Legendary school pranks

[snopes]

http://www.snopes.com/college/pranks/livestock.asp

In one, possibly apocryphal story, a Victorian school leaver told a chatroom that students in his year had painted the numbers 1, 2 and 4 on the sides of three piglets and let them loose in the school.

Teachers spent the rest of the afternoon hunting for piglet number 3, oblivious to the fact that it did not exist.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...007146,00.html

As usual, the comments are more revealing than the story itself. Naturally, if you disapprove of vandalism, thuggery, disrupting the education of students who actually go to school to learn (heaven forbid!) and “pranks” that endanger innocent people, you’re the “fun police.”
What the “lighten up people” crowd fail (refuse) to understand is that teenagers generally don’t know where to draw the line between harmless and harmful fun.
(e.g. http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=36373)

[DesertRat]

Peneshaw, you just need to lighten up, dude.

[mcolakis]

Originally Posted by snopes

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...007146,00.html

I'm confused--how could a "Victorian school leaver" say anything in a chat room, since they didn't exist in Queen V.'s day? Was the chat-er telling a story from Victorian times?

[htonl]

Originally Posted by mcolakis

I'm confused--how could a "Victorian school leaver" say anything in a chat room, since they didn't exist in Queen V.'s day? Was the chat-er telling a story from Victorian times?

Victoria is an Australian state. Presumably the inhabitants are called Victorians.

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by htonl

Victoria is an Australian state. Presumably the inhabitants are called Victorians.

They are, but we also call them Mexicans, because they are "south of the border".

[MegansMom]

In one, possibly apocryphal story, a Victorian school leaver told a chatroom that students in his year had painted the numbers 1, 2 and 4 on the sides of three piglets and let them loose in the school.

Teachers spent the rest of the afternoon hunting for piglet number 3, oblivious to the fact that it did not exist.

Sadly, this was one of the subplots in the 1st episode of "90210". The new principal's son is on the lacrosse team. A friend has a way to get some pigs. They dress the pigs up in jerseys with the numbers 1,2, & 4 and sneak them into the opposing team's stadium. Chaos ensues.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by peneshaw

As usual, the comments are more revealing than the story itself. Naturally, if you disapprove of vandalism, thuggery, disrupting the education of students who actually go to school to learn (heaven forbid!) and “pranks” that endanger innocent people, you’re the “fun police.”
What the “lighten up people” crowd fail (refuse) to understand is that teenagers generally don’t know where to draw the line between harmless and harmful fun.

Only a few of the pranks mentioned in that article are either harmful or disruptive to others' education.

Back in the 70s, a chain of grocery stores in the Southeast (with a name that rhymes with "high-low") featured life size bulls on top of their stores. Here's a link to a photo of one that someone around here collected after corporate decided to get rid of them (the bulls, that is).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sisudave/299871649/

Anyhoo, when I was in high school, there was a graduation tradition of stealing these things off the roof of the store at night, and putting them out in a pasture somewhere to graze, usually in a location where the bull would be readily noticed come daylight.

Some stores had 2 or more of these things; these would be particularly abused by being placed together in "having sex" positions.

I don't know if this stupidity had any connection to corporate's decision to remove these things from their stores.

Last week some students at my university decided to start up their own legend. Just for the hell of it, they brought a steer into the brand new dorm and let it roam the hallways for a little bit. I really wish I could have been there in person, but thank goodness for youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPxerK83HxU

[Eddylizard]

I can't beat any of the above, but a few I remember.

Wednesday lunchtime was always voluntary (show up anyone who feels like it) choir practice in the music room. Somehow, somebody managed to get the key to the room. We then proceeded while the music teacher was away to take the school piano down three flights of stairs and hide it in the library.

He was pleasantly surprised to see that rather than the ususal half dozen or so kids waiting for choir, there were over 60 lined up. He unlocked the door, walked over to his non-existant piano, and started to sit down, when he realised something was amiss. The look on his face was priceless. Oh and it's harder to carry a piano back upstairs than to carry it down.

I once handcuffed a fellow pupil to a water pipe. When I was called before the deputy had, I was expecting a lecture on how I could have harmed said pupil. Instead he gave me a lecture on what the grim consequences could have been if the pipe had broken.

Not pranks but:

We were once enjoying our lunchtime fun of "Board rubber rugby" (chalkboard rubber, fairly heavy, and rugby rules) in a third floor classroom. Someone missed the catch, and the board rubber flew out of the open window, fell three floors and landed on the head of a passing teacher. He arrived in the classroom faster than expected, sporting a large red mark on his head, and demanding to know who threw it. We used the "I am Sparticus" defence.

I once spotted a lad who had been bullying me making rude faces at me through the window, pressing his face against the glass. I went over and I banged hard on the window intending for the vibration to cause him some discomfort. I was surprised to find that the glass shattered into many small shards which imbedded themselves in his face, and he was taken to hospital to be stitched up. Actually, I don't regret that one because the b***ard had been making my life a misery.

