Pranks are one of the most classic forms of comedy, and have been enjoyed by people all over the world for about as long as recorded history. While pranks are nearly always going to be way more fun for the person doing the pranking — and those watching — a really good prank will be mostly harmless. If done right, the victim of the prank will quickly be able to laugh at the situation and feel that no real, serious harm was done. And while some pranks are extremely elaborate and can pay dividends for the effort, the best pranks are so easy to do that even a little kid could pull them off without much trouble.
10. The Feather And Shaving Cream Trick
When kids get together at sleepovers they tend to quickly get rowdy and start thinking up ways to mess with each other. After all of the sugar, caffeine and staying up late, it’s common for children to make a contest of who can stay awake the longest, and often make sure that whoever falls asleep too quickly is duly punished for the infraction — a major sleepover “party foul.” While a lot of kids will deal with this by doing uncouth child things, or painting on the victim’s face with Sharpie, the enterprising prankster has way more amusing and imaginative ways to deal with those who happen to slumber before the rest of the kids are ready.
When people are sleeping, they often make reflexive movements without even realizing it, especially if they are touched or tickled in the right spot. People realized a while back that an object like a feather will cause someone to itch themselves in their sleep on the spot where the feather touched. When pranksters realized this, they discovered that they could trick people into slathering things on their face while they sleep by first putting the agent on their hand, and then tickling their face with a feather. Shaving cream is a favorite because it foams up nicely, sticks to the face, and doesn’t taste pleasant while also being fairly easy to clean up and not truly harmful. If you like the person a little more, you can do it with aerosol whipped cream or cool whip instead.
9. Bucket Of Water Over The Door Prank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onZArejtbUk
This is a classic prank that many of you may be aware of, although it is rarely performed that often in real life — it’s more often seen in movies. However, it’s a very simple and effective way to prank anyone. All you have to do is get a bucket of water — or really any safe liquid you prefer for comedic effect — and position it precariously over a door. If you really want to ensure accuracy you can rig things up with rope and string. When the victim of the prank walks through the door, the bucket will tip and spill water all over. While this may seem like a fairly over dumb way to prank someone, it’s actually really effective because it has a strong measure of repeatability.
Many pranks are going to be harder to pull off again and again — your victim will start to watch out for your tricks. They will look closely at their food and try not to fall asleep around you. However, they can’t really avoid opening doors forever, and if you rig it up right they will never know which door is going to have a rigged bucket that makes them enjoy a surprise shower on the spot. Of course, if you repeatedly prank your victim with the same trick too much, they may tire of your antics and start turning the tables against you.
8. Toothpaste On The Oreos Gag
This one takes a little bit of work. First, you’ll need to carefully take apart the Oreos and remove all of the delicious filling inside. While this may be a bit of effort, most people tend to remove the cream from their Oreos anyway, so you can enjoy that filling while preparing your prank. Then, meticulously and carefully replace all of the cream with toothpaste and put the halves of the cookie back together. The trick here is to ensure a very even spread and make sure that it looks as much like an Oreo as possible in terms of thickness and overall perfection. It’s a good idea to take your time to make it look just right, so the trick doesn’t fall apart early.
After that with the new packaging it’s actually fairly easy to simply replace them inside an already opened package when no one is looking and enjoy the show. For a twist on this trick, you can pull this one on someone who is really fond of the new Mint Oreos. Because toothpaste is minty already, it will probably take them a little longer to realize that they have been had, and make your overall mirth all the greater. There are also many white toothpastes with various different flavors to go with. You don’t necessarily have to go with mint, you could also try to give them a shocking surprise by using cinnamon toothpaste or something similar.
