This being the week of April Fools, I thought it the best time to discuss one of the best things about being a man -- Practical Jokes.
You see, pranks, gags or whatever you call practical jokes are actually an artform that men especially excel in. (I will pause here for a moment to let the women in the audience finish rolling their eyes.)
This subject comes to mind after one of the gals of KHOU.com posted in our Weird World blog, the story of some Phoenix guys who pulled a very public -- and I am sure humiliating - joke on a pal.
The short of it was, these guys painted a rude interpretation of a man's "member" on the roof of their buddy's home. They did so during his bachelor party -- the night in which all practical jokes that don't end in death or hospitalization are deemed acceptable.
Six months later -- Yes, a full half year -- a local media crew showed up at the guy's house to ask him about the penis artwork on his roof.
Now that is a good joke for two reasons: 1) Just the skill involved in painting a large phallic symbol on the guy's roof is remarkable. I mean, Michelangelo was at least on his back and could see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel pretty good, but these guys did this at night and I am willing to bet DRUNK. And 2) No one said a peep for six months. That is patience.
Now, with April 1 coming up on Tuesday, I though a discussion from the masses on practical jokes pulled on your buddies would be nice.
What's more, me and a few of my pals will vote on the best-submitted joke and the winner will receive something cool with the KHOU logo on it. (No, we are not giving away our helicopter).
We found some inspiration too from the folks at CNN and CareerBuilder.com, who came up with a list of best office practical jokes and warnings. You may also find some April Fools inspiration in the PracticalJokebook.com site.
Submit your jokes in the comment section below.
We will judge on originality, coolness, how well it worked within Man Law.
On that part of the subject, it is Man Law that if you are the target of a practical joke, you must accept its outcoming like a man. You can't get angry, can't whine about it or especially cry about it.
And oh, if you have figured out you are being pranked, you are NOT allowed to call everyone on it. You must allow the joke to its conclusion and the you can say you know it all along.
You are, however allowed to seek revenge. Revenge jokes are the best in our book.
The Gia caper
With that, I will offer one of my own:
I had a former co-worker, who is still a friend, whose luck with the ladies was about a good as the Washington General's record against the Harlem Globetrotters.
He had resorted to using his MySpace page to hit on random girls.
Knowing this, I created a profile of a nice-looking, young women, who would like almost all of the things he did.
And I did more than that, I created pages for her friends, so that whenever he logged onto his new online love's page, he would see that she actually had online friends other than Tom (see MySpace to understand who Tom is).
I then launched into regular correspondence with my friend as the assumed persona of Gia, a gal from up north who just moved to the area and was looking to make friends and find the man of her dreams. This, I must admit was uncomfortable since I was a guy having to act like a woman, thus I had to sound flirty and write girly things in order to keep the ruse up.
Not to mention that I had to have her friends, mostly girls, write to her so he would see what appeared to be a regular MySpace page.
This continued for weeks until my pal finally got the nerve to ask Gia out for drinks. Whenever he asked for her number, the response was "too soon."
So she agreed to meet him and his friends with a group of her friends -- wanted to make sure people were around for her "safety" -- at a local hangout.
The hangout was what was once one of the most popular "happy" bars in Galveston, the Kon Tiki. She also gave him her number, minus one digit.
My pal agreed and many of his co-workers agreed to join him to meet this girl he had been talking about for weeks. I mean, this guy was smitten.
Once at the bar we waited for Gia's arrival. We knew she would be coming later because she and her "friends" were coming in from a girls' night at some Houston hot spots.
Meanwhile, I arranged for one of the male regulars of the bar to come to our table when the time was right to introduce himself. The best part of that was that I only had to buy him four beers for the effort.
About an hour into the night, my pal was about to try and call Gia when he realized the phone number was one digit short.
Frustrated he was about to leave when the bar regular approached, threw his arms around said pal and introduced himself as Gia. The only downside was he didn't give my friend a peck on the cheek as I had requested, but the joke worked.
