The lazy person's guide to April Fools' Day pranks. Every year I add more and more pranks to my growing list of ways to surprise, scare and sneak attack your husband, wife, kids, friends or teachers. This doesn't feel like a particularly funny year though. So now what?
Classic The Art of Doing Stuff April Fools' Day prank
Every year I update my April Fools' Day post with more pranks. Usually easy, mostly free and always pretty harmless. It used to be that April Fools' Day was the one day your inner gremlin could wreak havoc on anyone you like. You could fool, prank, joke and pretend up is down and down is up.
Yup. That used to be called April Fool's Day. Now it's called Tiktok. Or Marjorie Taylor Greene.
There's horror in Ukraine. Do we still joke when there's horror in the world? I think we do, yes. I think 10 minutes of respite from everything that's weighing down the collective conscience of the world is not only O.K. - it might be necessary.
It's known for being funny but April Fools' Day is actually the scariest holiday because it has an incredibly difficult apostrophe placement. It's also much more frightening than Halloween.
What is more terrifying? 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 Fools' Day joke? The later obviously. No one even has to do anything, it's the notion that it might be coming.
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 all 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 (covering an entire car in sticky notes or filling someone's office with balloons) 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.
If you're not into that, then feel free to take your chances and celebrate it on April 1st with the rest of the world.
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.
Table of Contents
Food Pranks
1. 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.
- Slip something into a stranger's grocery cart when they aren’t looking. They'll find it during the checkout. Hemorrhoid cream and condoms are small enough to casually toss in.
- Add food colouring to milk or cream that’s in a cardboard container. I LOVE this idea.
- Fill a mayonnaise jar with vanilla pudding and casually eat the whole thing with a spoon in front of someone.
- Put googley eyes on everything in the fridge. EVERYTHING.
Toilet Pranks
- 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.
- Poopy toilet. Partially melt a chocolate bar and leave it on the toilet seat. Extra points for wiping your hands on the toilet paper roll.
- The sleep mask This one is a perform at your own risk prank. Before whomever you sleep with wakes up, put a Halloween mask on yourself and snuggle into them. They'll open their eyes and see ... whatever you want them to. Richard Nixon, a gorilla, clown ... Yep. It's terrifying just before it's hilarious.
- Shark in the toilet. 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 is what you would normally use)
PRINTABLE TOILET SHARK
Shark Top of Mouth Shark Bottom of Mount
- Cover someone's front lawn with mushrooms. Just buy bags of them and go nuts.
- 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.)
Pranks To Play On Your Family
- 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.
- Turn all the settings in your partner's car to maximum: radio, heat, windshield wipers … ALL of it. Do this the night before.
- Replace family photos around your house with photos of strangers or celebrities.
- The old bed switcheroo. 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.
- Cover the sensor on remote controls with a piece of tape so they don’t work.
- Ringtone change. 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.
- Sticky Note Hug Hug your kid or partner and send them on their day with a note stuck to their back that says "I twirl for applause."
Office April Fools Pranks
- Stuck Money. Glue a quarter (or loonie or toonie) to the sidewalk outside and watch from a window.
- Lost underpants. Write a co-worker’s name on a pair of underwear with a Sharpie and leave them somewhere in the office bathroom.
- Smelly office. Hide Scented air fresheners all over someone’s office.
- Change your bosses screensaver to something like this. Works especially well if your boss miserable.
- Spider in pocket/purse. Drop a fake spider into your mother’s/daughter’s/friend’s/co-worker’s purse when they aren’t looking. For your husband drop it in his pocket. I know more men who are afraid of spiders than women fyi.
- Spider in toilet paper. 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.
- Silly String Sneeze. I don't know why it took me this long to remember the silly string sneeze. Get a can of silly string and land a big fake silly string sneeze on someone.
I think you're sufficiently armed now. I hope those in Ukraine are as well.
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
Judy
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.
Jan in Waterdown
And it is fashionable now??!? 🤔😁
Linda in Illinois
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.
Marie Anne
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
Karen
Yes, that Saran Wrap trick is popular, but I've always steered clear of recommending that one for obvious reasons. ~ karen!
Eileen
gah....whew....
Diane
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!
jaine kunst
OMG!!! I almost had a heart attack at the fake job news. You got me!
whitequeen96
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!)
Sharron Wall
Maybe if you had said Organic seed company...
Joanne
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.
Sharon Ogilvie
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).
Karen
Oh good!!! I'm glad you got her, lol The raisin is a fun one. ~ karen!
Cathy Reeves
Karen, if you ever ‘go to seed’ for real a twice a month blog post is more believable.
Marie Anne
Haha!
Connie Bridgham
Love it. You got me....
I was instantly saddened and then immediately happy.
(something in our history should have prepared me.....)
MaryG
How can you ?! Phew. You got me
Tina L
HA! You’re the best!
Joy
First year following, so... Ya got me!
Karen
Oh good! It really is more effective on March 29th. ~ karen!
Out west
Nearly taken in. Ha ha, good one.
Not into pranking strangers, could backfire.
Kris
Oh you are good. You got me. Stinker.
TucsonPatty
You almost had me, until you said a post every other month...
Too funny!
Happy April’s Fools Day!
Sarah
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.
Tracy
You definitely had me and my heart skipped a beat or two...from sadness. We DON’T want to share you! XO!
Laura
Mine, too!!!
Tina
Ditto! I was really upset!
Elissa
Got me too!!!
Great hilarious ideas 😂
Chrissy
You got me. Sigh.