7. The Airhorn Door Stopper Prank
The Airhorn is the favorite device of the kind of person who thinks they are a great jokester, but is really just an overall annoying person who will do almost anything for attention. Those who like to constantly annoy others with airhorns are likely the kind of children who ran around with whatever noise maker they could find and banged it as loud as possible, thinking that their ability to annoy other was somehow a skill. They also usually decided after being told off that people just couldn’t take a joke, or understand how funny they are. Now, while it’s not particularly clever to simply jam an airhorn near someone’s ear, there are ways to use the device to cleverly prank someone and give them quite a fright.
The trick is to first obtain an airhorn, while trying to maintain as much dignity as you can — buying online helps for this. Then, carefully duct tape it to the inside of a door around where you would normally put a door stopper. Make sure it is carefully duct taped and positioned so that when the door is opened, the airhorn will immediately go off and make an awful and extremely loud noise. If you want to test the prank first, make sure your victim isn’t home or you may clue them in and completely ruin the joke. This is definitely one of those pranks that is not going to have much of an effect if they know it’s coming — startling sounds are really only startling if you don’t expect them.
6. The Balloon “Birthday Cake” Prank
Some parents feel that their child’s birthday is a great day for celebration. The day they first brought a new child into the world that signifies the love between them, and how wonderfully their new family has moved forward together. These parents will nurture their child and make sure that their birthday is something special and unforgettable. However, there is another type of parent who sees birthdays as a great chance to mess with their offspring and toy with them for their own amusement. For those parents, there are great ways to prank your child on their birthday.
For those who are looking for something more imaginative than a crushing and not at all interesting anymore prank like the fake lottery ticket, enterprising pranksters have found a way to combine birthday cakes and people’s propensity to jump at loud noises into one package. The trick works by essentially making a fake birthday cake with a balloon and a cake box. Once the “cake” is finished, you carefully frost the lumpy monstrosity and serve it to your offspring along with a knife to cut it. When it is cut, it will pop open, shocking them greatly and sending frosting flying everywhere. If you don’t want your victim to hate your afterwards, you should probably bring out the real cake after the prank cake has been opened.
5. The Tape On The TV Remote Sensor Prank
Before we get started, we should point out that there are some great honorable mentions for pranking people with TV remotes, but it can get much more expensive to do some of the other tricks. One of the more costly, but incredibly fun ways to prank your target, is to buy an exact working copy of the same remote, and then very occasionally change the volume or channel without them noticing. If you do it too much at once or too often they might catch on. However, if you are subtle enough about it you can keep it up for months without being noticed. On the other hand, if you want to prank your target on a budget, you can simply opt to grab some tape and have some fun with them.
While this trick is only going to work on your target once, because after that they will always check, it will cause them a lot of frustration and will be worth watching. When your target isn’t paying attention, carefully apply a piece of tape over the sensor bar of the remote. For best effect use a tape that is very thin and will blend in as much as possible with your remote so it won’t be noticed without careful inspection. For added effect, suggest to your victim that the remote might be out of battery power and watch them go all the way through changing to fresh batteries, and still failing a few times, before you finally clue them in — if they haven’t figured out your game already.
4. A Candy Apple That Turns Into A Not-So-Sweet Surprise
Candy apples may not be very good for your teeth, but they are a delicious and enjoyable treat that is especially popular during the fall. You could sort of consider this a seasonal prank, as your victim may find it odd that you are offering them candy apples outside of the expected normal timeframe, and begin suspecting you’re up to something.
The trick is incredibly simple to pull off and has a delightful and harmless payoff. Instead of using apples, you simply take large onions that are about the size of apples, put the stick in them, and then coat them in the caramel candy coating like you would any candy apple. Once the “treats” are finished and ready, you can now serve them to your unsuspecting victim. For bonus points, you could make a real candy apple for yourself to bite into first to gain their trust, knowing that all the rest are actually onions.
When your intended target bites in, they will likely take an extremely full bite. This means that not only will the taste be entirely unexpected, but they will have way more raw onion in their mouth at once than really anyone is used to. If all goes well their eyes will tear up from the onions and their reaction will be something priceless that you can all laugh about later. However, keep in mind that this trick may not work if you have performed any other food pranks on them in the recent past. Once people realize that food from your hand cannot be entirely trusted, they will be much warier and harder to fool.
