“It’s just a prank, bro!”
If you hear this, the prank went too far.
But you know what won’t go too far? AskReddit. I mean, they can, they are very capable, but not this time around as folks online started asking for pranks that wouldn’t be too elaborate or expensive, yet still funny and harmless for the receiving party, usually a family member, a friend, or a significant other.
And folks delivered, across two whole threads here and here with everything from Chrome extensions to putting up signs to not even pulling a prank at all, just to watch chaos ensue.
Whatever the case, there’s tons of suggestions and you’re more than welcome to partake in April Fools’ this year by scrolling through our curated list below and pulling a prank or two on unsuspecting (or suspecting, some people follow calendars, you know) folks at home, the office, school, or the comment section below!
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I did this one last year. I work at a restaurant. We have these spray bottles with a light pink solution we use to clean tables and such. I went and grabbed a brand new one and filled it with watered down pink lemonade.
I would be cleaning near my co workers , while chatting with them and nonchalantly unscrew the top spray/ trigger piece and just started downing it like I was dying of thirst.
The look of horror on some of their faces was priceless.
Bring a box of creme-filled donuts to work. Regular creme-filled donuts. Put a note on the box that says "Happy April 1!" Watch everyone get paranoid about what you didn't actually do to the donuts.
Here's one my 5 year old daughter pulled on me:
For a few days leading up to the 1st, she was talking about how her and mommy were going to bake me brownies. Totally hyped it up.
I should have seen it coming, but on April Fool's Day, she brings me a plate with a bunch of brown construction paper cut out letter E's.
She made me brown E's.
There are 4 doors to our building and my co-worker put a sign on each one that says "Door broken use other door" with an arrow pointing left.
piece of opaque tape over the lazer on everyones mouse. IT was pretty angry, I need to take that one to the grave with me.
I'm a female kindergarten teacher. I wore a mustache all day long and pretended it wasn't there...even with the parents. Everyone got a kick out of it except for one student who cried because I "looked scary."
I worked at a daycare. I had really long hair. I cut it on impulse one night. The next day, three year old Michael refused to come into the room, because he didn't know that strange teacher he'd known his entire life.
Here's what I've got planned: Got the IT guy to give me a broken keyboard. I'm going to take a bunch of chia seeds, plaster them underneath the keys, spend a few days watering it, and then switch it for my coworker's keyboard that morning.
If they use Google Chrome, install the extension "nCage It". It changes EVERY image (including google logo, thumbnails, etc.) into randomly generated pics/gifs of Nicholas Cage.
The best part? There is an option to hide the extension from the task bar. They would actually have to go into their internet options and find it under the "extensions" tab just to turn it off. It's great.
We put googly eyes on everything in the fridge to shock the kids in the morning. We thought it was freakin hilarious and were totally impressed with our cleverness. Our kids were not impressed in the slightest. Not sure they even noticed.... Next year, we made them cereal and milk with a spoon in the bowl and put it in the freezer overnight. When we gave them breakfast, one burst into tears and the other threw it on the floor. Our kids can't hang :(
I like this. Somewhere there will be kids that are really disappointed that their parents don't do anything for April Fools Day. They weren't born on 1st of April were they? Maybe somebody swapped them as a joke.
Put dry macaroni under the toilet seat, so it'll sound like the toilet breaks when someone sits on it.
Put notes on people's cars telling them "sorry about the damage". They will spend forever looking for it.
Nah. No good if you can't see the results. And if you put your contact details on they might find something and expect you to pay.
Take screenshot of desktop.
Remove all icons on desktop.
Close all applications.
Set taskbar to "auto-hide".
Set screenshot as wallpaper.
Result: computer looks just as they left it, but when they try to do anything, it doesn't work.
If the taskbar was still able to be set to minimize completely like in older versions of windows, this prank doesn't have a giveaway if the pointer goes to bottom of the screen. Damn Microsoft.
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also, change their mouse to left handed and the double-click rate to max. Then put a piece of tape over the mouse laser and give them false hope when they find it.
or flip the scren upside down and backward.... harmless, but its fun watching people for the first few seconds trying to calibrate how to get to the options
One could feasibly rotate and flip the desktop screenshot such that it looks normal once the screen is rotated as well.. pure f*****g evil. Also, if anyone does this *please* for the love of your job create a folder in Documents or something and move everything from the desktop into it. It could be really important to that person and could very well also be a case where someone saved something to desktop and it isn't just an icon.
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Okay, so DON'T remove all the icons... that can actually really make someone mad because you messed up their organization. Most recent versions of Windows at least will let you right click -> view -> hide icons or something similar. To get it back, just use the same steps and bang, back again. Also, before you set the taskbar to auto-hide, move it to the top if you can, then the chances that it pops up when they move their mouse down are much lower.
Take it to the next level: rotate the image 180, set it as wallpaper. Set the screen orientation upside down. looks normal. Mouse movements are inverted.
