Legendary school pranks

[jimmy101_again]

I think the CalTech undergrads have done some of the most creative, and difficult, pranks of all time.

Rewired the scoreboard at the 1984 Rose Bowl football game (UCLA vs. Illinois) to read CalTech 38 -- MIT 9.

Hacking the card display of Washington Huskies, again at a Rose bowl, to read CALTECH instead of Washington.

[wontbeverylong]

Maybe it's just my bad grasp of slang, but how exactly does one hack a card display?

[Black Belt and Socks]

The best one I ever heard of was during half time of an Army-Navy football game during the Carter administration. President Carter attended, and sat on the Navy side for the first half, switching at halftime. As the crowd watched, three black limosines were allowed access to the field and pulled up in front of the Army bleachers. All were brought to attention and saluted as a Secret Service agent opened the door on the middle limo and out popped the Navy goat.

BB&S

[Astra]

Originally Posted by wontbeverylong

Maybe it's just my bad grasp of slang, but how exactly does one hack a card display?

Caltech and MIT both have long histories of crazy pranks and while I'm not sure about Caltech, MIT has referred to them as "hacks" for a long time. See MIT's Hack page for more information and a timeline of pranks.

[lioness]

There's a legendary April Fool's prank that the student-run newspaper at my university alma matter did once, they put in an article about the new parking structure being finished when it wasn't. As a result of that article, there was a line of cars waiting at the entrance which wasn't opened yet. That structure opened the following fall semester without any problems. The student-run newspaper still does April Fools issues, but they've been more careful about the types of pranks they come up with.

[Mother of Nanaballis]

My father attended Baylor University, a Baptist school in Texas. He told us that during his time there, one of the most ingenious pranks involved a dead elephant. Apparently the elephant died while the circus was in town. Some creative students stole the elephant's body and placed it on the roof of the science building (5 stories up). School officials couldn't figure out how to get it down, and the campus reeked for weeks.

[Broken Sword]

The football game ones are some of my favorites, since they get a national tv audience for their prank.

This one was fantastically good too, and a good example of one of the great pranking schools getting pranked themselves. I'm surprised they even thought they'd ever be able to pull it off in the first place.