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.)
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment