April Fools Day is almost here! Here are 11 of the easiest April Fools Day pranks you can pull this year. The lazy person’s guide to April Fool’s Day. I’ve added more this year!
Classic The Art of Doing Stuff April Fools Day prank
For the past few years I’ve been giving you some ideas for April Fools Day pranks. I have once again added to that list this year!
As I’m sure you know, April Fools’ Day is the scariest of all the holidays. Not only because it has an incredibly difficult apostrophe placement but because it’s way scarier than Halloween. Seriously, what’s scarier to you? A kid dressed up like Batman politely knocking on your door between the hours of 6 and 8 p.m. or worrying all day that someone is planning to terrify you with an April Fool’s joke? The later obviously. No one even has to do anything, it’s the notion that it might be coming.
Now, the fact that April Fools’ day is always on April 1st immediately takes a certain amount of surprise out of the whole situation. People are on edge, and generally twitchy that day because we are all the same. We know we cannot trust our family and friends.
They laugh when we fall, point out pimples and consistently bring up our worst and most embarrassing moments around strangers.
Oh Jim! I’d like you to meet my sister Karen. Karen, Jim’s a medical physicist. And Jim you’ll be interested to hear that Karen once peed her pants in grade 9 on a park swing set.
But because everyone is kind of expecting something on April 1st, your April Fools Day pranks either have to be so over the top that they’re obviously done just for the hilarity of it. Orrrrrrr they have to be so smart, so subtle that the victim doesn’t know immediately that they’ve been pranked.
The last reaction you want from an April Fools Day prank is for someone to just roll their eyes. Or even worse – have no reaction at all.
There’s nothing more pathetic than a joke that falls flat. The easiest way to really get someone on April Fools’ Day is to celebrate it on August 17th.
This is my newest list of easy pranks that pretty much anyone can do. They won’t cost $125 for post-it notes or balloons, and they won’t end in lawsuits or heart attacks.
23 Harmless and FUNNY April Fools’ Day Pranks
1. The shark. Print it out and tape it to the toilet seat. (as seen at the top of this post)
The best part about this is the shark actually flutters a bit when you lift the toilet lid from the air movement.
I’ve taken the liberty of creating a PDF that you can print out right now. It’s printed on 2 pieces of standard printer paper. You just need to tape them together and then tape them under the toilet seat. Just click on the links and print away. (They need to print on the paper with a horizontal orientation, not vertical which you would normally use)
Shark Top of Mouth Shark Bottom of Mount
2. Rearrange the contents in your kids or partner’s dresser drawers so when they wake up to get dressed, nothing is where it should be.
3. The night before April Fools’ Day go into your spouse’s car and turn all the settings to maximum: radio, heat, windshield wipers … ALL of it.
4. Work near a window? Glue a quarter (or loonie or toonie) to the sidewalk outside and watch.
5. Add a Voice Activated sign to pretty much anything new in your workplace. Toaster in the break room, equipment, new TV …
I’d personally take this one step further with the toaster in the break room. I’d go buy a cheap toaster at a thrift store and remove the levers for lowering the toast. So there is literally no way to push the toast down, reinforcing the ridiculous nothing that it’s voice activated.
6. Write a co-worker’s name on a pair of underwear with a Sharpie and leave them somewhere in the office bathroom.
7. Out grocery shopping on April 1st? Slip something into someone else’s cart when they aren’t looking so they find it during check out. Hemorrhoid cream, condoms, that sort of thing …
8. Hide Scented air fresheners all over someone’s office.
9. Add food colouring to milk or cream that’s in a cardboard container. I LOVE this idea.
10. Replace family photos around your house with photos of strangers or celebrities.
11. Change your bosses screensaver to something like this. Works especially well if your boss miserable.
12. Fill a mayonnaise jar with vanilla pudding and casually eat the whole thing with a spoon in front of someone.
13. Put googley eyes on everything in the fridge. EVERYTHING.
14. You know how kids can sleep through anything? If you have kids that share a room, when they’re sound asleep switch their places so they wake up in the other one’s bed.
