Practical jokes can be a fun way to add a little mischief into our lives, as long as they are well planned and do not put anyone at risk. And who doesn’t like pulling one over on someone on April Fool’s day?
Well, we just found a video by the notorious Roman Atwood, in which he nabs his own grandmother. In the video, he takes her for a ride in his new sports car for her birthday. But what happens next is hilarious. You are going to love this video.
Since everyone loves practical jokes, we decided to look into the history of pranks and hoaxes. As it turns out, there have been some real doozies out there, from Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, to Andy Kaufman’s death. Just kidding. Or are we?
We wanted to look into famous scientific and supernatural hoaxes through the years and see where this one might fit in. As it turns out, just fine.
The “Cottingly Fairies” were a series of photographs taken by british cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths in 1917. They created a huge stir around the world as the pictures seemed to show one of the young girls surrounded by a group of dancing fairies. They were so well done, even Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was convinced of their authenticity.
One of the more profitable hoaxes was the famous “Alien Autopsy” footage created by Brit Ray Santilli. His grainy, weirdly lit and composed, footage took the 1990’s by storm and the Fox network even paid him for the rights to produce a special program about it, no doubt to increase visibility for their flagship series “The X-Files”. It was complete nonsense, but the story behind the faked film reel is still part of the UFO lore today.
In 1908 another of the Queen’s subjects produced evidence of a missing link between humans and other primates. Dubbed the “Piltdown Man”, it created a stir in England, and thrust the debate over Darwin’s theory of evolutionary biology through natural selection to the front of scientific inquiry. That is a good thing, basically. It also made a tidy some of money for its creator, Charles Dawson. It was finally discredited when it was proved that the “fossil” was really just an orangutan jaw and the skull of a modern human child.
The Tasaday Tribe of the Philippines. Yeah, okay, so in 1970 the Prime Minister of the Philippines announced the discovery of a stone age tribe living in caves on a remote island. When anthropologists wanted to examine and study them, he declared the whole area a protected nature preserve and sanctuary. After about 15 years of this nonsense, it was finally revealed that the people were walking around wearing modern clothes, speaking modern languages, etc.
Of course, the practice of pranking and hoaxing begins and ends with April Fool’s day. The custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon one’s neighbor is recognized everywhere. Some precursors of April Fools’ Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria. The first mention of this notorious holiday comes from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,”
What is the best practical joke you ever pulled over on someone? Share your story with us here.
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