

50-Year Anniversary of the World's Greatest Prank - jarin
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/26/sports/la-sp-crowe-20101227

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Samuel_Michon
_"World's Greatest Prank"_

Quite a hyperbole for a prank few have heard of and which was fairly limited
in scale.

If I had to name one prank that had great impact and that is still famous
around the world, it'd be Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds radio broadcast,
which at the time had the entire nation riled up, believing that aliens were
taking over the world.

<http://www.paleycenter.org/the-greatest-halloween-prank-ever>

~~~
kmfrk
Quite a hyperbole for a prank which was fairly limited in scale:

<http://bigthink.com/ideas/24685>.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Interesting read. From the article:

 _"[Hadley Cantril, a Princeton University psychologist] estimated that at
least 6 million people listened to the program that October night. Of those,
at least 1.2 million were frightened, disturbed, or excited by what they
heard."_

I can't name another prank that had such impact, can you? (OK, perhaps the one
about Iraq having WMDs, but that was hardly funny.)

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tzs
As a Caltech alumni I'd like for a Caltech prank to hold the title of World's
Greatest, but I'm afraid that should go to the Berner's Street Hoax. Here's
the description from Wikipedia:

    
    
        The Berners Street Hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City
        of Westminster, London, in 1809. Hook had made a bet with his friend,
        Samuel Beazley, that he could transform any house in London into the
        most talked-about address in a week, which he achieved by sending out
        thousands of letters in the name of Mrs Tottenham, who lived at 54
        Berners Street, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance.
    
        On 27 November, at five o’clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to
        sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered
        the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that
        his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep
        presented himself, then another, and another, 12 in all. After the
        last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying
        large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of
        cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers,
        vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house
        they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over
        a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout
        men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the
        Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury
        and the Lord Mayor of the City of London also arrived. The narrow
        streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers.
        Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing
        a large part of London to a standstill. 
    
        Hook stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners
        Street, from where he and his friend spent the day watching the
        chaos unfold.
    

That would be an impressive prank today. To pull it off in 1809 when it had to
be organized by letter, each likely hand written, in a week, is astounding.
Note the care in timing, getting similar arrivals to happen around the same
time to magnify the absurdity of the situation. Pure genius.

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ibejoeb
Regarding the tastefulness of the prank:

"There's a fine line there but I think we stayed on the right side of it. It
could have been obscenities or something in very poor taste, but we didn't do
that. So I'm proud of that — that we acted responsibly and nobody got hurt."

It was clever, unexpected, and funny. Caltech lost by 10 points, so I'd say it
was well done and all in good fun. I'm glad it could have been that way.

~~~
m_myers
Caltech actually doesn't even have a football team. They did this in a game
between Washington and Minnesota.

~~~
ibejoeb
Thanks. So it is: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rose_Bowl_Hoax>

You know, I actually read it, but still...

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pierrefar
A less hyperbole-filled write-up:

[http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Great_Rose_Bow...](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Great_Rose_Bowl_Hoax/)

This website was mentioned in the LA Times OP without a link.

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prawn
My favourite prank was by College Humor's Streeter, tricking his friend Amir
into thinking he'd made a half-court shot for prize money:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI7AUgp5fPI>

If by some chance you haven't seen this video before, watch for his reaction
after the giant cheque is presented - it's priceless.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Really? I thought some of the other pranks in that serious were more
impressive than that one. And the stakes seem to keep getting higher...

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CallMeV
The TV series "Numbers" referenced this prank twice in separate episodes -
once, used as one of Charlie's graphic analogies - the display reading
"CHARGE" had been hacked to read "RETREAT" - and once at the climax to a show
where Peter MacNicol's astronomer character led a cabal of students on a quest
to hack the Hollywood sign to read "CALTECH."

People have pulled much bigger hoaxes and pranks, sure; but since they took
place outside of the hallowed halls of academia, they can't call them
_collegiate_ pranks.

My last point: This is the same Lyndon Hardy who wrote "Master of the Five
Magics," "Secret of the Sixth Magic" and "Riddle of the Sven Realms," the
"three science fiction novels" referred to in the article, correct? If so, I
knew the author had come from Caltech - but I'd no idea he'd headed this
ambitious project until today. You learn something new every day.

Kudos to the poster of this link. Thank you.

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webuiarchitect
Ok, can someone write that in English again?

~~~
cubicle67
American college football game. 2,200 people in a section of the crowd each
hold a large card, dark on one side, light on the other. each of these people
has an instruction sheet that tells them which way to hold the card for each
of 14 'stunts' (as they appear to be called). See pic for an example of what
this looks like (think b/w pixel art)

The prank was that 3 guys from one team used social engineering to figure out
how this was done, and who had the instructions, then replaced the original
instructions with 2,232 slightly altered copies.

Game gets played. First 11 stunts are as expected, but the 12th has the cards
make up the logo of the opposing team (not the people with the cards), the
13th has the writing reversed, and the 14th says, big and bold, CALTECH

~~~
m_myers
Cal Tech wasn't even in the game. They were just located in Pasadena (a suburb
of Los Angeles), where the game is played every year.

This is similar to the way MIT has often "hacked" the annual Harvard vs. Yale
game, once even planting a weather balloon under the field and inflating it
during the game.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacks_at_the_Massachusetts_Inst...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacks_at_the_Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology#Famous_hacks)

