They don’t say it on the package, but uncooked pizza dough is perfect for making false teeth—or creating the illusion of missing teeth. You’ll find tubes of pizza dough in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. You only need a little bit to make fake teeth, so this prank comes with a bonus: pizza for dinner!
what you need
* A tube of uncooked pizza dough
* A plate
* Flour
* A mirror
* Red, green, and blue food coloring
* A plastic cup or an empty plastic container (like a yogurt container) that you can throw away
* Baking soda (for getting the food coloring off your fingers)
Tooth Preparation
First, fix the dough so it’s a little less sticky. Break off a small amount—about 1 teaspoonful—and put it on the plate. Add a tiny bit of flour and mix it in with your fingers. Then decide what kind of teeth you want to make and follow the directions.
#63 Buck Teeth: what you do
THE SETUP
1 Pinch off 2 small pieces of prepared dough about the size of your front teeth. Use your fingers to mold each lump so it’s shaped like a tooth, only longer. It helps to look at your own teeth in the mirror as you do this.
2 While looking in the mirror, press the fake teeth onto your two front teeth. The dough should stick to your teeth. (If it is too sticky and won’t leave your fingers, add more flour.) Use your fingers to shape your new teeth so they look just like your own teeth only bigger.
1 Go up to your victim and say that your dentist tried a new kind of braces, but they didn’t work right. They made your front teeth stick out, and now you have to go back next week to see if they can be fixed. Or you can say nothing, and just act like your teeth are completely normal.
#64 Black Teeth: what you do
THE SETUP
1 Put one drop each of red, blue, and green food coloring in the plastic cup. Together, they’ll make black.
2 Dip a small lump of floured dough in the food coloring. Use your fingers to mix it in so the dough looks black. (Your fingers will turn black, too, but don’t worry—it isn’t permanent!)
3 Break off a tooth-size piece of the black dough and, while looking in the mirror, press it onto one of your front teeth. Use your fingers to mold the dough so it covers your tooth completely but isn’t too thick. You might need to start over with a smaller piece. The idea is to black out one tooth so it looks like it’s missing.
4 Before you pull the prank, use baking soda and water to wash the food coloring off your fingers.
PULL THE PRANK
1 Walk up to your victim and act totally normal. Wait for the person to say, “Yikes, what happened to your tooth?” Explain that you ate so much candy that your tooth fell out during the night. Or say that when you bit into a piece of bread in the school cafeteria, it was so stale and hard that your tooth popped out. Or make up your own version of the tooth.
THE SETUP
1 Follow steps 1 and 2 for making a black tooth, but use two or three drops of red food coloring only.
2 Break off a tooth-size piece of the bloody dough. Press it onto a front tooth. Be sure to do this while looking in the mirror to make sure it looks real. You want it to look like you just had a tooth pulled.
PULL THE PRANK
1 Hold your hand up to your mouth and moan a little as you walk up to your victim. Or put a little bit of red food coloring on a paper towel so it looks like blood, and hold the towel up to your mouth as you approach. Say that you had a really bad toothache and your friend had to yank your tooth out with pliers. Or explain that you were at a baseball game and were trying to catch a ball but forgot to put your hands up and your tooth got knocked out. Then move your hand or the paper towel away from your mouth and say, “How does it look?”
2 For extra drama, when you pull the prank, put a second slightly bloody “tooth” in the paper towel. Approach your victim while holding the paper towel up to your mouth and say that your tooth almost got knocked out and is now hanging on by a thread. Pretend to move your front tooth around with your fingers and the paper towel, keeping your mouth mostly closed. Then quickly pull the paper towel down, keeping your mouth closed, and look inside the towel while gasping. Say, “Oh, gross, that last thread just broke” and show your victim the tooth inside the towel.
TV Pranks
Often, the best part about pulling a prank is watching the victim’s reaction. Television producer Allen Funt understood that when he created the pioneering show Candid Camera in the 1940s. Since then, countless other prank shows have lit up the little screen. Tune in for some highlights.
THE INVISIBLE CAMERA!
The show Candid Camera introduced a formula that is now familiar: A hidden camera catches ordinary people responding to weird and funny situations. In an episode that aired in the 1960s, a car that had had its engine removed pulled into a gas station. (The “driver” actually coasted the car down a slight hill.) After gassing up, the driver complained to the attendant that the car wouldn’t start. When the worker lifted the hood to check the engine, he was astonished to find that it was missing. Later, he learned that he was been pranked when he heard the show’s famous catchphrase, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.” Candid Camera aired, in various formats, for about 50 years. It paved the way for other American prank shows, including Totally Hidden Video and Just for Laughs. The Candid Camera concept spread around the world, with Britain, Germany, Japan, and other countries producing their own shows.
Candid Camera hosts Alan Funt and Bess Myerson.
In the 1980s celebrities got in on the act when the show TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes started doing pranks on famous people. Actor Ashton Kutcher took the idea further in 2003 with his show Punk’d. In the first episode, singer Justin Timberlake was fooled into thinking that government agents were seizing his home because of unpaid taxes. He was sweating until he heard the show’s catchphrase, “You just got punk’d!”
TALK-SHOW TRICKS
Talk-show hosts often use pranks to spice up their programs. In the 1990s David Letterman used to go on location and pose as a worker at fast-food drive-throughs. Ellen DeGeneres is known for pranking her guests by having a staffer sneak up behind them during the show and scare the living daylights out of them. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel gets parents to prank their kids and send in the videos—occasionally he turns the tables and has kids trick their parents.
A NEW TWIST ON AN OLD IDEA
Audiences seem to have an endless appetite for watching pranks in action. More recent shows include Impractical Jokers, where four comedians challenge each other to pull pranks on strangers without knowing ahead of time what the prank will be. In Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, comedian Betty White sends feisty senior citizens into the streets and malls to play practical jokes on the younger generation.
YOUR TURN
Today you don’t have to be famous for your pranks to be seen by millions of people, thanks to YouTube. A search for “pranks” turns up not only videos of old Candid Camera and Punk’d episodes but also videos made by regular people. Of course, not everyone has Allen Funt’s talent for setting up the perfect prank, and some are funnier than others.
