Jake's+Mosaic

Pranks
 Pranks are central to our culture. Everyone knows what they are, most people have seen one, and quite a few people have done them to friends, or just random people. There are many reasons someone would want to play a prank on someone, including entertainment and revenge, possibly for a prank that was played on them.

Roald Dahl's experience with pranks includes several things mentioned in his autobiography, //Boy//.The first one mentioned is when he puts a dead rat inside a candy jar to get back at the mean lady, Mrs. Pratchett, who owned the candy store and would give them the candy when they came in to get some. The second one mentioned is when him and his dormmates put sugar on the floor, so when the Matron comes up, her footsteps make a loud crunching sound. The last one mentioned is when he puts goat feces in his sister's boyfriend's pipe. He removes the tobacco from the pipe, and puts the goat feces in. He then covers it up with a small layer of tobacco. When the boyfriend came back, it took a minute for him to realize anything was wrong, until the tobacco was burned up and at that point, he started coughing and threw the pipe away from him.

According to the wonderful internet, there are several ways to play a prank on someone. One of the oldest ones is the bowl of water one. The way that one works is, you ask the person to hold a bowl full of water to the ceiling with a broomstick or similar object. After they take it, you immediately walk away, leaving them to stand there. If they move at all, the bowl will fall on them and they will get wet. Anything similar to that is considered a prank, and they usually require a planning stage. For the bowl of water one, you have to find a broomstick, a friend/person to do it to, and of course, fill a bowl with water.

An adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds was aired on 1938 Halloween Eve, by Orson Welles. Many people took this to be an announcement that the world had been invaded by martians, even though it was stated at least 4 times during the broadcast that it was fiction. The airing ended with Welles announcing that the broadcast was a "holiday offering." Of course, there were plenty of really stupid people then too (hopefully less than now?) and a lot of people still thought the world was being invaded, regardless of the disclaimers. People called it the hoax of the century, even though it wasn't meant to be a hoax, or to fool people at all, but to entertain them. One of the reasons it worked out that way is the same reason any prank works, because as a generalization, people are never aware of their surroundings and make snap decisions. This leads them to be easily tricked. For example, the aforementioned bowl of water prank, if the person thought of what would happen when they did take the broom from the person, then they could completely avoid having the bowl of water poured on them, and if they are lucky, reverse it and get the person doing it to them to stand there ("Show me what you want me to do"). There are, of course, many many more pranks than those here, however, I hope you have gained some insight into some of the pranks that have been performed.

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