[ange84]

Two high school's in my home town were in fairly close proximity( I went to a different one which was closer to me and a good 20-30 min drive from these two)and both had pools on the school grounds. Of course these were always the targets for pranks, I hear Jelly crystals are pretty hard to clean from a pool, and food colouring is always fun.

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Eddylizard

I can't beat any of the above, but a few I remember.

Wednesday lunchtime was always voluntary (show up anyone who feels like it) choir practice in the music room. Somehow, somebody managed to get the key to the room. We then proceeded while the music teacher was away to take the school piano down three flights of stairs and hide it in the library.

He was pleasantly surprised to see that rather than the ususal half dozen or so kids waiting for choir, there were over 60 lined up. He unlocked the door, walked over to his non-existant piano, and started to sit down, when he realised something was amiss. The look on his face was priceless. Oh and it's harder to carry a piano back upstairs than to carry it down.

"And then, since all the bumping had made the piano horribly out of tune, he had to hire a tuner to come in and fix it, costing the school a couple hundred dollars. Every other year we got new choir robes but that year and the one after that we had to sing in the older, sweatier, stinkier ones."

Quite possibly my favorite: "In Sydney's north-west, a group of students from a Catholic boys' high school spray painted the slogan "Virgin Megastore" outside a nearby Catholic girls' high school."

During my freshman year, a (small) group of seniors littered the interior of the school with a very large quantity of manure from a local farm, among various other less harmful items and substances. Apparently this was supposed to be a harmless prank but got out of hand when someone unexpectedly brought the manure. The students who had intended only on the harmless part came clean, and of course were suspended and not allowed to graduate, while the ones that made the mess kept their mouths shut and graduated with the rest of their class. You gotta love high school rules!

I have no idea if it's true, but one of our teachers told us about a prank that he and some other students pulled his senior year - they disassembled a VW bug and reassembled it somewhere inside the school overnight.

[mamabird]

My freshman English teacher was 60-ish, grandfatherly, and much beloved. Our class had started a running gag in which anytime someone left the room and left their books and possessions unguarded on their desk, we'd hide them. Our teacher always looked on this indulgently, with a twinkle in his eye, so to speak. Well, it had to happen -- one day he was late to class, and we did it to him! We took everything off his desk, and that was a lot of stuff; we even quickly wiped the dust away. When he came in, we were sitting like little angels with innocent smiles.

He acted like he didn't even notice! He taught the lesson for about a half hour... then told us he was leaving the room and he expected the "redecoration" to be undone by the time he got back. The twinkle was still there, but we heard steel under the casual words.

We put it all back, and quickly! Man, if we could've found the dust we would've put that back too. We'd crossed a line... and I have to admire the way he let us know it.

[ButterscotchCat]

Not so much as a school prank, but a funny story.
A former co-worker of mine who was born and raised here in Ventura decided that her daughter could not go unsupervised to TP the bleachers at Ventura High School prior to the Ventura/Buena High football game. So, she went along to make sure everyone was safe. They got "busted" by the police, the officer who responded went to school with my co-worker and he told everyone to "go home" no charges pressed, no tickets issued. I guess it is who you know.

[Squishy0405]

Our school had it's version of the "regular" pranks, birds and crabs come to mind. But what everyone will always remember is Hillbilly Day. We had "spirit week" about 2x a year, pajama day, etc.

Since "Pungo" is considered the "country" part of Virginia Beach, one of the guys drove his Tractor to school. It was epic.

[moonfall]

My grandfather told me he put a baby alligator in his teacher's desk in high school. I think that was before alligators were protected by law, but it's still not a good idea.

[ICH]

Originally Posted by TimC

I have no idea if it's true, but one of our teachers told us about a prank that he and some other students pulled his senior year - they disassembled a VW bug and reassembled it somewhere inside the school overnight.

When I was in the 6th form we carried a Teacher's Mini into the main hall on the last day of term (Up a few stone steps, then through two sets of double doors). We had chairs at the back of the hall for the older pupils, but the younger ones sat cross legged at the front. We put the car right in the middle. The last Act of the term was "Final Assembly", with the whole school, pupils and Teachers, with the Teachers on the stage at the front off the hall. Everybody just ignored the car, and we left with it still in the hall.

ICH

[Magdalene]

WARNING: Unverified story of a college prank following.

Now, I heard this happened at University of Missouri--St. Louis, and I have never pinned down exactly when it supposedly happened (typically I've heard a date sometime from the mid-1980's).

There's apparently a road on campus lined with trees on either side, and one day, the authorities noticed there was a stump. So all the pertinent muckity-mucks are called to check it out, the faculty's decrying the vandalism and saying that the pranksters have gone too far, when the dean supposedly either sits or stands on the stump....

.....only to have it collapse under him, because it's not a real tree stump, it's papier-mache.

Now, if this is true, I'd have to say it's pretty funny and clever to make people think something happened that *didn't*, and it also pokes fun at people's power of observation, or lack of it (didn't notice how many trees there actually were until you thought one got cut down, eh)?

But I've never been able to find somebody who could verify this for me.

Magdalene