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←
Robyn
I have done this to my grandkids and my son~in~law and they all freaked out....get a mister spray bottle and add some warm water.....walk by the back of the victim and pretend to sneeze and at the same time give the back of their neck a little spritz of water....they freak thinking you sneezed on them....it is hilarious!!!!
Debbie
Great ideas!!
One year, I had my RN daughter put a 4’ Minnie Mouse in an exam room, waiting for the Dr. The other RN’s got in on it, & laid her out on her back with her skirt up & knees propped up. When the Dr. came out, he said “The patient in room 3 needs a pregnancy test, & run a full STD screening” still makes me lol
Karen
Hahaha! ~ karen
Tanya
My son has fooled me-twice!- by taping over the little light on my remote mouse. With a little "Aprl foool" on scotch tape. Nothing clicked! Good WFH trick.
Randy P
I'd wager EVERYONE who follows you read every single word of this posting. Good stuff. And folks with short-term memory loss? They can prank themselves. Win-Win. It is in times of greatest stress that the most needed thing IS a laugh or three.
Deb
My favourite April’s fools prank happened a couple of years ago when Easter Sunday fell on April 1st. Decided to make cake pops for a centrepiece and dessert for our Easter brunch, the centrepiece ones were actually made from Brussel sprouts. Our nephew was so excited when the time came he took a hug bite. We all had a good laugh, including him. He was then very wary when I brought out the real ones.
Karen
Oh that's good! ~ karen
Katie Murphy
I honestly do not find any of this "funny". If ANYONE would do this to me, they would need to watch over their shoulder for retribution. AND not in a "funny" way.
I despise April Fool's Day or jokes!
Kerri
Hi! Would you mind making the shark mouth PDFs available
Again? I can’t find them. This is the best idea!!
Karen
Hi Kerri! I'm glad you brought that up! I had updated this post a LOT and just now realized that it hadn't updated online! The new updated post is up now that has the pdfs. :) ~ karen!
kerri Baldwin
Wow you are on top of things. Thanks for the quick reply!!
Kerri
Pam
I work at an Elementary school. One year I made an announcement over the intercom to notify teachers that there were “Brownies” in their teacher mailboxes. When they came to pick up their treat there was a Brown Construction Paper “E” instead of the expected sweet.
MaryJo
Years ago, our next door neighbor somehow got the code to our garage door opener and programmed his opener to our code. He and his wife then sat in the front yard waiting for one of us to come outside. I came out to sweep our front sidewalk which was next to the garage door. With his opener in his pocket, he started opening and closing our garage door sporadically while I went nuts! I yelled at my husband to come out and figure out what was happening. He finally walked over to tell us what he had done after my husband unplugged the opener mechanism on the door. I collapsed in laughter and said that was the best prank ever! I also promised him that I would get even, and I did a couple years later. I still giggle whenever I think of it and wish there was a recording of our actions and reactions while he was doing it.
Jan in Waterdown
Quebec has no sense of humour.
Non! 😉
Ann
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.
Sandra
My house was on the east side of town. A house on the West side with the same street number was often listed for rent (apparently very affordable). I had several people knock on my door asking if it was for rent. No-are you sure? Yes, I own the house, I live here, it isn't for rent...lol
Dorothy Borders
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.🤣
Julie Kasner
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.
( :
Karen
Oh good! I'm glad to hear it went well, lol. ~ karen!
p
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
Bobbles
That’s my choice, too...but I live alone and currently have no one over, due to health problems.
Safetydog
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.
Susan
Now this is funny🤣
Marilyn
I could not get the ctrl-alt-down arrow to work.....:(
Dana Studer
Im back from rearranging my daughter's drawers tk read the rest of the list. She's going to be so confused. Hahahaha!
Stephanie R
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.
Shawna
The screen flip short cut keys don't work on Windows 10. :(
Karen
Booooooo! :( I couldn't test that one out because I use an Apple. ~ karen!
Jane
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.