3. The Duct Tape On The Water Faucet Trick
Like the water bucket over the door prank, getting people wet when they don’t expect it has always been great, harmless fun. A little bit of water soaking someone’s clothes is something they will get over quickly, and usually something people will end up laughing about sooner rather than later. One of the best ways to prank people with water is the duct tape over the faucet trick, and it’s incredibly simple to perform. All you really need is duct tape, some faucets, and a pranking target or two.
You simply put a little bit of duct tape under the faucet itself, toward the back, leaving a little room in the front. When the faucet is turned on, the water will have nowhere to go except to create a somewhat concentrated stream of water that shoots right back at the person who turned on the faucet. Or if the sink has a sprayer, you can simply tape down the handle. The moment the water is turned on, it’ll be directed through the sprayer and all over the target.
You can easily leave these all over the house and watch multiple people get wet, but the same person is unlikely to fall for it more than a couple times or more before they start checking every faucet with extreme paranoia. While this paranoid behavior may be amusing, if they are bothered enough they may start taping faucets they expect you to use, just so they can have some of the same fun you had.
2. The Fake Spider On The Toilet Paper Never Gets Old
People tend to be incredibly afraid of bugs, and that fear usually translates doubly so to creatures like spiders. Now, while people tend to find bugs gross, and repulsive, most people don’t feel a surge of true fear unless they feel they are in a position where they are unable to escape the bug — giving them that fight or flight sense of panic. After all, we are way bigger than bugs are and we know they have no reason to truly bother us, but we don’t want to be in close quarters with any kind of creepy, crawly monstrosity. This means that if you want to scare someone with a fake bug, the best place to do so is somewhere they cannot easily get away — at least not without serious comedic effect.
While a car is one place that can work, it is a dangerous idea and should never be attempted. Causing a driver to be startled won’t be funny when the car crashes. However, people also tend to feel vulnerable while in the bathroom, and often freak out if large bugs appear while they are within its walls. In order to pull off this prank, you simply hide a fake spider slightly behind the toilet paper dispenser so that it pops up as they pull on the roll. For those of you on a budget, or those who just don’t feel like spending the money on your prank, you can also use a black sharpie to draw a spider on the toilet paper. It may not seem as lifelike, but if done right it will still greatly startle your victim, which is the real objective in the end.
1. Pranking Someone Into Opening Up A Shaken Can Or Bottle Of Soda
This is one of the most classic pranks that exist, and it is also one of the easiest of all time. However, while it is incredibly easy, the fact that it is so well known means that it can make it hard to pull off if your target is even somewhat sharp. For example, if they know you are a prankster, and you offer them a carbonated drink, they are probably likely to carefully check it first or give it some time to settle in case you are trying to mess with them.
The alternative here is to instead shake up your drink out of the victims sight, make a show of trying to open it in front of them, and then ask them to help you open it. If you are really tricky, you can get them to ask you if you need help, and even deny their help the first couple times before finally giving in and allowing them to cover themselves with an unexpected carbonated surprise.
Of course, even this may not work so well if the target knows you too well, which is why it’s even better used on casual acquaintances or other people who don’t know you too well, but whom you believe you can perform a harmless prank on without getting in too much trouble. In their case it’s still probably going to raise suspicion if you offer them a soda, so you are likely back to making them think you need help opening it. Those of you with obviously strong hands should probably avoid this tactic however, as it may be a dead giveaway that you are up to something funny.
4 Comments
These are all actually pretty… terrible.
Disappointed… 😛
Wrap the toilet seat with clear Saran Wrap.
7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2!!! fake spider on toilet paper roll…look out Denise Meekins.
So easy a child can do them??? First of all where is a child getting feathers from. Not to mention I could only imagine how proficient 8yr olds must be at making candied apples. Change the title at least.