What are the components of a good April Fools joke?

I had planned a nice little getaway with my fiance for the end of holy week. I reserved a very nice hotel room with a jacuzzi in a little terrace area and bought her a bikini that dissolves after 3 minutes of contact with water. Sadly I won’t be able to go due to work.

A friend’s GF bought a fake pregnancy test online and is going to surprise him tomorrow.

Stealthiness. The intended victim must never see it coming.

I agree with Chuckie.

Not only do they have to not see it coming, there has to come a point where they are like, “Awwwwww shit, they got me.” It has to just come to them as a realization.

It has to be plausible.

1. It should not be mean-spirited or do anyone any harm.
2. It should not involve an outright lie. A little concealment doesn’t count.
3. It should have some subtlety to it. And wit.
4. It should involve surprise. Just startling someone is not the same as a surprise.
5. It should suit the context somehow, play upon a theme or relate to something or otherwise possess a dimension beyond the obvious. That is, it should tie into something. It should not be completely arbitrary.

I like it best when there’s an initial response of complete perplexity followed by a dawning awareness and then a good laugh when getting it.

We pulled off a good April fool’s joke back in the mid eighties. We “borrowed” a wrecked car that was the same model and colour as a workmate’s car, sneaked her keys, then while she was in a meeting, moved her car (which was visible from the office window) and moved the wreck into its place. We switched the number plates and even took cushions and ornaments from hers and put them in the rear window of the wreck. Nobody said anything, then about an hour and a half after she was back in the office we head a muffled scream and a lot of very un-ladylike words.

That was a good April Fool’s joke. (We had to put up with a lot of payback…)

Humiliation and blind siding. Lots of it. Kidding, of course, about the humiliation.

They must not see it coming and be so stunned they don’t know realize it is a joke at first. Of course, be prepared to take the abuse if you are handing it out.

I just filled the sugar bowl with salt. Tee hee hee.

You can saran wrap someone’s toilet.

I hav’nt pulled an April fools joke in a long time.

When I was married, wrecking the car was one good one. lol

Telling a man you wrecked his car is always assured a good moment of suspense and suprise!

Did Andrew just pull an April fool’s day joke?

No, I think that was PnL’s lame idea of an April fools joke.

Effective April Fools jokes must take advantage of pre-existing long standing issues. The mind has already been conditioned.

My XXX wife had numerous outstanding parking tickets that she refused to pay. The night before, I secretly hid her keys so she would not find them the next morning. I had already arranged with a cop friend and tow truck to stage the ruse. The morning of April 1st, she began frantically looking for her keys. I told her I would go to check in the car. We lived downtown and used an open public parking lot in the rear of the building.

Meeting the tow truck driver and police officer, we attached the tow chain to her car. I called my wife with the news… “Honey! They’re towing your car away!” She flipped her lid and rushed outside in curlers, robe and foaming toothpaste mouth and tooth brush still in hand. She arrived to see the policeman writing a citation and the tow truck rumbling away loudly pulling her car up the ramp.

One of the funniest moments in my life was seeing her spew toothpaste from her mouth while screaming “What the FUCK is going on?” “You CAN’T FUCKING DO THIS”!

The Cop handed her a ticket and she said “What the FUCK am I supposed to do with THIS?” The ticket read, “April Fools!”

She didn’t get the joke, even when she got it.

We were divorced less than a year later.

And yes, the divorce qualified the April Fools Prank as an extremely successful event.

12:07 a.m.

Oh, you guys are funny. I was expecting something to show up on this thread. I’ll give you a genuine lol for that.

But Jeruba’s carefully constructed jester cap isn’t going to appear?

(Check out Google too.)

On your profile page it does.

Aw, come on, stick it on yourself, won’t you?

It doesn’t make it annoyingly difficult to figure out who’s posting on Fluther.

Fluther And being a Mod.

I think the key to a good AF joke or prank is that at the end of it everyone walks away laughing.

Or at least not pissed off at you.