One year, I grabbed a bunch of screenshots of the-blue-screen-of-death off the internet and set them to slideshow after about two minutes of inactivity. It took my husband several days to notice, and since it was no longer April fool's day, it really freaked him out
Tried to do this as an April fools joke on my brother one time... Accidentally ended up wiping his hard-drive.
I did a variation of this one years ago but I flipped the image left to right as well. The victim literally rebooted the computer about five times before calling tech support for help.
CTRL+ALT+Left Arrow take a screen shot. Set as background and hide icons and start menu CTRL+ALT+Right Arrow. Watch as they freak out about their mouse input being messed up.
My favorite I did is to zip tie the cabinets and fridge shut. Then when they go to get the scissors, they find it they are zip tied shut too. Make sure to have an extra pair... I forgot to do that last year and had to buy another one...
okay, the fact that he had to buy another pair is pretty funny..
Open up the spray option on your kitchen sink, aim at face. Gets the wife every year.
Protip: don't forget you did it the night before: I get myself every year as well.
I replaced a picture of one of my friend's family members with a black and white picture of Boris Johnson.
Create scheduled tasks on their computer to play an annoying song, at an annoying time.
We did this to a co-worker. Every day, 1:15, his computer would start to play Nickleback. 3:45, Taylor Swift.
I work in Sales, and it seems like we always have a new guy around April. I like to write down on a post it "Please follow up with Mr. Baer at..." and then the number for the San Francisco zoo.
Move every piece of furniture 2 inches to the right. Subtle but sweet.
Day before April Fools during my highschool years I tell my parents that "school was cancelled". Tomorrow during the middle of the school day I say "April Fools". Oddly enough I wasn't met with the laughs I was expecting.
Freeze mashed potatoes. Scoop frozen mashed onto cones. Serve the kids vanilla ice cream cones for dessert. The look on their faces after they take a big bite is amazing! Cheap, funny and harmless.
if i got mash instead of ice cream someone would go to the er for april 1
Put a picture of Slash from Guns n Roses on a coworker's tires and tell them you slashed their tires
Pulled this on my wife two years ago. I logged into her Facebook and changed her birthday to April 1st.
Wishes came flooding in.
I have a key to the vending machine at work. I've been wanting to buy a bunch of bananas and replace all the chips and candy with them.
A few years ago I bought 200 packets of mayonnaise and hid them all over my boyfriend at the time's room. I tucked them in the pockets of all his clothes, in his board games, behind his wall art- anywhere you could think of there was mayonnaise. He was still finding mayo a couple years later.
At the office, fill a bowl with trail mix, but remove all M&M's and replace with Skittles.
Take off the lid to the shower drain. Shove in a plastic bag with some chocolate milk powder mix in it. Secure the bag with the drain cover and cut off any excess bits of plastic. Wait for sounds of disgust as brown water starts coming up from the drain while they're showering.
My mom used to be a hunt-and-peck typer, so one year I pried all the keys off of her keyboard and re-arranged them in alphabetical order.
She got pretty mad, but she decided that maybe she should learn to type properly, so she did. That prank wouldn't work today.
Got this from Rooster Teeth years ago, but it works wonders. Get a group of friends together and start texting a specific person with everything in 'quotes.' Don't say any about, don't even acknowledge it. Then the next day suddenly stop.
Replace their Purell with Lube. Watch them rub their hands together forever. The lube washes off harmlessly, the shame never will.
As long as it's a specific person's sanitizer that you know, not general use... There are people out there allergic to some lubes
Paint all the bars of soap with clear nail polish.
Note: this post originally had 36 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Put bubble wrap under the rug and watch the reaction of someone walking on it. Hilarious.
Those snappers they sell around the 4th of July are also great to put under a rug!!!
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I work at an auto dealer and we sell blinker fluid for one day out of the year.
Go to the O'Reilly Auto Parts web page and do a search for part number 121G. You can thank me later.
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Then prank them with all of these first, Home Alone style, so they couldn't copycat you.
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The local radio station announced that the phone company was going to blow out the phone lines with compressed air to get rid of dust that was causing static on the line. They advised people in town to put their phones in a bag for the day.
One time we plastic wrapped our co worker's cubicle door and filled the cubicle with foam peanuts. He walked in, said "I'm not cleaning that up" and went home for the day.
I only play pranks on my cats. Loosely tying a ribbon to one of their tails while they sleep. Hiding treats in weird places. Putting down the lid flaps on a box they're in and then being right in their face when they pop up. Poking them when they're mid butt wiggle and watching as they almost hit the ceiling. Throwing a light blanket over them when they're being crazy and then making them into a purrito with the blanket. I taught them to play tag too so that makes for some good times. If one of us falls down then we all pile on them and it's just too cute rolling around on the floor with them. My dog is less fun to prank. She might get upset. So sometimes I stick my finger in her ear while she's sleeping. Then she flips out and starts twirling all over the couch until I give her a doggy donut. Pets are better than peoples. :)
So it is ok to torture your cats and upset them but heaven forbid if you upset the dog. Wow you are a piece of work. Even if loosely tying as you say will still terrify a cat and is NOT ok
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I'm a retired cab driver and I used to take one of my brothers blind canes to work on april first
I'm horrible. I once was in a conference very near my sister's college. So of course on my lunch break I proceeded to her campus, located her car and then made two changes to it. I left a note saying that I had made three. I am not sorry. I love you, Jessica!
