are seats that were joined by metal posts; you could only remove them together as one long row!)
During the “backwards chapel,” the VP of Student Services, Dr. Burkholder, declared that it was truly a classic prank in the school’s history, and invited the perpetrators to stand and be acknowledged by the school. Half a dozen of them did so, to thunderous applause - and were promptly informed that they would be spending the rest of the afternoon putting the seats back.
posted by Andrea on 3-12-2008 at 10:00 pm
This all reminds me of the Austin Seven van that was placed on top of the Cambridge University Senate House. Not a trivial matter by all accounts, not least because of the 450 ft of rope involved. (Google for, “a van that went up in the world”)
posted by Matt on 4-9-2008 at 11:18 am
I seem to recall seeing a TV news story in the 80s about a VW Beetle suspended from the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, BC. It was suspected UBC Engineering students were involved.
posted by Ashe on 4-12-2008 at 8:09 pm