We also captured the whole "lovers meeting" on cell phone cameras.
The Astrodome has been moved
This is an oldie, but goodie from 11 News photographer Nathan Kvinge, who pulled off a classic April Fools joke from 14 years ago.
Click here for the joke’s video from 1994
On March 1, 1994, Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams unveiled a proposal for a dual purpose domed stadium in downtown. Along with Les Alexander, then the new owner of the Rockets, Adams proposed a 75,000 seat football stadium that could be converted into a 25,000 seat basketball/hockey arena. Adams was very unhappy having to play in the Astrodome, and Alexander wanted out of the Summit (now Lakewood Church.) Adams was making rumblings about building a stadium in a suburban county or even relocating to another city. Nonetheless, the proposal went over like a lead balloon with city and county officials.
With this as the backdrop, I had an idea to spoof the idea of a downtown stadium by creating a "report" for April Fool's Day. I knew that I had to have participation from some of the players in this "game" to make it convincing, so I started by approaching then Harris County Jude Jon Lindsay with my idea of a secret plan to actually move the Astrodome downtown. I felt the judge would be receptive since I had involved him in a spoof before for a not-for-broadcast video for a KHOU Christmas party. He agreed with the concept, so I approached my boss, KHOU news director David Goldberg, who gave me the go ahead. I approached Houston mayor Bob Lanier during a break in a city council meeting, and with little prompting he gave me the exact line I needed. My former colleague Ray Miller (of KHOU's Ray Miller's Texas) agreed to join in, and encouraged me to contact Fred Hofheinz, one-time Houston mayor and son of the legendary Judge Roy Hofheinz, who was the force behind the creation of the Astrodome. Hofheinz enthusiatically agreed and played his role to perfection. I did contact the Houston Oilers organization with an invitation for Bud Adams to be in the joke (he could say "I don't care where it is, it's still the same old Astrodome), but his spokesman, not surprisingly, never called me back. So I went to radio broadcaster Dan Patrick, another former KHOU colleague, to get the "radio sports call-in" bit that's in the story. For his part, he offered specuation about what might be Bud Adams' reaction to the "move."
That night we had several calls to the station asking if the Astrodome had really been moved. One woman called to say she was so sure the story was true that she made a $5 bet with her husband, who said it was a joke. Our assignment editor gently informed her that she lost the bet.
Ironically, few people suspected at that time that Bud Adams would actually pack up the team and leave. Even fewer suspected that when Houston would finally come up with a new state-of-the-art stadium, it would be for another NFL team and owner.
My practical joke was not as elaborate or as well thought out but was more of a spur of the moment joke. I was calling my friend and when he answered, rather than say hello I used another voice and asked for my friend by name. He did not recognised my voice and said, 'This is David." I came back with, "Mr. *****, This is Sgt. Marcelli from the Pearland police department and we have received a complait that your vehicle has been involved in a hit and run accident." I knew what he drove but not the license plate number. I described his car and asked him if that was indeed his vehicle. He said that it was. I said, "Can you please verify your license plate number?" He actually told me his license plate number and I said, "Yes sir, that is the number that was reported." I told him that I would be coming to his house to take a statement from him and I asked when he would be available. He said I'm here now. I told him that I would be there shortly and hung up.
I waited about 15 minutes and then called my friend back. When he heard me on the line he said, "Man, you won't believe this but you remember the lady who hit me in the Kroger parking lot? Well she must have reported the accident as a hit and run because some police officer from Pearland just called and they are coming out here!" He was very excited and/or anxious. I said, "Wow, I can't believe that. What are you going to do?" He said, "I'm just going to tell them what happened." I said, "Well, The reason I called is I wanted to introduce you to this friend of mine." Then I used my 'other' voice and said, "Hello, This is Sgt. Marcelli with the Pearland Police Department." He yelled through the phone "You ***!" and hung up.
I called him right back and he was laughing so hard he could not talk. We have both gotten many laughs since then over that one simple call.