Make up a story about what happened to the guy he is replacing. Maybe get a bunch of frames and coat the office with pictures of "the late lamented Bob, who was so wonderful and smart and generous etc" and end with "I can't believe he committed suicide in (your) office"
Load More Replies... My brother broke my phone case a while ago. He refused to pay it back. I put a pair of our 6 year old brother’s carton underwear in his computer for school. He opened it up in class, and there was some Spider-Man underwear for all the world to see 😂
My mom never checks her Alexa app so she never really knows when I mess with the alarm. Just finished setting it to play Shake It Off by Taylor Swift at 4:01 a.m, feeling good 👍
(at top volume, which admittedly isn't saying much cause her Alexa is old but whatever. it'll work.)
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Put some Merenda with your fingers on the walls of the toilet. Then call coworkers to ask who did this. In front of them, take a little with your fingers to .... taste it, then say " Whow, it's delicious!!!!!
Take plastic wrap and put it over anything. The floor so it sticks to bare feet, a doorway so someone might walk into it, a toilet, a bed/couch/chair
Chocolate-covered cotton balls. Chocolate-covered baby onions. Fill all their desk drawers with packing peanuts (nice, static-y clingy ones for bonus points). Leave a water-filled condom on their chair. Jalapeno-laced candied cherries. Fasten a walkie-talkie (volume maxed out) under their chair; occasionally make rude noises (esp. farts) into the other (again, bonus points if others present).
Put bubble wrap under the rug and watch the reaction of someone walking on it. Hilarious.
Those snappers they sell around the 4th of July are also great to put under a rug!!!
Load More Replies... I work at an auto dealer and we sell blinker fluid for one day out of the year.
Go to the O'Reilly Auto Parts web page and do a search for part number 121G. You can thank me later.
Load More Replies... Then prank them with all of these first, Home Alone style, so they couldn't copycat you.
Load More Replies... The local radio station announced that the phone company was going to blow out the phone lines with compressed air to get rid of dust that was causing static on the line. They advised people in town to put their phones in a bag for the day.
One time we plastic wrapped our co worker's cubicle door and filled the cubicle with foam peanuts. He walked in, said "I'm not cleaning that up" and went home for the day.
I only play pranks on my cats. Loosely tying a ribbon to one of their tails while they sleep. Hiding treats in weird places. Putting down the lid flaps on a box they're in and then being right in their face when they pop up. Poking them when they're mid butt wiggle and watching as they almost hit the ceiling. Throwing a light blanket over them when they're being crazy and then making them into a purrito with the blanket. I taught them to play tag too so that makes for some good times. If one of us falls down then we all pile on them and it's just too cute rolling around on the floor with them. My dog is less fun to prank. She might get upset. So sometimes I stick my finger in her ear while she's sleeping. Then she flips out and starts twirling all over the couch until I give her a doggy donut. Pets are better than peoples. :)
So it is ok to torture your cats and upset them but heaven forbid if you upset the dog. Wow you are a piece of work. Even if loosely tying as you say will still terrify a cat and is NOT ok
Load More Replies... I'm a retired cab driver and I used to take one of my brothers blind canes to work on april first
I'm horrible. I once was in a conference very near my sister's college. So of course on my lunch break I proceeded to her campus, located her car and then made two changes to it. I left a note saying that I had made three. I am not sorry. I love you, Jessica!
Make up a story about what happened to the guy he is replacing. Maybe get a bunch of frames and coat the office with pictures of "the late lamented Bob, who was so wonderful and smart and generous etc" and end with "I can't believe he committed suicide in (your) office"
Load More Replies... My brother broke my phone case a while ago. He refused to pay it back. I put a pair of our 6 year old brother’s carton underwear in his computer for school. He opened it up in class, and there was some Spider-Man underwear for all the world to see 😂
My mom never checks her Alexa app so she never really knows when I mess with the alarm. Just finished setting it to play Shake It Off by Taylor Swift at 4:01 a.m, feeling good 👍
(at top volume, which admittedly isn't saying much cause her Alexa is old but whatever. it'll work.)
Load More Replies... Put some Merenda with your fingers on the walls of the toilet. Then call coworkers to ask who did this. In front of them, take a little with your fingers to .... taste it, then say " Whow, it's delicious!!!!!
Take plastic wrap and put it over anything. The floor so it sticks to bare feet, a doorway so someone might walk into it, a toilet, a bed/couch/chair
Chocolate-covered cotton balls. Chocolate-covered baby onions. Fill all their desk drawers with packing peanuts (nice, static-y clingy ones for bonus points). Leave a water-filled condom on their chair. Jalapeno-laced candied cherries. Fasten a walkie-talkie (volume maxed out) under their chair; occasionally make rude noises (esp. farts) into the other (again, bonus points if others present).
