Practical joke - Definition and Overview

A practical joke or prank is a practice intended to be humorous (usually in action, not just in words) in which another person is fooled, annoyed, or embarrassed in what the perpetrator imagines to be a mild and light-hearted fashion. Some types of practical jokes include:

• hoaxes, especially ones perpetrated on or by the media (See also: culture jamming).
• physical types of practical jokes, such as causing someone to:
  • trip,
  • get wet (eg using water-filled balloons),
  • go on a fool's errand such as asking them to go to the store for striped paint, skyhooks, or a long weight. See snipe hunt.
  • unknowingly wear embarrassing signs (eg a 'kick me' note on the back),
  • get soiled (eg plastic wrap on the toilet seat) or
  • produce unpleasant sounds (eg a whoopee cushion)
• forms of mild harassment (eg soaping someone's windows, smearing toothpaste or peanut butter in recessed handles like those found on most cars, decorating the yard with toilet paper, sprinkling popcorn on the yard).

Practical jokes are features of various kinds of holidays, such as April Fool's Day, Halloween, and in Spanish-speaking cultures, the Day of the Holy Innocents. They also feature in various rites of passage, such as stag nights.

See also

Joke, prank, humour, sadism, laughter, hack (MIT student pranks)

External links

• Prank resource page (http://www.gwally.com/pranks/)