15. Cover the sensor on remote controls with a piece of tape so they don’t work.
16. Click through to here if you’re familiar with IFTTT commands to rig your Google Home to say WHATEVER YOU WANT in response to commands. For example: When you say “Hey Google, my sister is here”. You can have Google say, “Her? Doesn’t she owe you money??”
17. The old raisin in the toothpaste trick. My sister Fish Pedicure did this to me a few years ago. It seems so innocuous, but when you squeeze your toothpaste and something brown comes out of it, … it’s alarming in a way that’s difficult to describe.
Just push a raisin into the neck of the toothpaste and squeeze a bit of the toothpaste up so you can’t see it in there.
18. If you’re fluent in iPhone you can change someone’s phone ring to a person screaming. Or a cat meowing. Your choice. Then of course make sure you call them.
19. Partially melt a chocolate bar and leave it on the toilet seat. Extra points for wiping your hands on the toilet paper roll.
20. Drop a fake spider into your mother’s/daughter’s/friend’s/co-worker’s purse when they aren’t looking.
21. Buy bags of mushrooms (and a few huge portobellos) and cover the front lawn with them.
22. Unroll a toilet paper roll a few times. Using two sided sticky tape tape a small fake spider onto the top of the toilet paper and roll it back up.
23. Empty the fridge. COMPLETELY empty the fridge so when your family members open it in the morning it’s a vast hole of emptiness. (just put everything truly perishable like meat, milk or mayonnaise in a cooler, everything else like condiments, drinks and vegetables can go in a box for an hour.)
I think you’re sufficiently armed now.
In light of one Canadian province and 3 spoil sport American states banning April Fools day jokes (how they think they’re going to enforce this is beyond me) I’ve kept the pranks as low key as possible, but if you want to go BIG with any of them feel free to do it. Just don’t do it in Quebec, Arkansas, Ohio or North Dakota.
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
I told you it was way easier to prank when you didn’t do it on the actual day. ;) Feel free to fool anyone you want in any province or state this April Fools Day.
Remember in the early 90’s when Craigslist was still a thing in Canada? Well, a few days before April 1st my brother put an ad on Craigslist with my phone number saying my apt. was for rent….he came clean April 1st but not before my phone was ringing off the hook for days…thank god he did not get too particular about the location I am sure some people would have shown up at my door. When I said my place was not for rent I was asked a half dozen times if I needed a roommate. It was a bachelor apt. above a store in Toronto. Sad thing is I would love to have my brother play a joke like that now. Things change.
I can’t wait! I haven’t pulled an April fool’s prank in years so I could do those without anyone suspecting something. I’m thinking of doing a smorgasbord of pranks this year. Thanks for all the great ideas. We aren’t home until April 5th. It should be fun.🤣
I did the chocolate “poop on the toilet seat and in the bowl” trick and my husband said it was grounds for divorce! Bravo!!!
Of course it didn’t help when I scraped it off with my fingernail and wiped it on his shirt.
( :
Oh good! I’m glad to hear it went well, lol. ~ karen!
Most of these are good for normal days of any week, I’d think. Like how you don’t have to wait for Christmas to have peppermint.
I’m about to go do number 6! LOL nobody is here watching either :D
That’s my choice, too…but I live alone and currently have no one over, due to health problems.
My daughter had the idea of buying a box of assorted donuts for her office, writing “Happy April Fool’s Day! Help yourself” on the box, and then watching everyone’s paranoia come out.
I could not get the ctrl-alt-down arrow to work…..:(
Im back from rearranging my daughter’s drawers tk read the rest of the list. She’s going to be so confused. Hahahaha!
THANK YOU THANK YOU …. I finally got someone good … my 17 year old daughter. I used the shark printable! She just texted me to tell me that I made her piss herself! Then pissed myself laughing! (She even sent me a pic). I printed out another sheet saying April Fools and taped that to the back of the shark for her to see when she raised the lid to remove said shark. My girlfriend suggested using a snake since they have been found curled around people’s toilet bowls for real….. I’d die, and certainly not telling my daughter for fear of retribution.
The screen flip short cut keys don’t work on Windows 10. :(
Booooooo! :( I couldn’t test that one out because I use an Apple. ~ karen!
