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←
Leanne
#9 doesn't work on Windows XP :-( I had hoped to prank my daughter (who LOVES to play pranks on everyone else). Oh well.
Jody
My first thought was "Lucky Wulliam Dam Seeds"!
Deborah Burns
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!!
Lori
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!
Diana Ames
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
hanako
From British Broadcasting Corporation in 1957 - the best ever April 1st hoax.
Cinder
Hanako!
I just laugh/cried 🤣🤣!! SO FUNNY!!
Thank you ☺️
LeAnn
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.
Shannon K
Brilliant! I start a new job on Monday (April Fools Day!)... I'm armed now!!! Maybe I should wait until next year...!?!
Stefanie Barrett
Don't scare me like that! Your blog is the only reason I don't hate Monday, Wednesday and Friday. : )
Jean
Sewed the fly shut on my husband’s underwear. April Fool’s Day is also his birthday.
Diana
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!
Nancy
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.
Vikki
Waaahhh! Oh---never mind.
Darla
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.
Theabobea
I felt so disappointed, and I only just started reading your blog last week.
Enjoying it so much.
Idaho Girl
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...
Katie King Schneider
I was convinced until I re-read that you'd have to leave the house every day. LOL!
Nicole
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?
Jan in Waterdown
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?
Alena
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.
kfh
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!
Gigi
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.
Erin
I fell for it too.