Ice cream is like summer vacation: Just thinking about it can make you feel good—unless it’s this ice cream. It looks like the real thing—perfect scoops of chocolate and strawberry ice cream. But it tastes like something you might use to clean drains.
what you need
* Instant mashed potatoes (plain or garlic)
* Water
* A microwave
* Chocolate syrup
* Cocoa powder (optional)
* Cinnamon
* Nutmeg
* Worcestershire sauce (optional)
* Red food coloring
* Yellow mustard
* A microwave-proof bowl
* A teaspoon
* A serving spoon
* 2 bowls for serving
* Real chocolate or strawberry ice cream for you!
what you do
THE SETUP
1 Mix the instant mashed potatoes with water. (Follow the directions on the package.) Ask an adult to help you microwave the mixture for three minutes.
2 Let the mixture cool. While you’re waiting, decide if you want to make “chocolate” or “strawberry.” If you prefer to make both flavors, put half of the potato mix in a second bowl so you can create the flavors separately.
To make “chocolate ice cream”:
Mix the following ingredients into the potato mixture:
* A couple tablespoons of chocolate syrup
* 1 tablespoon cocoa powder (optional)
* 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
* 1 tablespoon of nutmeg
Stir and taste a tiny bit to make sure it’s awful. You can also add Worcestershire sauce if you have some.
To make “strawberry ice cream”:
Stir 1 drop of red food coloring and 1 tablespoon of mustard into the potato mixture. If the color isn’t red enough, mix in one drop of food coloring at a time until it’s the right shade.
1 When your victim isn’t around, use an ice-cream scoop or a spoon to shape the fake ice cream into scoops and arrange them in a serving bowl. Put some real ice cream in a similar bowl for yourself.
2 For added authenticity you can save an empty container from real chocolate or strawberry ice cream. Put your fake ice cream in the container and stick it in the freezer just before you’re ready to serve it. Make sure your victim sees you take it out and scoop it into a bowl. And be sure to take your serving from a container of the real stuff.
3 Serve your victim the ice cream and act completely shocked when she spits it out in disgust.
Improv Everywhere:
Everybody, Freeze!
Most pranksters work alone or with one or two co-conspirators. Improv Everywhere thinks bigger—much bigger. The group organizes hundreds of people to stage pranks in public places, usually to the delight of bystanders. Comedian and prankster Charlie Todd founded the group in 2001. In one of its best-known pranks, 207 people gathered at Grand Central Terminal, the world’s largest train station, in New York City. At a prearranged time, they all froze in place for five minutes. One prankster was in the middle of eating a hot dog. Two people were in the middle of a kiss. Commuters and tourists passing through the station were completely baffled. It looked like someone had pressed the PAUSE button on a video camera. Luckily, volunteers were busy pressing the RECORD button and they captured reactions. The prank has received more than 29 million views on YouTube, and it has been re-created in more than 100 cities around the world.
In another Improv Everywhere prank, the “Human Mirror,” sets of twins sat down across from each other in a New York City subway car, making it look like one side of the car was a mirror image of the other. The group also once turned a Little League baseball game in Hermosa Beach, California, into a major-league event. They filled the normally empty stands with rabid, paint-covered fans, printed glossy programs with photos of all the players, and got NBC Sports to install a Jumbotron screen in the outfield and send in a famous sportscaster to call the game. The prank was an out-of-the-park home run.
Twin pranksters turned a New York City subway car into a human mirror.
