Practical joke

A practical joke or prank is a trick played on people, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.

Some countries in western nations make it tradition to carry out pranks on April Fools' Day and Mischief Night.

However, practical jokes performed with cruelty can constitute bullying, whose intent is to harass or exclude rather than reinforce social bonds through ritual humbling.

Objects can feature in practical jokes, like fake vomit, chewing-gum bugs, exploding cigars, stink bombs, costumes, whoopee cushions, clear tape, and Chinese finger traps.

Examples include covering computer accessories with Jell-O, wrapping a desk with Christmas paper or aluminium foil or filling it with balloons.

Practical jokes also commonly occur during sleepovers, when teens play pranks on their friends as they come into the home, enter a room or even as they sleep.

[16] Some universities have gone as far as to devote entire pages of legislation and advice for students with regards to the consequences and laws involving the theft of traffic cones.

[21] One practical joke, recalled as his favorite by the playwright Charles MacArthur, involved American painter and bohemian character Waldo Peirce.

[28] Not unlike the stone louse of Germany, the jackalope in the American West has become an institutionalized practical joke perennially perpetrated by ruralites (as a class) on tourists, most of whom have never heard of the decades-old myth.

They later play cruel practical jokes on a beautiful, determined Italian owner who's trying to turn the former bait shop into a romantic restaurant.

[30] In the UK, a group that calls itself Trollstation plays pranks on people, including police officers and government employees.