No joke but this is quite possibly my favorite read so far. I mean, I like a lot of your posts but this is one I actually can do (limited time -new baby- and too much yard means less diy for me). Thanks for sharing, my husband is going to be so surprised about his dresser drawers.
#9 doesn’t work on Windows XP :-( I had hoped to prank my daughter (who LOVES to play pranks on everyone else). Oh well.
My first thought was “Lucky Wulliam Dam Seeds”!
You got me! For a split second I thought ?
Then, I remembered I was reading a post about April Fools jokes! :)
That was a good one, especially since on IG somewhere , very recently, you had mentioned “job” in passing which my mind immediately referenced giving some reinforcing credibility to your job announcement! HaHaHaHa!!
I love April fools day! Our town has a large festival, which happened to be on April fools day last year. I got an idea to collect old keys with embarasing keychains on, and put a lable on it “if found, contact this person – with their number”. (I put down a friends name and number). The morning of the festival I walked through town depositing about 25 keychains in places they’d be found. My friend spent the day answering his phone and door, from people returning “his keys!”
Later that year, I met a cop who told me about this strange event that had happened in our town with so many keys being found and brought into the station. It was hard to keep a straight face!
When I was younger my parents went to Vegas. Mom bought him new underwear for the trip then sewed closed the leg on the side he steps in first. He was “hoppin” mad. All I can think is: BAD naked
From British Broadcasting Corporation in 1957 – the best ever April 1st hoax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU
Hanako!
I just laugh/cried 🤣🤣!! SO FUNNY!!
Thank you ☺️
The shark in the toilet and the raisin in the toothpaste were big hits for us last year. I think I’ll do the computer screen and the chocolate on the toilet seat this year. I have a teen-aged son so he’ll get blamed for that immediately.
Brilliant! I start a new job on Monday (April Fools Day!)… I’m armed now!!! Maybe I should wait until next year…!?!
Don’t scare me like that! Your blog is the only reason I don’t hate Monday, Wednesday and Friday. : )
Sewed the fly shut on my husband’s underwear. April Fool’s Day is also his birthday.
When my parents went on a trip to Las Vegas, she bought him all new underwear then sewed the leg closed on the leg he always puts in first. I’m sure it was hilarious, but hopping on one leg — definitely BAD naked!
I haven’t laughed like that in a while…thank you, I needed that. Love the underwear trick! I tried the shark last year on my sister. No screams. Just a WTF!! then laughter. I think I will try the chocolate one on my sons this year. Thanks.
Waaahhh! Oh—never mind.
You got me!!!
Then I thought…no way, not every other month and no way can a seed company need her enough for her to give up her blog. She has worked too hard on it.
I think I will give the computer one a try and the phone one if I can get him to leave it in the house for a bit.
I felt so disappointed, and I only just started reading your blog last week.
Enjoying it so much.
You made my heart stop! I thought a job sounded semi feasible – maybe you wanted to earn extra cash to finally do that bathroom remodel…
I was convinced until I re-read that you’d have to leave the house every day. LOL!
Gotta go buy some googly eyes! That sounds hilarious. I wonder if they’d stick to plastic packages with condensation on them? I guess I’ll find out, right?
Hah! I was thinking I’d like to do it too but I’m getting a new fridge delivered on Tuesday…. hmmmm, maybe I should put some in the old empty one for the pickup guys?
Karen,
I think you will need to come with 2 new pranks to replace #9 and #10.
Security is taken extremely seriously around here and no one is allowed to leave their computer unless it is locked and a password is required to log back in.
All iPhones now use a fingerprint in lieu of a password. Otherwise I would totally do that.
I think I will have to go with some men undies with my coworker very unique name on them even if it means I will have to come here on Sunday to be able to walk into the gents washroom.
extra excellent that AFD falls on a Monday this year. i’ve been on leave this week but will be sneaking in last thing today, after everyone has headed off for the weekend but before the office gets locked up, to change my Out of Office reply to change at midnight on Sunday to say that i’m now on maternity leave. you’ve inspired me to maybe secrete some name-tagged pants in the loo, whilst i’m there. with a little chocolatey addition? depends how evil i’m feeling… have a good weekend everyone!
