Every year, noted prankster Joey Skaggs alerts the media that an April Fools’ Day parade will take place along Fifth Avenue in New York City. And every year, at least one reporter shows up looking for the big event. There’s only one problem: The parade doesn’t exist. Skaggs has duped CNN, USA Today, and many other media outlets into falling for the annual hoax. See if you can follow in his footsteps and convince your friends to show up for a parade in your town—it can be a parade in honor of April Fools’ Day or some other occasion you dream up.
what you need
* An official-looking email that you can forward to your friends
what you do
THE SETUP
1 Type up an email to your friends that includes a fake forwarded email from the coordinator of this year’s April Fools’ Day parade. You can use the example on page 118 or write your own. Make sure to personalize your email with a note from you before the “forwarded” part.
2 See how far you can take the prank by telling your friends that if they want to march in the parade, they should arrive wearing their underwear outside their pants. Or make up your own insane instructions.
PULL THE PRANK
1 Once you’ve put the finishing touches on your email, send it to a bunch of your friends.
2 You may have to think fast if they respond with questions. For instance, if they say they looked online for more information about the parade and didn’t find any, tell them it’s an invitation-only event, or that the organizer is not Web-savvy.
3 If you succeed in convincing some of your friends that the the event is real, make sure you show up at start of the “parade route” to witness their embarrassment in person.
Use this example or make up your own. If you use this one, fill in the date, time, town, and street names before you send it.
Hey guys,
Looks like there is going to be an April Fools’ Day parade this year. I’m definitely going. You should too! Check it out.
On [date] at [time], Thomas Skeeter <tommy@skeeteropolis.not> wrote:
Dear Friends,
I am extremely pleased to announce that I am coordinating the first annual April Fools’ Day parade in [insert your town]. It is the purest celebration of creativity and hilarity that I can imagine. If you would like to join us for the procession, please assemble at the corner of [insert street name] and [insert intersecting street name] at [time] sharp. I encourage you to wear your most foolish attire.
I hope you’ll be able to join us!
Sincerely,
Thomas Skeeter
Coordinator, The April Fools’ Day Parade
Joey Skaggs:
Father of the April Fools’ Day Parade
Artist Joey Skaggs is probably the closest thing there is to a career prankster. He’s been duping the public for more than 40 years. Skaggs specializes in media hoaxes: He stages fake events that sound real and convinces TV and newspaper reporters to cover them. Every April Fools’ Day, he gets reporters to search for a nonexistent parade in New York City. In 1986, Skaggs announced he had invented a new weight-loss method called the Fat Squad. For $300 a day, you could hire a big, tough guy to follow you around day and night and use force, if necessary, to keep you from eating foods you shouldn’t. The media “ate” up the story. Major newspapers wrote about the Fat Squad, and Skaggs even appeared on Good Morning America with fake goons before someone realized it was all a big fat hoax.
Joey Skaggs posing as Joe Bones, proprietor of the Fat Squad.