Been following for a verrrry long time and I fell so hard I immediately started thinking of which seed company? is it too late to buy seeds this year? Every other month post? What? No? Wait… can’t be, keep reading, ahh. Fooled again. There must be some kind of support group for gullibles like me. I, Gigi, am a gullible.
I fell for it too.
A few years ago hubby and I and another couple went to a friends wedding in another city. They graciously (stupidly) put us up at their condo. After the wedding the four of us pranked their condo while they went off on their honeymoon. A few of the things they came back to:
All their pictures hung upside down. Plastic film stretched over the toilet bowl (hahaha couldn’t see it). Took the labels off of all their canned goods. Took all their underwear, wet it and put it in the freezer (her red undies turned his pink!)…and a few other that I can’t remember.
And then we all flew home and waited for them to return from their honeymoon.
I’m still giggling as I write this. They were good sports, but said they were annoyed for weeks while opening unidentified canned goods, and he had to go out and buy new underwear so he could get changed at the gym – this was about 30 years ago when pink underwear was NOT fashionable for guys.
And it is fashionable now??!? 🤔😁
Ha. You shit. Now that my heart is pounding again. I love these suggested pranks. I laughed out loud. Going to have to try some.
What the heck! You got me too 😊
When I was about 12 or 13 cling wrapped the toilet bowl, but it backfired when I had to clean up my Mom’s pee. I’m very careful about my pranks now
Yes, that Saran Wrap trick is popular, but I’ve always steered clear of recommending that one for obvious reasons. ~ karen!
gah….whew….
Well…I fell for it…hook, line and sinker and I was so disappointed! So glad it was only an April Fools Joke…you got me. As always thanks for the smile!
OMG!!! I almost had a heart attack at the fake job news. You got me!
I thought I would DIE when I read your announcement! Whew! I still miss the old days when you posted 5 days a week. I hope you’re taking your vitamins and doing everything you can to keep healthy because I NEED YOU! (Do I sound desperate? You bring a big dose of sunshine into my days!)
Maybe if you had said Organic seed company…
You got me…..I’ve only just started reading you and I kinda got sad.
Btw I watched all of the episodes of ‘after life’ last night……sad, funny, effed up…..very good. Thanks for mentioning it.
Thank you for more ideas. Last year I pranked my then 17 year old daughter with the raison prank. We waited all day for her to brush her teeth. Finally we went to bed. So glad we did. She brushed her teeth somewhere around midnight, with no moral support except…. her friends on Instagram and FB! This THING comes out of her toothbrush! What to do? Well get all her friends to figure it out. Welcome internet searching. And going absolutely crazy ( there is the slightest touch of hypochondria there that carries over to things that might attack her).
Oh good!!! I’m glad you got her, lol The raisin is a fun one. ~ karen!
Karen, if you ever ‘go to seed’ for real a twice a month blog post is more believable.
Haha!
Love it. You got me….
I was instantly saddened and then immediately happy.
(something in our history should have prepared me…..)
How can you ?! Phew. You got me
HA! You’re the best!
First year following, so… Ya got me!
Oh good! It really is more effective on March 29th. ~ karen!
Nearly taken in. Ha ha, good one.
Not into pranking strangers, could backfire.
Oh you are good. You got me. Stinker.
You almost had me, until you said a post every other month…
Too funny!
Happy April’s Fools Day!
Back in our high school days my friend and I ruled the art of secret shopping. For fun, we’d help people shop for items they never knew they needed. You’ve gotta be sneaky and manage to bury that “gift” under their haul so the surprise happened at the check out line. The best gifts were huge granny panties or sexy lingerie. Those were some pretty funny times. Now a days, I’m a mom who is trying to raise kind and good people. Maybe I’ll go shopping alone on April 1st.
You definitely had me and my heart skipped a beat or two…from sadness. We DON’T want to share you! XO!
Mine, too!!!
Ditto! I was really upset!
Got me too!!!
Great hilarious ideas 😂
You got me. Sigh.